Police make grovelling apology to young girl who was repeatedly beaten and raped by paedo grooming gang
Force dismissed her as a prostitute and instead focused on hitting stats for car crime, burglary and street robberies
COPS issued a grovelling apology yesterday after a young girl was repeatedly beaten and raped by a paedo grooming gang.
Their terrified victim, who was just 13 when the abuse began, was reported missing from home an astonishing 71 times.
But officers ignored her family's desperate plea for help and instead told them to keep a diary of her movements.
A shocking report into the failures has now revealed detectives in Keighley, West Yorks., were more worried about meeting targets.
They dismissed her as a prostitute and instead focused on hitting stats for car crime, burglary and street robberies.
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Detective Superintendent Nick Wallen, who sat on the serious case review, said: "We as a force apologise to this young lady.
"As a senor officer, who has been part of the review into this, I apologise personally to her.
"It has been said in the report that we were far more focused on the targets being set down from the Home Office.
"If you were a senior officer you were being held to account for burglary figures and vehicle crime over and above the exploitation of the vulnerable.
"We were all driven by the same priorities.
"They are all very important, but are not as important as dealing with very vulnerable young girls who are being sexually abused by grown men."
The girl was passed round by 11 men aged between 19 and 34 for more than a year before she was finally taken into care in May 2012.
On one occasion she was repeatedly raped in an underground car park below a disused police station by five of the men who took turns to abuse her.
She told social workers what had happened once she was in care and the men, from Keighley, West Yorks., were all arrested.
But ringleader, Arif Chowdhury, 20, escaped justice and flew to Bangladesh with his dad after detectives blundered again by releasing him on bail.
His henchmen are now serving a total of 133 years in prison. Chowdhury remains at large and according to one relative is "having the time of his life".
The report found social services and other agencies also missed key opportunities to save the girl from the clutches of her captors.
Social workers had "little grasp" of what was happening and showed a "serious lack of consistency in the support and co-ordination", the report concluded.