Cops left girls at mercy of grooming gangs by ignoring Rochdale whistleblowers who alerted them to plight of sex victims
POLICE and council workers ignored whistleblowers alerting them to the plight of hundreds of young grooming gang sex victims, a damning report says
Officers failed properly to investigate members of the mostly Asian groups, leaving girls as young as 12 at their mercy in Rochdale.
Paedophiles preyed on the children for more than eight years.
But there was a failure to believe victims and follow up crucial pieces of evidence.
And the report said there were 96 men who were still regarded as significant risks to children roaming the streets of the Greater Manchester town.
The real number is feared to be even higher.
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Ex-police detective constable Maggie Oliver, who quit the force in disgust at how vulnerable children were treated, said: “The truth is a really uncomfortable truth. There are still far, far too many victims.
“This is the story of thousands of children whose lives have been blighted and a failure to listen.
“This is not a local problem - this is a national problem about the state of policing.
“We need a radical overhaul of the policing system.”
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Mrs Oliver, who now runs a support group helping 371 victims, likened the failures of police and the government agencies which should have helped the victims to that of the Post Office scandal.
She said: “There are so many parallels between that case and this — ‘ordinary’ people being criminalised and silenced, institutional cover-ups and corruption in an effort to protect the brand whatever the cost to affected individuals, refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
“We see on a daily basis that victims and survivors of sexual offences are still routinely treated badly or even inhumanely, still not believed, still judged, still dismissed when they report these horrendous crimes.”
The independent 173-page report was ordered by Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham to find out what went wrong and to learn lessons from the past.
It revealed that of 111 children known to the force during that time, there was a “significant probability” 74 were being sexually exploited, and 48 of those were “seriously failed” by the police and the council.
In 2007, social workers told Rochdale council and Greater Manchester Police they feared an organised crime group was exploiting children and using them to deal Class A drugs
They identified at least 11 child victims being sexually exploited by a gang of Asian men, but nothing was done.
A year later, a girl arrested for criminal damage at a takeaway told officers she had been raped by staff working there.
Her claims sparked an investigation and 30 potential perpetrators were identified as having abused children but additional resources were not provided and the Crown Prosecution Service declared the victim an “unreliable witness”.
Another victim, known as Amber, also went ignored, allowing her attackers to target other children.
In 2011, she was named as a co-conspirator in a sexual exploitation trial so her evidence could be included, but police failed to explain this to her, or give her chance to defend the allegation, placing her and her family in danger.
The review reported that social workers — most notably Sara Rowbotham, who was played by actress Maxine Peake in the BBC drama Three Girls about the scandal — had alerted officials to 260 potential victims in the town.
Police eventually launched three operations which led to 30 groomers being jailed.
But the report revealed evidence from just 13 victims was used, of which only six were from the 74 believed by the review team to have been sexually exploited.
Ms Rowbotham, who was made an MBE in 2022 for services to children and is now a councillor in the town, also expressed her frustration last night that nothing was done sooner.
She said: “Children were being raped every day. Both the police and Rochdale children services told me and kept telling me it was nothing to do with them.
“Everything being done now, should have been done then. All it would have taken is the right people actually giving a damn.”
Child protection specialist Malcolm Newsam CBE, the lead author of the report, said: “GMP and Rochdale Council failed to prioritise the protection of children who were being sexually exploited by a significant number of men. Consequently, children were left at risk and many of their abusers to this day have not been apprehended.”
Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who was appointed in May 2021, described the report as "shocking, stark and shameful”.
Mr Burnham said: “This report is hard to read. It gives a detailed and distressing account of how many young people were so seriously failed.”
He added that he had asked the police and Rochdale Council to follow up any leads in the report.
In 2016, nine men were jailed for a catalogue of serious sexual offences against girls aged between 13 and 22 in Rochdale between 2005 and 2013.
Among them was Afraz Ahmed, then 33.
He was found guilty of offences including rape, conspiracy to rape and sexual activity with a child and was sentenced to 25 years in jail.
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The other eight, handed sentences of up to 25 years, were Abid Khan, Choudhry Ikhalaq Hussain, David Law, Kutab Miah, Mahfuz Rahman, Mohammed Dauood, Mohammed Zahid and Rehan Ali.
Crucial dates from scandal
THE report condemns police for a series of failed investigations and highlights the apparent indifference from local authorities over the plight of girls targeted by Asian men.
Here are key dates from scandal.
AUGUST 2008: A 15-year-old girl tells police she has been raped repeatedly by a gang of men.
Police arrest two members of a grooming gang — ringleader Shabir Ahmed and Kabeer Hassan — above a Rochdale takeaway.
JULY 2009: Police find evidence that Ahmed had sex with the girl but a CPS lawyer rules her account is “not credible” and declines to prosecute either man.
MAY 2010: Operation Span, focused on tracking down grooming gangs, is launched with DC Maggie Oliver involved.
JUNE 2011: CPS North West chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal authorises charges against Ahmed and Hassan, reversing the initial decision.
MAY 2012: Ahmed and eight other men are jailed for a total of 77 years for raping and abusing up to 47 girls aged as young as 13.
Police and CPS are forced to apologise for failing to act.
JUNE 2012: Ahmed was finally named as the ringleader after the end of a separate trial involving a young girl he attacked repeatedly over ten years.
MARCH 2013: Maggie Oliver resigns from Greater Manchester Police, claiming evidence was ignored that could have convicted men not part of the first gang of nine caged.
SEPTEMBER 2016: A second group of four men are sentenced to up to 25 years in prison for sexual abuse after a victim, encouraged by previous convictions, comes forward.
JULY 2017: BBC documentary The Betrayed Girls features whistleblowers Ms Oliver and Sara Rowbothan, who ran an NHS sexual health clinic in Rochdale.
Both say grooming culture was embedded in parts of the town.
AUGUST 2023: Five men are given sentences totalling more than 70 years after being found guilty of abusing two teenage girls between 2002 and 2006.
YESTERDAY: A landmark report highlights police and council bosses’ failures in protecting girls from their abusers.