Officials didn’t act on proof, Rochdale grooming gang report finds

On Jan 15, 2024

Published: 08:30, 15 January 2024 | Updated: 09:22, 15 January 2024

Officials dedicated ‘a critical failure to guard youngsters’ from Rochdale’s grooming gangs by not appearing regardless of ‘compelling proof’, a damning report has discovered.

The overview into how police and social staff didn’t reply to large-scale youngster sexual exploitation by gangs of primarily Asian males was printed this morning.

It criticised ‘failures by statutory businesses on the time to reply appropriately’ to ‘widespread organised sexual exploitation of kids inside Rochdale from 2004 to 2012’.

The report is the third of 4 written by youngster safety specialist Malcolm Newsam CBE and former senior police officer Gary Ridgway – and noticed apologies this morning from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council.

The authors beforehand led a overview of Operation Augusta, an investigation into grooming gangs in South Manchester, which was printed in 2020, and the overview into youngster safeguarding practices in Oldham, printed in 2022.

A report into Rochdale's grooming gangs has said officials committed a 'serious failure to protect children'. Pictured: A view of Whitworth Road in Rochdale, where one gang used a flat to abuse girls

A report into Rochdale’s grooming gangs has mentioned officers dedicated a ‘critical failure to guard youngsters’. Pictured: A view of Whitworth Road in Rochdale, the place one gang used a flat to abuse women

Jahn Shahid Ghani was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for six counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a child to engage in sexual activity last year

Mohammed Ghani was sentenced to 14 years for five counts of sexual assault last year

Rochdale youngster abusers Jahn Shahid Ghani (left) and Mohammed Ghani (proper) have been each jailed final 12 months

It adopted criticism of failings inside Rochdale Council and Greater Manchester Police aired in BBC documentary, Betrayed Girls.

The report thought-about claims by Sara Rowbotham, co-ordinator of a younger folks’s Crisis Intervention Team, and Maggie Oliver, former Detective Constable concerned with the primary large-scale investigation into grooming in Rochdale, Operation Span, launched in 2010.

Both argued that their issues in regards to the scale of kid intercourse grooming within the city – involving probably tons of of kids – weren’t acted upon.

Mr Newsam, lead creator, mentioned: ‘GMP and Rochdale Council didn’t prioritise the safety of kids who have been being sexually exploited by a big variety of males inside the Rochdale space.

‘This overview was initiated following the intense allegations made by each Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham and we have now discovered by means of this overview their allegations to be substantiated.

‘Both GMP and Rochdale Council failed to reply appropriately to those issues.

‘Successive police operations have been launched over this era, however these have been insufficiently resourced to match the size of the widespread organised exploitation.

‘Consequently, youngsters have been left in danger and plenty of of their abusers to today haven’t been apprehended.’

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, called the report 'a detailed and distressing account of how many young people were so seriously failed'. Pictured: Mr Burnham at the funeral of Everton chairman Bill Kenwright on December 18 last year

Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, known as the report ‘an in depth and distressing account of what number of younger folks have been so significantly failed’. Pictured: Mr Burnham on the funeral of Everton chairman Bill Kenwright on December 18 final 12 months

The report considered claims by Maggie Oliver, former Detective Constable involved with the first large-scale investigation into grooming in Rochdale, Operation Span, launched in 2010. Pictured: Ms Oliver at her home in Cheshire

The report thought-about claims by Maggie Oliver, former Detective Constable concerned with the primary large-scale investigation into grooming in Rochdale, Operation Span, launched in 2010. Pictured: Ms Oliver at her dwelling in Cheshire

Conclusions of the Rochdale grooming gang overview

The rising menace of kid sexual exploitation was not addressed between 2004 and 2007.

In 2007, GMP and Rochdale Council declined to research how a bunch of Asian males had been exploiting 11 youngsters for intercourse and dealing class A medicine regardless of concern by the Crisis Intervention Team, in a ‘critical failure to guard these youngsters’.

Just one detective was appointed to start a small-scale police investigation in 2007, which didn’t examine how organised crime teams have been concerned. No fees or convictions resulted.

The first investigation in 2008 and 2009 – launched after a woman arrested for smashing up a takeaway revealed she had been raped and sexually assaulted – ‘was advanced and wanted to be resourced accordingly, however further assets weren’t offered’. Although the investigation ‘recognized widespread sexual exploitation of many susceptible youngsters by a minimum of 30 grownup perpetrators’, none have been charged.

A second woman who spoke to the 2008/2009 investigation staff complained of sexual assault however ‘inadequate effort was put into figuring out the person who raped her’. Had her complaints been ‘pursued with the rigour required it could have strengthened the proof to proceed with the prosecution’, the overview mentioned.

Operation Span, the second investigation into the 2008/9 accusations, which noticed 9 males convicted and jailed in May 2012, was described as ‘comparatively restricted’.

Authorities dedicated a ‘deplorable’ failure to guard a woman often called ‘Amber’. She was designated a sufferer of kid sexual abuse however the crimes weren’t formally recorded by GMP and the perpetrators ‘have been probably left to proceed their abuse of different youngsters. Instead, Amber was later named as a ‘co-conspirator’ in a trial of males accused of abusing different youngsters. The overview mentioned: ‘No consideration was given to how the choice would have an effect on Amber personally or what the repercussions of the choice may be for her household. This failure to guard a susceptible sufferer as deplorable.’

Lessons weren’t realized after the loss of life of 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia from medicine in 2003 after claiming she had been sexually abused, or the ensuing Operation Augusta, a probe into youngster sexual exploitation in South Manchester which resulted in 2005. Just two of virtually 100 suspects have been jailed regardless of an investigation into Victoria’s loss of life revealing 57 victims of grooming gangs, some aged simply 12.

Mr Newsam and Mr Ridgway mentioned: ‘CSE continued to be handled as a low precedence and under-resourced by GMP.’

By October 2012, a overview group chaired by GMP recognized 127 potential victims whose circumstances had not been acted on – a determine which later grew to 260 potential victims.

After Operation Span, three extra investigations – Operation Routh, Operation Doublet and Operation Lytton – noticed 30 males convicted, a lot of whom obtained prolonged sentences.

Files held by officers for 111 youngsters revealed ‘a big likelihood that 74 of those youngsters have been being sexually exploited at the moment, and in 48 of these circumstances, there have been critical failures to guard the kid’, the report revealed.

A fourth overview remains to be to happen by Mr Newsam and Mr Ridgway, which is to ‘contemplate present follow throughout Greater Manchester to handle the chance of kid sexual exploitation’ and up to date police investigations.

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham known as the report ‘an in depth and distressing account of what number of younger folks have been so significantly failed’.

He added: ‘That mentioned, it fulfils the aim of why I arrange this overview within the first place.

‘It is just by dealing with up absolutely and unflinchingly to what occurred that we could be certain of bringing the entire system tradition change wanted on the subject of defending youngsters from abuse.’

He apologised to the victims and mentioned: ‘We are sorry that you just have been so badly failed by the system that ought to have protected them.

‘I’ve requested Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council to make sure that each attainable motion is taken to comply with up any leads arising from this report and to pursue any potential perpetrators.’

A sequence of initiatives have taken place round Rochdale since 2012, together with higher engagement with potential victims and a scheme encouraging lodge homeowners and taxi companies to report issues.

Last 12 months, an Ofsted report relating to Rochdale Council – together with the Complex Safeguarding Hub – was printed and confirmed that ‘youngsters in danger obtain an efficient response’.

Rochdale Council chief Councillor Neil Emmott mentioned the authority is ‘deeply sorry’ for the ‘very critical failures that affected the lives of kids in our borough’ and the way officers ‘didn’t take the required motion’.

And Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson mentioned: ‘It stays to be a matter of profound remorse that victims of kid sexual exploitation in Rochdale within the early 2000s have been failed by Greater Manchester Police – to them, I apologise.

‘I additionally recognise the plight of Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham – who advocated for victims and survivors when nobody else did, and in the end enabled the overview and publication of this report.’

He added: ‘Since 9 males have been convicted following Operation Span in 2012, there have been an extra 135 arrests, 432 fees, and 32 convictions (for youngster intercourse grooming).’

Ms Oliver, who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012 to publicly reveal the extent of the police failings about youngster sexual exploitation, mentioned she remained ‘offended’ that ‘not one senior officer or official has ever been held individually chargeable for these failures, lies and canopy ups’.

She mentioned the report ‘confirms the reality of what I’ve been saying for over 12 years’.

Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a Rochdale child sex grooming gang, was jailed for 22 years in 2016

Shabir Ahmed, the ringleader of a Rochdale youngster intercourse grooming gang, was jailed for 22 years in 2016

Drawing a parallel with the continued Horizon scandal on the Post Office, she added: ‘There are so many parallels between that case and this: ‘strange’ folks being criminalised and silenced, institutional cowl ups and corruption in an effort to guard the model no matter the fee to affected people, refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing.’

She added: ‘I’m additionally not assured that classes have been realized. I can completely, categorically say that by means of our work at this time at The Maggie Oliver Foundation (a assist group she based), we see each day that victims and survivors of sexual offences are nonetheless routinely handled badly and even inhumanely, nonetheless not believed, nonetheless judged, nonetheless dismissed once they report these horrendous crimes.’

The report’s publication comes a 12 months after an impartial overview into youngster sexual exploitation in neighbouring Oldham discovered the ringleader of a infamous grooming gang, Shabir Ahmed, later jailed for 22 years, was capable of proceed working as a welfare rights officer by Oldham Council with police failing to inform his employers even after his arrest.