Oldham child sex abuse victims failed by police and council, report says

Children in Oldham were failed by the agencies meant to protect them from sexual abuse, a review has found.

The independent inquiry was set up after allegations circulated on social media that Oldham Council was covering up what it knew about grooming gangs in the town.

Investigators said there were structural flaws in Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and the council's systems which were meant to safeguard children.

They found no evidence of a cover-up.

The major report examined the way child sexual exploitation was tackled between 2011 and 2014, and found procedures were not properly followed.

It investigated the alleged grooming of children in council homes, shisha bars and by taxi drivers in Oldham.

While concluding there was no evidence of "widespread" child sex abuse in those settings, or of a cover-up, the review does point out other serious failings.

GMP and Oldham Council said they were "deeply sorry" to all those affected.

The review found that despite "legitimate concerns" of police and the council of the far right capitalising on the issue of grooming by "predominantly Pakistani offenders across the country", authorities in the town did not shy away from tackling it.

Rather, the council "saw successful disruption and prosecution as the route to winning the confidence of all communities in Oldham", the review said.

However, the report's authors found the police and council had failed some children.

Notably, they cited the case of one girl - identified only as "Sophie" - who was abused aged just 12 after "significant opportunities" were missed to protect her.

She went to Oldham police station to report being sexually assaulted in October 2006 and was told to come back when she was "not drunk".

The girl was instead taken from the police station in a car and raped in the vehicle, then taken to a house and raped multiple times by five different men.

The report also details how Shabir Ahmed, the ring-leader of a notorious grooming gang in Rochdale, was employed by Oldham Council as a welfare rights officer and seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre.

Despite multiple concerns being raised about him and his arrest for the sexual assault of children, police failed to tell his employers.

"If this had happened, it may have potentially avoided the tragic abuse of other children...," the report states, citing "serious multiple failures" by both GMP and the local authority.

Ahmed, identified only as "Offender A" in the report, is now serving a 22-year jail sentence.

The report pointed out that while most arrests for child sex offences by GMP in the period between September 2009 and July 2010 then identified the alleged offenders as being Asian, they were likely to have generally related to British men of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage.

However, the report said Eastern European, Middle Eastern and White British men also featured.

The review found the quality of case work by both police and social care had been "generally very poor" in 10 sample cases where child sexual exploitation concerns had been raised.

This included a failure to initiate multi-agency child protection procedures.

The council and GMP had agreed to review the management of those cases and "consider whether any further action can now be taken in respect of the men who exploited these children", it added.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said the report had "identified a number of wrongs that needed to be put right".

"There were serious failings and victims were let down, particularly Sophie", he said, adding: "I will also fully support any actions to prosecute those responsible for these abhorrent crimes and [hold] to account those whose behaviour fell short of what we require."

He added: "Whilst there was no evidence of a cover-up, we must not flinch from acknowledging shortcomings."

GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson, who was appointed last year after his predecessor quit following a damning review of the force, said: "I want to offer my sincere apologies to everyone affected by the events considered in the report.

"Our actions fell far short of the help that they had every right to expect and were unacceptable.

"I am sorry for the hurt and ongoing trauma they have suffered because of what happened to them."

Oldham Council Leader Amanda Chadderton said she was "deeply sorry" that "our services at the time were not good enough to protect vulnerable young people suffering the most awful abuse".

She added: "The way we work has already moved on immeasurably".

The review was commissioned in November 2019 by Oldham Council. It requested that Mr Burnham and the Greater Manchester Safeguarding Standards Board's independent chair conduct a review into safeguarding practices in Oldham.

The 202-page report is authored by Malcolm Newsam, a renowned child care expert, and Gary Ridgeway, a former detective superintendent with Cambridgeshire Police.

The pair were behind Operation Augusta, which examined the handling of child sexual exploitation by the police and social services in Manchester following the death in 2003 of 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia.

The inquiry found police and social workers knew children were suffering "the most profound abuse... but did not protect them".

Maggie Oliver, a detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police over the way grooming cases in Rochdale were handled, said: "Another day, yet another report about the failures of a police force to protect the most vulnerable in our society, even when there is irrefutable evidence to prosecute offenders and safeguard children.

"This report yet again clearly evidences catastrophic failings by the force."

Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected]