Tearful whistleblower reported rape of children by grooming gangs

Sara Rowbotham, co-ordinator of the Crisis Intervention Team set up to support young people in Rochdale, became emotional at a press conference where a major report vindicated her after she had been “scapegoated” following the grooming scandal in the town.

Ms Rowbotham along with Maggie Oliver, a former detective with Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were praised for being “lone voices” in the report which said young girls were “left at the mercy” of paedophile grooming gangs for years in Rochdale because of failings by senior police and council bosses.

The damning 173-page review covers 2004 to 2013 and sets out multiple failed investigations by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and apparent local authority indifference to the plight of hundreds of youngsters, mainly white girls from poor backgrounds, all identified as potential victims of abuse in Rochdale by Asian men.

Successive police operations were launched, but these were insufficiently resourced to match the scale of the widespread organised exploitation within the area.

Malcolm Newsam CBE, a renowned childcare expert, authored the report with Gary Ridgeway, a former detective superintendent, following allegations by whistleblowers Ms Rowbotham and Maggie Oliver in a BBC TV documentary The Betrayed Girls, which aired in 2017.

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham commissioned the authors to look at the issues highlighted by the women in the documentary.

Ms Rowbotham said: “How many more times will it take a drama or documentary and the ensuing public outcry to call people and organisations to account?

“We were blamed, and they said it was my fault.”

She said she and her team had been accused of not referring abused children to police, a “gross misrepresentation” the report said.

Ms Rowbotham added: “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.”

Mr Burnham said: “To blow the whistle when things are wrong takes determination and courage. It has personal consequences in so many ways. Today’s report fully vindicates them and their decision to do so.”

The report identifies 96 men still deemed a potential risk to children, but this is “only a proportion” of the numbers involved in the abuse.

The Rochdale report follows reports by the same authors on grooming in Manchester and Oldham, which found authorities had again failed children, leaving them in the clutches of paedophile gangs.

In Rochdale there was “compelling evidence” of widespread, organised sexual abuse of children in Rochdale from as early as 2004 onwards, with multiple reports of the involvement of groups of Asian men cited.

GMP identified the ring-leaders, described as “prolific career criminals”, but did not investigate further because children were too frightened to assist.

One police report said: “What is clearly emerging is an organised industry where vulnerable young children are being targeted for sexual abuse…”

In December 2010, more than two years after first being told of abuse centred on two takeaway restaurants, GMP finally acted, launching Operation Span which led to the conviction in May 2012 of nine men in a high-profile court case attracting far-right demonstrators.

The trial heard girls as young as 12 were plied with alcohol and drugs and gang raped in rooms above takeaway shops and ferried to different flats in taxis where cash was paid to use the girls.

But while GMP hailed Operation Span as “a fantastic result for British justice”, the report states the police operation failed to address numerous other crimes and ignored children’s allegations, leaving their abusers off the hook.

GMP and Rochdale Council had presented the court convictions as having “resolved” grooming in the town, but in reality it had “only scraped the surface”.

The report concludes the failure to prioritise, detect, disrupt or prosecute “should firmly be laid at the door of the senior officers in GMP throughout this period”.

Sir Peter Fahy was the chief constable of GMP between 2008 and 2015. He was knighted in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to policing.

Mr Fahy was not contacted by the report authors.

Asked if he should have known what was going on in his force, the current Chief Constable, Stephen Watson, said: “The extent to which individuals, strategic leaders knew, or did not know, of various things is I’m afraid beyond my knowledge.

“What I would say is that, as the chief constable, the buck tends to stop with you.”

GMP have since launched further investigations, which have so far resulted in the conviction of 42 men involved in the abuse of 13 children.

Mr Watson, describing the report as “shocking, stark and shameful, added: “One of the primary responsibilities of the police is to protect the vulnerable from the cruel and the predatory. And in this regard, we failed you.”

But he promised a “day of reckoning” for the men responsible who have yet to be arrested.

Several officials, including five police officers, declined to co-operate with the report, which Ms Rowbotham described as shameful.

Mr Burnham said this approach was “not good enough” and he would write to the Home Secretary to discuss new powers to require public servants, even when retired, to be compelled to co-operate with such reports.

The mayor, GMP and Rochdale Council stressed wholesale changes have now been made in the way police handle child sexual abuse.

Ms Oliver, who resigned from GMP after being dismissed by her bosses as an “emotional woman” when she tried to get action on grooming, said: “This is a story of thousands of children’s lives that have been blighted.

“Like Sara, this has been nearly 20 years of my life. It almost ruined my life.”

But Ms Oliver, who now runs a charity supporting adult survivors of child abuse, said problems remained, with complaints still falling on deaf ears and a radical overhaul of policing was needed.

And she said only a “tiny number” of abusers have ever been brought to account and others are still walking the streets of Rochdale.