Officials committed ‘a serious failure to protect children’ from Rochdale’s grooming gangs by not acting despite ‘compelling evidence’, a damning report has found.
The review into how police and social workers did not respond to large-scale child sexual exploitation by gangs of mainly Asian men was published this morning.
It criticised ‘failures by statutory agencies at the time to respond appropriately’ to ‘widespread organised sexual exploitation of children within Rochdale from 2004 to 2012’.
The report is the third of four written by child protection specialist Malcolm Newsam CBE and former senior police officer Gary Ridgway – and saw apologies this morning from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council.
The authors previously led a review of Operation Augusta, an investigation into grooming gangs in South Manchester, which was published in 2020, and the review into child safeguarding practices in Oldham, published in 2022.
It followed criticism of failings within Rochdale Council and Greater Manchester Police aired in BBC documentary, Betrayed Girls.
The report considered claims by Sara Rowbotham, co-ordinator of a young people’s Crisis Intervention Team, and Maggie Oliver, former Detective Constable involved with the first large-scale investigation into grooming in Rochdale, Operation Span, launched in 2010.
Both argued that their concerns about the scale of child sex grooming in the town – involving potentially hundreds of children – were not acted upon.
Mr Newsam, lead author, said: ‘GMP and Rochdale Council failed to prioritise the protection of children who were being sexually exploited by a significant number of men within the Rochdale area.
‘This review was initiated following the serious allegations made by both Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham and we have found through this review their allegations to be substantiated.
‘Both GMP and Rochdale Council failed to respond appropriately to these concerns.
‘Successive police operations were launched over this period, but these were insufficiently resourced to match the scale of the widespread organised exploitation.
‘Consequently, children were left at risk and many of their abusers to this day have not been apprehended.’
Mr Newsam and Mr Ridgway said: ‘CSE continued to be treated as a low priority and under-resourced by GMP.’
By October 2012, a review group chaired by GMP identified 127 potential victims whose cases had not been acted on – a figure which later grew to 260 potential victims.
After Operation Span, three more investigations – Operation Routh, Operation Doublet and Operation Lytton – saw 30 men convicted, many of whom received lengthy sentences.
Files held by officials for 111 children revealed ‘a significant probability that 74 of these children were being sexually exploited at that time, and in 48 of those cases, there were serious failures to protect the child’, the report revealed.
A fourth review is still to take place by Mr Newsam and Mr Ridgway, which is to ‘consider current practice across Greater Manchester to address the risk of child sexual exploitation’ and recent police investigations.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham called the report ‘a detailed and distressing account of how many young people were so seriously failed’.
He added: ‘That said, it fulfils the purpose of why I set up this review in the first place.
‘It is only by facing up fully and unflinchingly to what happened that we can be sure of bringing the whole system culture change needed when it comes to protecting children from abuse.’
He apologised to the victims and said: ‘We are sorry that you were so badly failed by the system that should have protected them.
‘I have asked Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council to ensure that every possible action is taken to follow up any leads arising from this report and to pursue any potential perpetrators.’
A series of initiatives have taken place around Rochdale since 2012, including better engagement with potential victims and a scheme encouraging hotel owners and taxi firms to report concerns.
Last year, an Ofsted report regarding Rochdale Council – including the Complex Safeguarding Hub – was published and confirmed that ‘children at risk receive an effective response’.
Rochdale Council leader Councillor Neil Emmott said the authority is ‘deeply sorry’ for the ‘very serious failures that affected the lives of children in our borough’ and how officials ‘failed to take the necessary action’.
And Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson said: ‘It remains to be a matter of profound regret that victims of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale in the early 2000s were failed by Greater Manchester Police – to them, I apologise.
‘I also recognise the plight of Maggie Oliver and Sara Rowbotham – who advocated for victims and survivors when no one else did, and ultimately enabled the review and publication of this report.’
He added: ‘Since nine men were convicted following Operation Span in 2012, there have been a further 135 arrests, 432 charges, and 32 convictions (for child sex grooming).’
Ms Oliver, who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012 to publicly reveal the extent of the police failings about child sexual exploitation, said she remained ‘angry’ that ‘not one senior officer or official has ever been held individually responsible for these failures, lies and cover ups’.
She said the report ‘confirms the truth of what I have been saying for over 12 years’.
Drawing a parallel with the ongoing Horizon scandal at the Post Office, she added: ‘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.’
She added: ‘I am also not assured that lessons have been learned. I can absolutely, categorically say that through our work today at The Maggie Oliver Foundation (a support group she founded), 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 report’s publication comes a year after an independent review into child sexual exploitation in neighbouring Oldham found the ringleader of a notorious grooming gang, Shabir Ahmed, later jailed for 22 years, was able to continue working as a welfare rights officer by Oldham Council with police failing to tell his employers even after his arrest.
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Richard Marsden
