Maggie Oliver, a former wider Manchester Police (GMP) detective, resigned, claiming the force had failed victims of the Rothschild sex scandal. It has since played a key role in Mayor Andy Burnham’s decision to launch a wide-ranging safeguard review that addresses failures in the way police and social services have protected vulnerable girls. The first part of this review, published in 2020, focused on the abandoned police operation “Augusta”, which investigated the abuse mainly by Pakistani men in the Rusholme area of Manchester. The authors, Malcolm Newsam and Gary Ridgway, demonstrated that the force shut down the operation despite knowing that dozens of potential pedophiles were chasing vulnerable girls, many of whom lived in care homes. READ MORE: Police launch Sherwood operation to bring Oldham criminals to justice as top boss apologizes for failures The second part of this overview has now been published, this time focusing on Oldham and how services handled allegations of child sexual exploitation and protected children. His convictions are well known to Maggie, who describes his reading as “cliff day”. From 2005 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2014, the report found that vulnerable children in the municipality are being exploited and frustrated by institutions that have tried and failed to protect them. In a single case, a review found that Sophie – not her real name – fell into the hands of predators after she attempted to report a sexual assault to the Oldham Police Department. The 12-year-old left because she was “drunk” and a few minutes later she was found in the hands of miserable sexual predators, which led her to a further 24 hours of torture during which she was repeatedly raped. GMP Chief Steven Watson and Oldham Council chief Amanda Chanterton issued a public apology Monday for the treatment. Maggie has been closely involved with Sophie’s case as she supported her through the Maggie Oliver Foundation created following the findings of Operation August. Sophie was raped by several men in one night in October 2006, at the age of just 12, but only two men were ever arrested. One man to be jailed for his crime, Shakil Chowdhury, has named two other men involved in Sophie’s rape as part of his mitigation. The GMPs said their names, but did not follow them at the time. One of the men was later convicted of attempting to kill his wife. The review team said Sophie was “shocked and disappointed” that GMP “had not followed these lines of inquiry” and had not shared the information with her. Read more related articles Read more related articles Despite two different professional model surveys by the force in 2013 and 2018, this was not found by either survey. On the contrary, the first investigation concluded that “no concerns were identified” in the way the police handled their case. However, an internal investigation by GMP in 2014 found “serious weaknesses” in the original investigation, which led to the launch of a major police operation called Operation Solent. Maggie says the report’s findings show that there were “catastrophic failures” in the way the force handled the investigation into the attacks on Sophie. “I got Sophie to read her chapter in this review and she broke up when she read that for 15 years the GMP had known the identities of two other rapists and yet this was the first time they had discovered this,” she explained. “Victims come to the mill again and again and we need to change because it destroys lives. This report shows once again the length to which these organisms will reach. “Sophie is a case we know, Sophie is by no means a unique case. This happens all the time and it is very rare for a victim to be heard that way. He is buried by these organizations. “It is shocking that so many of the things that came out of the exhibition should have been known from day one. Basic research paths should have been followed from the beginning, but they were not. (Image: Gary Oakley / Manchester Evening News) “There have been mistakes and failures all along the way. It did not take 15 years for this to be recognized. “Delays can lead to further abuse.” Maggie said the information the police knew was hidden from Sophie and the internal GMP investigations that found no failures “were not worth the paper on which they were written”. “Where is the responsibility?” she added. “I really believe that trust in these organizations has been broken. “Rape and child abuse are almost decriminalized because prosecutions are so low that even less than 2% of reported rapes now reach the courts. Without all that, like Sophie, that has not been recorded. “ However, she said she had not given up hope of trying to improve the situation for victims of abuse, both in caring for victims and in developing best practices in investigating these “life-threatening” crimes. For the past six months, the foundation has been talking to GMP about a series of cases similar to Sophie’s. But Maggie says she does not want to be part of a “talking shop” – she needs action now. “We have referred 33 serious cases to very senior officers where victims and survivors come to us saying they do not believe their cases are being handled properly,” he added. “Out of these 33 cases, we have seen only one solution for one of these cases. This is really worrying. I hope things improve, but we still have a long, long way to go. “We are collecting data to put pressure on these organizations to change. As a foundation we are able to gather many many voices and there is power in numbers. “A voice is easy to drown, but you create an army of those voices, 30 or 40 or a hundred, these voices become louder and the pressure for change becomes greater.” Independent Report Writer Gary Ridgway (Image: Vincent Cole – Manchester Evening News) One of the authors of Oldham’s report, Gary Ridgway, is a former Cambridgeshire police detective who has worked on numerous investigations into child sexual abuse failures, including Rotherham and Operation Augusta. He said to Local Democracy Reporting Service that they could not get some of the information Sophie gave to the GMP rating because the force said they were unrecoverable or could not be found. “It’s a horrible story and I can only be grateful to Sophie for letting us tell it in this report,” he added. “The impact when we told her that when the guy was convicted, she named two other people who raped her at home, had a huge impact on her emotionally. There is no excuse – if I can find out by examining case files, then GMP should be able to determine. You have to have professional curiosity, it is not good enough to just say “oh the child is not complaining”, you have to look deeper. And there were plenty of opportunities for Sophie to dig deeper. “There is a burden on the processes of many services for the real protection of children. “It’s not just an attempt to convict in court.” He added: “A culture that allows middle managers to say that we no longer accept multiple rapes of a 12-year-old because there are no resources and just to repel it, this is unhealthy for me – if it was collected properly and done full research, I think that would have saved Sophie so much pain over the years “. Chief Watson apologized at Monday’s news conference for the way the GMP handled Sophie’s case in 2006 and for the subsequent denials that there were failures. He said the force would try to address the “missed opportunities” of the past and bring the perpetrators of historical abuses to justice. “I have pointed out that, as much as we would like, we can not turn the clock back. “But the assurance is that any perpetrator, regardless of the time, will be ruthlessly persecuted,” he added. He also announced the launch of Operation Sergund as the “next leg” in his efforts to tackle sexual exploitation in Oldham and bring the perpetrators to justice. Press conference for the findings of the assurance review. Left, GMP Chief of Staff Stephen Watson (Image: Vincent Cole – Manchester Evening News) “The assurance I give you in this context is that, to the fullest extent open to us, we will make further arrests and prosecute individuals who may mistakenly believe they will escape,” said Chief Watson. “All of these things together, I hope, include a little more reassurance on how we align our business with partner companies.” However, he stressed that there can be no complacency in the fight against those who loot vulnerable young people. “Honestly, I’re not going to sit here and tell you that this will never happen again,” he said. “It’s a fact that people have always tried to abuse children, people today are trying to abuse children. “We have to improve in preventing this from the beginning. But when, God forbid, it happens, we have to work very quickly to erase these things in the first place, to hold people accountable and to effectively protect these children at the first opportunity we have as public bodies. “ Oldham City Council said that anyone affected by the issues in the review of the historic sexual exploitation of children in the municipality or who …
