The review into historic safeguarding practices in Oldham
Was there a cover-up of grooming gangs in Oldham?
Introduction
This week the report on child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Oldham was released by Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Originally commissioned in 2019, it had been much delayed. Lurid claims on social media of a cover-up had begun to exert influence on local politics, contributing to the toppling of two council leaders in two years. The report was written by Malcolm Newsam, former commissioner for social care in Rotherham, and Gary Ridgway, former Detective Superintendent of Cambridgeshire Police. It was intended to look into allegations of abuse occurring in taxis, children’s homes, so-called “shisha bars”, the specific case of CSE victim “Sophie”, and the extent to which the Council knew some of their employees were CSE perpetrators.
What does the report say?
The report finds that “we have been provided with no evidence…to suggest that senior managers or councillors sought to cover up either the existence of child sexual exploitation in Oldham or the complexity involved in tackling the perpetrators”.
They say that "specialist services were “strategically ahead” of other local authorities and had an “aspiration for a high-quality response to child sexual exploitation” which was “mirrored” by Greater Manchester Police (GMP). However, “the quality of casework was generally very poor” and social care was “characterised by a failure to appropriately initiate multi-agency child protection procedures when these children were known to be at risk of significant harm”.
Regular reports on CSE were provided to Oldham Council, with biannual meetings by the senior leadership on safeguarding issues, councillors being briefed, and the local safeguarding board being informed of missing children and those considered to be at risk of exploitation. The Council also tried to raise awareness of CSE, touring schools with the play Somebody’s Sister, Somebody’s Daughter about a girl facing exploitation.
The report says that both the Council and police had “legitimate concerns” that “the high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders…could be capitalised on by a far-right agenda and lead to the victimisation of the Pakistani community” but that they didn’t shy away from addressing the issue. In particular council leader Jim McMahon wrote on his blog in 2014 that it was unhelpful both to victims and to the Asian community not to admit that “this particular form of abuse is predominately Pakistani men targeting white girls”. They say that this one blogpost “clearly refutes” the suggestion that he was protecting perpetrators from the Pakistani community.
It also says that they’ve found no evidence there was a cover-up of the dangers of the shisha bars - usually former pubs turned into places for young Asian men to hang out, often only accessible by knocking on a closed door, some of which had rooms to rent above. When the BBC became interested in the shisha bar story, GMP said that there was “no evidence to support claims of sexual exploitation”, only “one or two pieces of intelligence in relation to one Shisha bar”. The report says this shows that messages sent to the BBC on the issue later were not “spun” but represented the views of police officers at the time.
The report also finds no evidence of “widespread” CSE going on in children’s homes, although some children were abused whilst staying there. Allegations centered on Rivendell House, a specialist site for young women at risk of CSE, which suffered a funding cut after 12 months and soon afterwards ceased to be a specialist site, in part due to fears that accommodating several girls at risk of CSE put the other girls who stayed there at risk. A claim that girls were picked up by Pakistani men, with staff banned from interfering, was disputed by former staff who said they intervened.
Whilst the report admits that the council issued taxi licenses to several people who’d been convicted of sexual offences, it says this was largely because national guidance at the time was “insufficiently robust” to prevent this, as it only insisted candidates not have a conviction within the last three years. The report also admits that a review of taxi license holders identified five with serious convictions, only one of whom lost his license. One of the four who kept his license sexually assaulted a female passenger the next year. Another review the year after found there was intelligence relating to sexual crimes for nine drivers, although only one had been convicted. Six lost their license but the report says two others should have: one who had allegedly assaulted women on two occasions, neither of whom chose to prosecute, and one who allegedly raped a girl but whom the CPS took no action against. Both kept their licenses.
In the particular case of 12-year old “Sophie”, the report is damning. She was groomed online by a paedophile, who child services failed to protect her from. On a night out she was sexually assaulted by an Asian man and tried to report it at a police station, only to be told to come back with an adult when she wasn’t drunk. Outside she was picked up by a car with three Asian men, who raped and abandoned her. A man she asked for directions brought her to his home, where she was raped by a further five Asian men. The report found “serious failings” in the police investigation, which only managed to convict two of the five men who raped her in the house.
The police failed to record or investigate the sexual assault at the beginning of the night or the rape by the three men in the car. GMP claimed they followed leads but the evidence for this is poor. When GMP arrested one of the five house rapists, he confessed the names of two of the other rapists. GMP failed to investigate them or to inform “Sophie” of this new intelligence. In 2009 one of the named house rapists who GMP hadn’t investigated tried to murder his wife; this could have been prevented if he’d ben investigated. His wife admitted in 2011 that he’d confessed to raping a 12 year old girl and kept press clippings relating to it. This information was passed on but not used.
In 2013 “Sophie” complained about the investigation but was told by GMP that it had been “flawless”. Her husband then complained to GMP, who said they were “unable to prove that the 2006 investigation contained procedural irregularities, key evidence was ignored, and key lines of enquiry were not followed”. Despite this, an internal GMP review ending in 2014 found issues, causing them to reexamine evidence from the five-man rape. They found the DNA of the five men, although not all could be linked to “Sophie” as they’d used condoms, as well as the DNA of a prostitute and two 16 year old girls, which the report admits does “go some way to support Sophie’s later assertion that Address A was a place where young women were sexually exploited by Asian males”.
In March 2014 an organisation review by GMP found that in the Sophie case they’d: not conducted a forensic investigation; arrested an illegal immigrant involved in the rape but bailed him, at which point he fled without them making much effort to try and trace him; lost CCTV, “Sophie’s” achieving best evidence (ABE) video interview, and exhibits from the address; destroyed the prosecution file despite it being placed into long term storage; didn’t complete or review the mobile telephone work to identify who was at the address; and that the investigating officers didn’t create a policy book.
In 2018 another review culminated in an apology to “Sophie”, although she says she didn’t receive it and GMP were unable to show they’d sent it. In 2019 “Sophie’s” husband submitted an appeal to the IOPC, which concluded that “no officer has a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct”, only that the investigating officer should “receive management action in order to address his errors”.
Finally the report looked at sex offenders employed by Oldham Council, especially Shabir Ahmed, leader of the Rochdale grooming gang, who worked there between 1988 and 2006. He was a welfare rights officer, seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre, and a member of the Oldham Labour Party. Owing to fears that his victims could be identified, the report redacted most of the details. However, they do say there were “serious failings” by GMP and the Council.
In 2005 he was alleged to have sexually abused a child. It was also said that he might be in contact with another child. GMP failed to record the crime, or to notify the local authority responsible for the child, or Oldham Council as Ahmed’s employer. In 2008 he was arrested for sexual assault on a child, as well as being arrested later that year for abducting two children. Neither made any complaint, no crime was recorded, and no further action taken. Nor did GMP inform Oldham Council, although they did hold a meeting with Rochdale Council. Towards the end of the year the Probation Service informed the Council that Ahmed had been charged but they took no action.
In 2011 Ahmed was charged with rape of the child from the 2005 allegation and again the Council failed to take action. In 2012 another woman disclosed she’d been abused by Ahmed, with GMP informing the Council, only for children’s social care to close the case without undertaking an assessment. The report concludes that if GMP and the Council had taken action, later victims might have been spared.
What is wrong with the report?
Whilst the report adds a lot to our understanding of child sexual exploitation which occurred in Oldham, it fails to adequately address some of the claims made on social media and its own evidence undermines the claim that there was no cover up or that the Council was willing to tackle the issue in all its complexity.
The core of this story was the interaction between the Council and a BBC journalist who wanted to run a story on the potential risks of the shisha bars. It notes that there was “a strong belief held at a senior level” by police and politicians that “the threats presented by shisha bars might be exaggerated by the media and used by far-right interests to promote their agenda” and that there was “a concern about minimising adverse publicity about the town when its strategy was to attract inward investment and regeneration”.
In December 2010 police visited shisha bars, where they smelt cannabis and noticed underage girls hanging around. In April 2011 a taxi driver met an underage girl at a shisha bar and had sex with her in July 2011 after buying her things but was found not guilty when charged (the report doesn’t say why). Despite this, the police only visited the shisha bars again in November 2011. By summer 2012 the police noted that some of the underage girls were still hanging around the shisha bars. GMP had 22 intelligence reports in 2011 and 22 in 2012 regarding the bars. Up to 18 underage children may have been visiting the bars and at risk.
In early 2012 there were reports two children had been having sex at shisha bars. In February 2012 a “multi-agency visit” to one led to environmental health officers seizing pipes and tobacco. In June 2012 a police officer entered one, having seen a crying child leaving the building. Inside he found multiple Asian men and another underage girl, who had alcohol. Another two girls were also found. The next day the same police officer saw a 17-year old male dragging a girl into the rear of a shisha bar. He intervened and the underage girl admitted she’d been at the bar earlier in the week. The police officer claims he referred her to children’s services but no proof of this has been found. Other intelligence of underage girls at shisha bars was found by local charities and the Messenger anti-exploitation team.
A meeting between the Council and GMP concluded that, “there are serious concerns about the sexual activity going on in the rooms and the potential links to child sexual exploitation” of one shisha bar. An intelligence report from October 2012 stated that one of them was, “a "smoking den" where Asian males are "grooming" young ladies” and that “there are young girls of about 12/13 years of age inside”, including one who was in a “relationship” with one of the Asian customers. A local church group who held nightly street patrols to look out for people also said that underage girls were going into the shisha bars. Further intelligence was reported throughout 2013 and in May GMP even sought permission to put the bars under covert surveillance.
Despite this, when in June 2013 a BBC journalist contacted the Council to ask about the danger of the shisha bars, it caused “consternation” in the Council. A councillor was chosen to ring the journalist and got him to “drop the story”. A series of enforcement visits on shisha bars followed. In July 2013 the same journalist asked GMP for a comment on the shisha bars and they provided comment from a sergeant in Oldham, who wrote that, “there-has been no evidence to support claims of sexual exploitation in Shisha Bars to my knowledge” and that there were “one or two pieces of intelligence in relation to one Shisha bar” but that on visits the only issue they’d seen was “smoking inside the premises and health and safety issues”. Amazingly the report cites this as evidence to show that the GMP response was “not deliberately ‘spun’ to downplay the threat presented by shisha bars”.
At a subsequent meeting on the issue, a Chief Superintendent said that, “ recognition was needed of the political sensitivities surrounding ‘Shisha Bars’ when they are being described as being used by Asian males to have sex with ‘white females’”, that there was no “hard and fast” evidence and that the GMP press office would “contact the BBC to try and talk them out of running the story”. Underage girls had been observed and rescued from the bars but a police officer explained to the report authors that “hard and fast” was an example of them “using an evidential threshold to base their comments on” and reflected fears by GMP and the Council about “reputational risk”. Their own failure to secure convictions thus became ‘proof’ of a lack of evidence.
In an email back to the BBC journalist they said that “there are only two pieces of intelligence” about a risk of CSE at the shisha bars and cited “tensions in Oldham with EDL” and the upcoming funeral of Drummer Lee Rigby nearby to warn against “any sensationalist and inaccurate reporting about CSE” because it would “inflame the situation”. A Chief Executive from the Council explained to the report authors that actually the shisha bars were technically private members clubs so there was no shisha bar problem, that most of them had been dealt with by the end of 2013, and that the “key concern” was that talking about shisha bars when the “far right” were doing so was a “potential cocktail for disaster”.
The BBC journalist told the report that he accepted what GMP told him about the lack of evidence, that it was quite an “intense response” and “the language was over the top”. He warned them that, “this is an issue that you’re going to have to talk about at some point” but agreed to drop the story for now. By August 2013 GMP knew that two underage girls were still visiting shisha bars, one of whom was having sex with Asian men. In October 2013 more intelligence emerged that girls were being abused at three shisha bars. That month the BBC journalist wrote back to say that he was still interested in the story. A Senior Communications Officer from the Council then had “extremely robust conversations” with the journalist until he “dropped that story”. In his celebratory email he bragged about “killing” the story and added that Oldham had just won “Best City at Northwest in Bloom”.
Nonetheless the BBC journalist persisted a third time, with more questions for the Council. The Senior Communications Officer said that as a result of “me kicking off” the story was expanded to cover all of Greater Manchester and that by “delaying our answers” he was able to ensure that. He wrote that he was “ultra-combative” to make sure the story didn’t just focus on Oldham. In February 2014 the BBC piece on the threat of shisha bars was finally broadcast. An assistant chief constable interviewed told the BBC that, “there is no evidence at this point in time to suggest that shisha bars are related to any sexual exploitation of young people”. To this the report only says that he, “accurately reflected the findings of Operation Waterloo”, which in December 2013 had found most of the shisha bars were closed.
Despite all this evidence of hostility by the Council and GMP to journalistic enquiries over the shisha bars, the report says there was no cover up. Both had intelligence that CSE was going on in them, including rescuing girls from the premises, and yet when asked they both cited the supposed risk of the far-right to shut down investigation.
Similarly, when it comes to the “complexity” of dealing with the offenders, the only evidence offered of the Council being proactive is the blogpost by Jim McMahon. At every other stage the authorities spent a disproportionate amount of time worrying about the threat of the far-right. When in 2011 GMP prepared their “six point gold strategy” to deal with CSE, they cited having a “media strategy” to deal with the far right as one point and the management of “reputational issues” for GMP as another, whilst when it came to the offenders they merely wanted to gather intelligence and “disrupt their activities”.
In 2012 the Messenger anti-exploitation team noted that in CSE cases “proactive confirmation of ethnicity could provide ammunition for far-right groups”. Over and over, the purported risk to the Asian community is given the same level of importance as the actual risk to groomed girls. Even the play developed for schools can’t escape political correctness, with the characters described as:
Chloe, the 15 year old girl from an ordinary family, who is caught up in the web of a grooming gang. Sara, the half-Asian best friend who saves her, and Javid, the young man who risks everything to help Sara get Chloe out of the grip of his ‘Uncle’ Adeem and his ‘business partner’ Phil.
With the exception of that one blog post, the Council and GMP failed to accurately publicise the nature of the threat to the public. Indeed, they used the fear of racial unrest to try and spike the BBC story on shisha bars.
When it comes to Rivendell House, the report says there is no evidence “to suggest that there was widespread exploitation of children in residential settings in Oldham”. They cite Ofsted’s regular visits, with them marking it as good up until 2013 and outstanding until 2015, even though they also cite an audit in 2014 which showed that of four children in residential care one was doing fine, one was going to the red light district and returning with money, one was using heroin and openly said she had sex with Asian men in return for cash, and the fourth went missing and was found with a man who’d previously been served with an abduction notice. It’s hard to see how that doesn’t constitute “widespread” abuse.
Similarly, despite the praise for the Council’s strategy on CSE, the report has to admit that of the ten cases they examined, “none were protected from child sexual exploitation”. Plans were weak, social workers didn’t build relationships with their charges, professionals monitored exploitation rather than preventing or disrupting it, child protection procedures weren’t followed, girls were described as “putting herself at risk” even when they were given alcohol to the point on insensibility and raped by several men, and the police relied on girls to cooperate to convict offenders despite the evidence of controlling relationships and the existence of other evidence. Again, none of this suggests a real grappling with the “complexity” of the issue.
Comment
What happened in Oldham was horrific and contributed to political turmoil there, with a multitude of independents challenging the Labour incumbents. Considering the continuing sordid revelations, such as the choice of Arooj Shah as Labour leader of the Council despite her friendship with a known criminal, or the firebombing of her car for unknown reasons, another report is probably needed. GMP were also unwilling to provide many files and it would be good for them to be examined.
Whilst the report is to be commended for bringing out much of the scale of the issue, its conclusions often seem baffling. Abuse at residential care may not have matched the heights of lurid social media rumour but it clearly did happen. Its hard to look at the aggressive response by the Council and GMP to journalists and not see this as a cover up, unless the bar for what constitutes a cover up is raised extremely high. They knew there were problems with shisha bars but tried to keep the media away from the story and omitted information which might have confirmed the problem. Similarly, it’s not at all clear that they grappled with the complexity of the issue, both in terms of the faulty institutional response and an obsession with the far-right which clearly reduced their ability to inform the public about the real threat.
That said, whilst political correctness is a running theme in the failure of councils to deal with grooming, it is the institutional problems which are the key. The case of “Sophie” shows how absurd it is that police forces are largely the only ones allowed to investigate themselves. If she hadn’t kept pushing, the full extent of the failure of the police would never have emerged on its own. It’s clear that there is a major case for reform across the police and councils, including sending those who fail to do their jobs to jail for misconduct.