Greater Manchester Police has been accused of ‘blanking’ three Rochdale grooming victims who have been trying to progress legal action against the force for over 18 months.
The mayor’s office has also been urged to ‘get off the fence’ over the situation, which has seen GMP repeatedly fail to respond to the women’s lawyers since August 2019.
One of the victims told the M.E.N. that publicity around the force’s year-old Child Sexual Exploitation Unit a few weeks ago felt like a particular ‘slap in the face’ to victims who were still trying to get legal acknowledgement of previous failures.
Daisy (not her real name) was abused by gang members from the age of 12 - in sustained abuse that would see her have an abortion at 14 and, on one occasion, a scalding hot spoon held against her arm after she denied a man sex - but has never seen the perpetrators prosecuted and was repeatedly criminalised herself as a teenager.
She would later go through the further ordeal of acting as a witness to help put away Rochdale’s most infamous grooming gang in 2012, but says her own victim testimonies were never followed up.
After that trial, Daisy says she had to move house four times in a year to get away from revenge attacks by her abusers, ending up in emergency homeless accommodation with her baby and one-year-old. She says she was told by GMP that the case was ‘closed’ and there was nothing further they could do.
Daisy is one of three victims to have begun legal proceedings against GMP’s then-Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, via the Centre for Women’s Justice, in summer 2019.
However the force has still not responded officially to lay out its own position and the CWJ has never managed to secure a meeting with its representatives, either on the phone or in person.
Last November the CWJ wrote to Andy Burnham to lodge a complaint, saying they were unclear on the reasons for GMP’s overall ‘failure to communicate’.
“On the rare occasions on which GMP’s Principal Solicitor has engaged in correspondence with us, her attitude has typically been defensive, dismissive, and rude,” it said.
“Our clients feel insulted, and are very distressed. We cannot even advise them how many more months they will have to wait before hearing back from GMP.
“It is impossible to progress their legal claims without knowing whether GMP intends to defend them or not.”
In response a few days later, deputy mayor Beverley Hughes apologised to the victims for any distress caused by the delays and said she had written to Ian Hopkins, asking that he ‘personally review the conduct of this case’ and either set up a meeting with the CWJ by Christmas or at the very least agree a way forward.
A few weeks later the Chief Constable stood down in the wake of last year’s damning inspection of the force and GMP has still not agreed to a meeting, or laid out its legal position.
'Police said there's nothing we can do, case closed'
Daisy, whose story featured in File on 4’s BBC documentary on the Rochdale grooming scandal last summer, said she had therefore been particularly appalled to see the force launch a publicity drive in March, highlighting the successes of its Child Sexual Exploitation Unit.
“How can they go to the papers and say they've done this big massive achievement when they can’t even wipe up the mess they did ten years ago?” she said.
“They’ve been scrutinised, but they’ve never been done for it. How are these people getting away with it? We were 12 years old. It’s absolutely barbaric.
“I think more than anything, it's a slap in the face. It’s embarrassing. They are asking more people to come and speak to them, but they won’t deal with us.”
Daisy’s own story was outlined by File on 4 in a documentary last July, in which she described how men years and even decades older passed her around for sex, on one occasion punching her in the face and kicking her out of a car on Saddleworth Moor, barefoot, in the middle of the night, after she refused to do what they wanted.
She says GMP never arrested or charged her abusers, despite having hours of victim testimony from her on file. While she did agree to testify as a witness in the 2012 grooming trial, afterwards Daisy says her own case was not pursued and ultimately she became homeless with her two small children as a result of fleeing reprisals.
“They said ‘there’s nothing we can do, the case is closed’,” she said of GMP.
“I had a baby and a one year old.”
The Centre for Women’s Justice subsequently took on Daisy’s case and that of two other victims, sending a ‘letter before claim’ to GMP’s legal department on August 12, 2019, seeking the force’s legal position in response.
That move was part of routine efforts to ideally come to an agreement out of court, in order to avoid the cost of full court proceedings.
However, according to the complaint provided to the mayor’s office over a year later, GMP failed to acknowledge the letter for three months, before then ignoring correspondence on around 20 subsequent occasions and repeatedly missing deadlines to lay out its own position.
“CWJ are aware of similar complaints being made against the Chief Constable’s legal team in the Manchester Arena Bombing Inquiry,” adds the letter.
The complaint also says lawyers acting for the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose office is also facing parallel legal action from the victims, ‘have been equally frustrated by GMP legal services who, as we understand, will not communicate with them either’.
Since that complaint last November, acting Deputy Chief Constable Mabs Hussain has responded to the CWJ - in February this year - stating that the force’s handling of historic child abuse litigation is being reviewed. But GMP is still yet to outline its legal position or to agree a meeting, meaning a court case and the costs associated is now looking increasingly likely.
'Victims are just an afterthought'
Former GMP detective and campaigner Maggie Oliver, whose charity the Maggie Oliver Foundation is supporting the three victims - and many others involved in similar cases across the country - said the legal action was about formal acknowledgement of failures, in order to stop similar failures being repeated.
The CWJ’s complaint to the mayor showed ‘how many times’ the force’s legal department had ‘completely blanked them, ignored them’, she said.
That suggested the victims ‘don’t matter’, she said.
“They are just an afterthought, an inconvenience in the process.
“It has never been about the money. It's about acknowledgement of the failures and an apology for the way they’ve been treated.”
She also claimed Andy Burnham’s office needed to 'get off the fence' where GMP's legal conduct was concerned.
“I would like the police and crime commissioner to use whatever powers they have to force GMP to take action,” she said.
“And if the mayor’s office say they don’t have those powers, then in my opinion they should be fighting for those powers. If that is true and they don’t have these powers, then what on earth is the point in having a PCC? It would make them as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
"The mayor and the PCC need to be absolutely truthful about where their loyalties lies in this. They shouldn’t sit on the fence.”
The dispute comes as GMP attempts to turn around its reputation in the wake of last year’s damning report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate, which found an estimated 80,000 crimes had not been recorded in the previous year and slammed the force’s treatment of vulnerable victims, not for the first time.
It also follows outrage in recent days at the continued presence of convicted grooming gang members in Rochdale, years after they lost their right to remain in the UK, and as a review into the historic handling of child sexual exploitation in Greater Manchester, commissioned by the mayor in 2017, is still yet to report back on cases in Rochdale. The first part of the review, looking into the failed Operation Augusta in south Manchester, was published in early 2020.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority declined to give a timescale for the Rochdale phase.
“Work continues on the remaining workstreams of the review including the assurance exercise into non-recent child sexual exploitation in Rochdale," said a spokesperson.
"This week the relevant steering group met to progress its work, including continuing to arrange interviews with survivors into the summer.”
What GMP says
In a statement, Assistant Chief Constable Nicky Porter said: "With regards to the civil litigation being brought by this victim [sic], I apologise for the time it has taken and can confirm we are progressing with their claim and hope to reach a resolution as soon as possible.
"We understand the pain that these lengthy claims can cause, and I am committed to enhancing our approach to understand the trauma of civil litigation and preventing prolonged investigations for those who present their case, and our approach as a Force is urgently being reviewed to reduce the time these cases take to come to resolution.
"We want to ensure that we get the balance right between our legal responsibilities, but also importantly our ethical and moral duties to any victim of CSE.
"I would continue to encourage any victims of sexual abuse to come forward. You will be listened to and we will take action wherever we can. Just last month we launched a new dedicated force CSE investigation unit whose overriding priority will be to dedicate their specialist skills to investigating large scale and complex CSE investigations.
"This will provide consistency in our approach, as well as a specialist focus on victims and investigations. With this significant dedicated resource we will be able to progress complex investigations in a more focussed and timely manner; allowing us to disrupt, investigate and convict those responsible for this abhorrent crime more efficiently than we ever have before. This is in addition to the work of the 10 Complex Safeguarding Teams currently located in each of our policing districts.
"The establishment of the team represents an additional investment of almost £2.3 million and has been welcomed by senior figures nationally as representing good practice with regards to tackling CSE.
"We recognise we did not get things right in the past, but I hope we are continuing to demonstrate our on-going commitment to protecting children and bringing those responsible for abusing them to justice."
What the mayor says
A request for comment was sent to both the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and to the election campaign for Andy Burnham, who is currently running for a second term in office.
No response was received directly from the mayor, but a spokesperson for the GMCA said: “In Greater Manchester it is our responsibility to learn from the mistakes of the past, uncover child sexual exploitation, encourage people to report it, prosecute it and do all we can to prevent it.
“In November, GMCA received correspondence from the Centre for Women’s Justice (CWJ) which raised very serious concerns regarding Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP) handling of this particular legal action.
"One of the responsibilities of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor in their role as Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) is to receive complaints regarding policing, to handle those complaints sensitively and speedily, and then if necessary to take the matter to the local force.
“Though this legal claim is against GMP – so the Mayor and Deputy Mayor cannot direct matters and it would not be appropriate for them to seek to influence the police – in a matter such as this which is clearly in the public interest they can and have made representations on a concerned party’s behalf.
“Before Christmas, subsequent to receiving the CWJ’s correspondence, concerns were immediately raised by the Deputy Mayor, first with the former Chief Constable and then the Acting Chief Constable. It was made clear that GMP needed to prioritise work on this case – immediate action has since been taken and that work is ongoing.
“GMCA continues to meet regularly with CWJ to update it on progress made and receive any further representations.”
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