CHILDREN WERE LEFT AT RISK

REPORT AUTHOR SLAMS POLICE AND COUNCIL AS HE SAYS MANY ABUSERS ARE STILL FREE

- PAUL BRITTON

A DAMNING new report has lifted the lid on the vast extent of historic child sexual exploitation in Rochdale – and reveals the repeated failings of those in power that allowed men to abuse vulnerable youngsters for years.

A review team said it found ‘compelling evidence’ of ‘widespread organised sexual exploitation’ of children in the town between 2004 and 2012.

The report identified ‘at least’ 96 individuals ‘who potentially’ posed a risk to children over the period, but chillingly they are described as being ‘only a proportion’ of those involved in CSE’ across the town.

The report’s authors said they found ‘successive’ police operations ‘failed to tackle the widespread exploitation of children by these men’.

Three major Greater Manchester Police initiatives were ‘consistently under-resourced in providing the necessary support to victims to disclose their abuse and for them to remain engaged with the investigation’.

And despite numerous convictions, 68 further ‘remaining’ children believed to have been abused are still said to be waiting for justice.

The report said: “GMP and Rochdale council failed throughout the period to consistently use disruption tactics to break up the activities of these men.

“There is only very limited evidence of GMP using child abduction warning notices and risk of sexual harm orders and very few examples of GMP liaising with the council’s licensing and environmental health departments to tackle the sexual exploitation of children within the taxi and restaurant industries.