In 2009, when Amber was 16, uniformed officers arrived at her mothers house, arrested her and took her to the police station. Part of HuffPost News. She said that seven officers had been served with misconduct notices, but no further disciplinary action would be taken against them. Nazir Afzal, chief prosecutor in the North West - who overturned the original CPS decision not to prosecute over allegations of abuse in 2009 - said: "I absolutely accept that things didn't go well for us and other agencies. [22] Suggestions emerged that police and social work departments failed to act when details of the gang emerged for fear of appearing racist, and vulnerable white teenagers being groomed by Pakistani men were ignored. However, Sir Peter said the report failed to confront a "fundamental" problem faced by police officers, who are repeatedly asked to track down and return young people missing from children's homes, only for them to run away again. On one of those interviews a police officer can be heard yawning while repeatedly asking why she had put herself in such a vulnerable position. "But people can feel some sense of reassurance that we are now bringing more cases to court.". Updated 10:45, 3 JUL 2017. Running though them is repeated mentions of the fact that many in authority believed that the girls had brought the abuse on themselves. The uncomfortable truth would eventually come out despite the botched original police investigation which concluded the girl, who would later become the prosecutions star witness, was not credible. Officers on the Rochdale division were under pressure at the time to hit volume crime targets like bringing down the number of burglaries and were overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the grooming problem they had uncovered. [13], As a result of the CPS dropping the case, the police halted their investigation, which was resumed when a second girl made complaints of a similar nature in December 2009. Amber still sees those whom she says raped, beat and tortured her, out and about in Rochdale. [32], Hilary Willmer, representing a Leeds-based support group for parents of sexually exploited girls, the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop), was quoted as saying "The vast majority [of] perpetrators are Pakistani Asians",[35] with sources inside Crop claiming a percentage as high as 80 per cent although, The Independent said that "Kurdish, Romanian and Albanian gangs were also involved". One example mentioned was the issue of child protection for one of the victims, which was discussed in 40 meetings, without any record of police attendance. Police began to investigate child grooming in Rochdale almost by accident. It meant she was regarded by the prosecution as a member of the grooming gang whose members would go in the dock, even though she was not charged and would not stand beside them in court. Numerous opportunities to intervene were missed and only two girls received child protection planning, the report said. Nine men of mainly Pakistani heritage were convicted in 2012 after a long, complex trial for offences that happened in and around Rochdale in 2008 and 2009. [I] cant remember exactly what they said, but it was something along the lines of being a madam, she recalled. Torrance, CA. I didnt know what that meant. She was held in custody for hours before being released on bail. The abuse of minor female children that occurred in 2008 and 2009 centred around two takeaways in Heywood near Rochdale. On one occasion he ordered a girl aged 15 to have sex with Kabeer Hassan, as a "treat" for his birthday Hassan then raped the girl. [2] One gang member convicted of sex trafficking was a religious studies teacher at a mosque and a married father of five. This resulted in Greater Manchester Police launching Operation Doublet to investigate further claims of abuse with 19 men so far being convicted. During that period, Amber by now pregnant and living in a one-room flat continued to be targeted by the grooming gangs. Although police interviewed a total of 56 men on suspicion of abuse, only a handful were tried. "I'm nearly 30 years old, this started when I was 12," she says. She walked out, refusing to go along with this decision, and was forbidden from speaking to Amber. Rochdale grooming case - what really happened? The grooming and subsequent abuse - which centred around the town of Heywood - began when the woman, now aged 19, was a 15-year-old schoolgirl. 'We are not going to stop' - Mikel Arteta sends Man City title message after Arsenal win, Manchester City now trail Arsenal by five points in the Premier League table after the Gunners beat Everton 4-0 on Wednesday night, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp learns Real Madrid lesson ahead of Manchester United clash, Liverpool beat Wolves in the Premier League on Wednesday and face Man United this weekend, West Ham manager David Moyes delivers bullish verdict on FA Cup defeat to Manchester United. Handout pictures released by Greater Manchester police in 2012 show eight of nine men convicted in connection with the child sexual exploitation ring. [32] Ella Cockbain and Helen Brayley pointed out, "There is no criminal offence of 'on-street grooming' and as a result it is very difficult to measure the extent of the crime based on court statistics. Tellingly, he added: I believe that one of the factors that led to that was that they were not of your community or religion. But after a while it had been going on for so long and with so many different men, I didn't feel anything towards it anymore. Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women's Justice, is supporting Daisy in a civil action against Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The organisation defined underage grooming as any situation where a child or young person received a gift in exchange for sexual favours. Another five-year sentence was given to Abdul Qayyum for conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children, while Hamid Safi received four years for trafficking for sexual exploitation and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children. She says she was never informed by police either that she was no longer being treated as a victim, or that none of those she alleged to be her abusers was to be prosecuted for her abuse. Career Track: Leadership. And more than that, she was among a band of white girls who were being specifically targeted by a gang of largely Pakistani-heritage men because, as the trial judge would later acknowledge, the mens victims were not of your community or religion. Charity Victim Support's chief executive Javed Khan said: "It is utterly unacceptable that, instead of protecting these vulnerable young victims from sexual exploitation, the authorities judged, blamed and disbelieved them and their families and, in doing so, exposed these victims to further abuse. "I know they believed me, they said to me at the end that something should have been done.". Maggie spent six months speaking to the victims from Rochdale and persuaded them to give evidence. THE SICK leader of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring is serving a 22-year prison sentence for his role in the gang. "At first I felt really bad, dirty and ashamed. The serious case review looked at six girls who suffered sexual exploitation in Heywood, Rochdale between 2007 and 2010. Shabir Ahmed, who abused dozens of vulnerable teenagers, was known as "Dadd . The convictions she received as a teen continue to hold her back to this day. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. [5], In March 2015, Greater Manchester Police apologised for its failure to investigate the child sexual exploitation allegations more thoroughly between 2008 and 2010. He said the investigation was at "an extremely sensitive stage" and street grooming was the force's top priority, "a bigger priority than gun crime". The investigation into the sexual abuse of the girl had been reopened following the exposure of police failings. Sheer lack of resource, and also the fact that their bosses seemed reluctant to grasp the nettle for fear of being branded racist, contributed to delays in the investigation. Read about our approach to external linking. [1][2], The oldest person to be convicted, Shabir Ahmed,[16] was for a while the main trafficker of the victims. "[40], Hindu and Sikh groups have objected to media use of the "Asian" description saying that the culprits were "almost always of Pakistani origin" and "Muslim". One delivered a takeaway to my house a few weeks back, she tells me. I trusted police that I would be helped this time. The trial of nine of the grooming gang was pending, and in the meantime, despite never having been informed, arrested or cautioned, Amber was added to the indictment by the CPS as a co-conspirator. The women, who cannot be named for. A senior police officer has joined calls for a review on criminal records of child exploitation victims. Daisy gave evidence at the Rochdale grooming trial; her testimony about the abuse she witnessed helped put men in prison. Maggie Oliver was again left fuming when one of the girls she had talked round - a victim of abuse - was placed in the indictment that went before the jury. [36], In a BBC documentary investigating grooming young girls for sex by some Pakistani men, Imam Irfan Chishti from the Rochdale Council of Mosques deplored the practice, saying it was "very shocking to see fellow British Muslims brought to court for this kind of horrific offence. Last Tuesday Amber, with two other victims of the Rochdale grooming gang, finally received an apology delivered personally by Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police. One of their victims tells her story. [2], The victims, vulnerable teenagers from deprived, dysfunctional backgrounds, were targeted in "honeypot locations" where young people congregated, such as takeaway food shops. [48][49], A further investigation was carried out by the British government in December 2020, when the Home Office published their findings, showing that the majority of child sexual exploitation gangs were, in fact, composed of white men and not British Pakistani men.[50][51]. Assistant Chief Constable Mabs Hussain of Greater Manchester Police told the BBC he thought while cases should be reviewed on an individual basis, now was the time for a wider, national debate in cases where young people may have been criminalised as a result of exploitation. In May 2012, nine men from Rochdale were convicted and jailed for grooming girls with alcohol, drugs and gifts before forcing them to have sex with multiple men. One victim, a 15-year-old known as the Honey Monster, acted as a recruiter, procuring girls as young as 13 for the gang. There was a string of different inquiries into what went wrong. What the police and CPS did to me was worse than the abuse The apology will be a kind of a weight lifted from me. But the nightmare will never really be over. The three-part series tells the story of the victims of an infamous child grooming and sex trafficking scandal in Rochdale, and continues on Wednesday night. They werent bothered when youre from a shit home. Nine men have each been sentenced to up to 25 years in jail for a catalogue of serious sexual offences against teenage girls in Rochdale, exposed following widespread media coverage of grooming. "[35] By May 2012, according to The Independent, Crop had "gone suddenly silent" concerning the percentage of abusers of Asian origin who had come to the organisation's attention: Willmer explained to the paper: "We've been accused of being a cover for the BNP". In 2017, the BBC aired the drama "Three Girls" which featured the story of . The man she accused of assaulting her walked free. My name has been dragged through the mud. In response to Ambers claim that it was wrong to name her on the indictment, it says it was both legally and tactically the correct course to take. I didnt want other people to feel how I felt. Her courage and Olivers support resulted in a database of abusers whom she identified by names, car registrations, telephone numbers and addresses. ", Wigan driver waits to find out if he will be spared a road ban after driving at almost 100mph on the motorway, Police issue appeal to trace missing girl from Stockport, Urgent police appeal to locate missing teenage girl not seen for over 24 hours, Constance Marten's baby found in Brighton woodland Met Police say, Bolton Wanderers player Kyle Dempsey faces possible jail term - court, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon: Body found in search for missing baby, Human error to blame for train crash - Greek PM, At the crash site of 'no hope' - BBC reporter in Greece. The grooming case seemed ripe for exploitation: all the girls were white, all the accused were Asian Muslim men, and they had displayed a searing contempt for their victims. Without Ambers initial evidence there might never have been a trial at all. "We have to remember that in most of those cases, the girls themselves did not regard themselves as victims and were not willing to make complaints and that is still the situation now," he said. [10] The gang worked to secure underage girls to rape and exploit.[11][12]. History was repeating itself, said Maggie. "[37][38] Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, accused elders of the Pakistani community of "burying their heads in the sand" on the matter of sexual grooming. Police and social workers failed the girls who were "passed around for sex" by a gang of men, it said. 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