Since the early 2000s, local councils, police forces and the national government have been aware of the risks of grooming gangs to the young people of the UK, yet fears of political criticism, and a failure to realise the scale of the problem across the UK has resulted in repeated social and political failings on a devastating scale by successive national and local governments.
With the first victims coming forward to South Yorkshire Police in 2001, it took until 2010 for prosecutors to convict any of the offenders, with 61 convictions taking place between 2010 and 2024. At the same time, five of the female victims of the grooming gangs in Rotherham have reported sexual abuse committed by police officers who would threaten to hand victims back to the gangs if they ever spoke out. Extraordinarily, South Yorkshire Police has been tasked with investigating its own former officers, rather than handing this investigation to another force or independent body.
In a report led by Professor Alexis Jay, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, it was revealed that an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. The Jay Report found that perpetrators were predominantly British Pakistani men, while the majority of victims were White British girls. According to the report, a blind eye was turned by authorities, at least in part due to a fear of being labelled ‘politically incorrect’. The Casey report, a separate inspection of Rotherham Council, commissioned in 2015, concluded that the council was unfit for purpose, finding evidence of a culture of bullying, sexism, covering up information and silencing whistleblowers. The very same year, a West Midlands Police report from 2010 was released after a Freedom of Information request, which revealed that police had been aware of grooming gangs made up of predominantly British Pakistani men targeting children outside schools around Birmingham for at least five years. Police had failed to act during this time due to concerns about community tensions which may arise should the investigation become public.
In 2011, Thames Valley Police launched Operation Bullfinch, following an investigation into several isolated cases of suspected child sexual abuse in the area which Detective Inspector Simon Morton suggested could be connected to an organised criminal group. The operation exposed a large-scale criminal enterprise involving the grooming, trafficking and rape of young, vulnerable girls. Girls as young as 12 years old were being sold for sex and had been subjected to branding, gang rape and forced, back-room abortions, with drugs and alcohol used as methods to keep victims under the physical and psychological control of their abusers. For over a decade and through six trials, the investigation successfully secured the convictions of 21 men, mainly of Pakistani heritage, for offences from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. The Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Oxfordshire found evidence of negligence by Thames Valley Police, following findings that over 370 children could have been groomed and sexually exploited in this region over a 16-year period. Having taken over as Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner in 2021, Commissioner Matthew Barber has admitted that ‘Oxfordshire County Council and other agencies failed hundreds of young girls in Oxford,’ despite the apparent success of Operation Bullfinch, especially given that only 18 total victims ever recounted their experiences in court.
In Manchester, the first investigations into suspected child sexual abuse began in 2004 when Greater Manchester Police established Operation Augusta, following the death of a 15-year-old girl from Rochdale, Victoria Agoglia from a suspected heroin overdose. The investigation identified a connected network of almost 100 British Pakistani men operating in takeaways in south Manchester who were potentially involved in the sexual abuse of 57 young girls. The operation was ‘prematurely closed down’ in 2005. The Augusta Review, commissioned in 2020 by Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, confirmed that this was driven by the decision from senior officers to remove resources from the investigation, rather than a sound understanding that all lines of enquiry had been successfully completed. A detective constable who worked on Operation Augusta told the review that since offenders were predominantly ‘Asian males,’ officers were told to try and ‘get other ethnicities,’ as senior officers feared the operation could stoke racial tensions.
Between 2003 and 2014, the Rochdale Crisis Intervention Team co-ordinator for the NHS, Sara Rowbotham, made over 100 attempts to alert police and social services to the problems of sexual abuse in Greater Manchester. One of these referrals led to an investigation into the abuse of children around two takeaways in Rochdale in 2008 and 2009, in which two men were charged in connection with a series of sexual offences against children. While current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was the Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the CPS refused to prosecute the two men, invoking the witness’ lack of credibility. It wasn’t until 2011 when a new chief prosecutor for the region, Nazir Afzal, a first-generation British Pakistani, was appointed that the original decision was overturned. This came after further complaints of a similar nature were made to the police in the same area in December 2009. By May 2012, nine men, all of whom were British Pakistani, were convicted of sex trafficking and other related sexual offences with children in relation to child sex abuse rings operating out of takeaways in Rochdale.
Across the UK, in Bradford, Huddersfield, Bristol and Telford there have been further allegations and convictions in relation to organised grooming gangs, primarily comprised of British Pakistani men, and in all these cases, local authorities have been accused of reluctance to thoroughly investigate due to fear of accusations of racism or potential community unrest. Despite successful prosecutions, grooming gangs and organised sexual abuse of children has remained an unresolved and divisive topic among senior political figures. Maggie Oliver, former detective and whistleblower, renowned for exposing the Rochdale grooming scandal, has warned that Labour MP for Makerfield and potential future Prime Minister, Andy Burnham ‘did not grasp the nettle’ and thoroughly investigate grooming gangs in Manchester.
After almost 30 years of successive government failings over this issue, the victims, their families and the wider public are left wondering who will, in fact, grasp the nettle and take the problems of grooming gangs and the sexual abuse of children seriously enough to acknowledge this stain on our nation’s story.
