The real stories behind the girls who were raped, threatened and beaten
Report reveals how they were ignored by those in power
“COUNTLESS children known to be at significant risk of harm were left unprotected and their abusers left to continue to exploit children with impunity.”
A shameful paragraph from a damning new report which has found there was widespread child sexual exploitation and abuse over years in Rochdale but - despite being presented with a glut of evidence - both the police and the council failed to act and left children ‘at the mercy’ of paedophiles.
The report - authored by Malcolm Newsam, a renowned child care expert, and Gary Ridgeway, a former detective superintendent - lays bare in painful reading the vast extent of the abuse endured by children at the hands of older men.
And crucially, it also reveals their harrowing stories; testimonies that were ‘ignored’ by all but a small team of NHS health workers who battled to get those in power to listen to them, and listen to the girls.
Mr Newsam said a huge quantity of records and detailed case files of 59 children were researched for the review. A total of 111 children went on to be identified. The report found there was a ‘significant probability’ 74 of them were being sexually exploited. But of those 74, he said the review found only three children were ‘appropriately protected by the statutory agencies’.
“In 48 of the cases, there were serious failures to protect them,” said Mr Newsam at a press conference on Monday after the report’s publication.
Investigators said they found ‘a continued over-reliance’ by police on the co-operation of child victims, despite ‘the obvious coercion and control exhibited by their perpetrators’. Legal sanctions available at the time were also not used.
One former GMP detective chief superintendent, now retired, said in her interview with the review team: “We were hitting a very big brick wall. Pockets of good practice, pockets of things happening, but basically then overridden and overruled by this attitude that our victims are lying, particularly around sexual offences.
“It just kept coming round and round and round again that actually, GMP is c**p at dealing with victims because they don’t believe them half the time.”
These are some of the harrowing stories and abuse inflicted on the victims, revealed in today’s report.
●●THE sickening abuse the girls were subjected to
One youngster, 13 at the time, said she was raped and ‘men would hit her if she refused’. She went on to disclose that ‘a man had poured petrol on her and threatened to set her alight because she refused to perform oral sex’. Another victim, adds the report, was identified as having been raped by many men, but only one suspect was ever charged and that was with sexual activity with a child, not rape, despite the fact the victim was 12 when her abuse began.
Another child was said to have ‘identified 20-30
men who had abused her’.
A 14-year-old was reported to be meeting ‘Asian men and having sexual intercourse with them’, the report found in another harrowing case.
An excerpt from notes from a meeting said: “Child 1 also admitted to having had loads of sexual
partners and had engaged in [explicit description of profound sexual abuse]. She also stated that sometimes this was against her will and that if she didn’t do what some men asked for, they would hit her and therefore she had to do what they wanted.”
In a school meeting, another child was said to have been ‘associating with two or more older men who have a great deal of power over her’.
The report said: “She is seen to be in a very vulnerable position in which she is being subtly manipulated to feel she is being loved and cared for whilst she is being distanced from her family and those who are trying to support her.
“It was said to be a ‘classic case’ of grooming.
“The girl was said to be coming into school with ‘expensive gifts such as a £500 phone and a £400 necklace given to her by Asian men’.
Another girl was said to be being used ‘for sexual services’ and to ‘carry packages across to a town in Yorkshire’.
A 13-year-old girl was raped in a park and ended
up living with men. In another case, a 16-yearold’s parents raised concerns that she was returning back home with bruising and bleeding.
The report also details the case of a girl who reported being given vodka then raped.
She said she woke up in a house and her clothes were dishevelled.”
The information they [the health workers] shared was specific, explicit, and compelling,” said the report.
“This should have been sufficient for both GMP and Rochdale children’s social care to take action to protect these children.”
Mr Newsam said three survivors who were all ‘subjected to the most profound abuse’ were also interviewed for the review.
“We applaud their courage in coming forward,” he said.
“Their harrowing stories evidence the severe damage to their welfare perpetrated initially by their abusers and subsequently by the criminal justice processes they were exposed to.
“Children were left to be abused by them, and subsequently by their associates.”
‘A man had poured petrol on her and threatened to set her alight because she refused to perform sex’
●●‘CHILDREN’S testimonies were ignored and their abusers not brought to justice’
In 2007, frustrated NHS workers on the frontline in Rochdale who liaised with dozens of girls told police and the council of a network of abuse.
But GMP and its