Stephen Watson met with the victims at GMP headquarters in North Manchester on Tuesday afternoon (April 12th), where he personally apologized for police failures in their cases, the new PA news agency reported. The top officer acknowledged the failure of the force to protect the women, who were children, when they were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by male gangs in Rochdale.
Mr Watson also apologized for the mistakes of his predecessors in not investigating criminals, a culture that occurred under former chiefs of staff, including Sir Peter Fahy. READ MORE: Outrage over Rochdale gang members not deported He told the women: “It’s a matter of deep personal sorrow that your childhood was so severely affected by the horrific experiences you endured. GMP could and should have done much more to protect you and we were disappointed.” One of the three women was portrayed as the character Ruby in the BBC’s award-winning dramatization of the Rochdale – Three Girls grooming scandal. Characters Ruby, Holly and Amber in the BBC Three Girls series (Image: BBC / Ewen Spencer) In legal documents, Ruby, identified as BXW, states that the abuse began at the age of 12 and continued for four years where she was passed “like a ball” among “thousands” of men for rape and sexual abuse. She became pregnant by a man, Adil Khan, when she was 13 years old and had an abortion. Police confiscated the fetus as evidence, but were not informed – neither her mother nor a responsible adult. The second woman, Amber, who also starred in the BBC drama in 2017, was 14 years old when the abuse began, according to her legal claim. She was first raped while drunk and then raped and sexually assaulted by several men on several occasions, giving police the names or nicknames of 45 men who abused her or other children. Read more related articles Read more related articles The third woman, Daisy, whose name was changed to protect her identity, was just 12 years old when the abuse began. It continued for the next five years. She was punched in the face and called a “white slag” by one of her abusers outside a Rochdale pizza shop in 2006. But she was the one arrested for harassment. In one case, she was picked up by GMP officers within miles of the Moors outside of Manchester. She had told a man that she did not want to sleep with him, and he had taken her coat, poured her orange juice and let her go home without socks or shoes. The police took her home and told her that they could not do anything because they did not have the man’s name. Police were later called after he had repeatedly burned himself with a heated spoon when he refused to comply with the demands of a group of adult men. When interviewed by police, she was accused of injuring herself and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Her claim against GMP stated that she was treated as a perpetrator and not as a victim. Rochdale Grooming Gang Members: (Top left to right) Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz. (Bottom row from left to right) Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan Adil Khan, Abdul Rauf and Abdul Aziz (Image: Manchester Evening News) “I do not know if I believe that the Greater Manchester Police have really changed the way they say it is, but I am happy that it took into account its failures and there was some responsibility in the end,” he said after being awarded compensation. The women, backed by lawyers from the Center for Women’s Justice (CWJ) charity, filed a lawsuit against the GMP, which said, according to legal documents, that since the early 2000s there has been growing evidence from multiple allegations that male gangs mainly from Asia was the treatment, trafficking and sexual abuse of mostly white working-class girls in Rochdale. The lawyers of the three successfully defended their human rights were violated by the GMP, failing to protect them, putting an end to the abuse. This included failing to record crimes, investigate offenders, gather information or prosecute and prosecute abusers. Instead of child victims of sexual abuse, the three were considered by police as “bad” or “unreliable” witnesses and were sometimes arrested themselves while reporting abuse, the women said. Although the abuse took place “in plain sight”, a police operation to deal with the gangs closed abruptly in 2004, despite the fact that the police and social services had the names of those involved and their victims. Eight years later, following a second major police investigation, Operation Span, nine men were convicted of sexually exploiting children in Rochdale. Former GMP Detective Becomes Complainant Maggie Oliver (Image: MEN MEDIA) At the trial, 12-year-old girls were heard to have fallen for alcohol and drugs and were gang-raped in rooms above closed shops and taken to different taxis where cash was paid to use them. Another of the three women, Amber, said: “I feel this is the first time the authorities have seen and publicly recognized me as an innocent child victim who needed protection.” Former police officer Detective Maggie Oliver resigned from the GMP in 2012 to become an informant on the force’s failures. Ms Oliver, co-founder of the Maggie Oliver Foundation, a charity that advocates for child sexual abuse survivors, said: of these three victims was wrong, even inhuman. “ Kate Ellis, a CWJ lawyer who worked for the three plaintiffs, said: “We hope that today’s outcome will serve as a reminder to the Greater Manchester Police and other police forces that they will be held accountable if they do not protect vulnerable children from exploitation and abuse.” . The GMP settled the claim before the matter went to court.
Full GMP declaration
Police Chief Stephen Watson said: “Today it is not about the Greater Manchester Police, but about those victims who in the past were frustrated when they needed our help in the most traumatic and horrific circumstances. I have personally apologized to some of these victims of the failures of the Greater Manchester Police in contacting those who sexually abused children in Rochdale. “It is a matter of deep personal regret that the childhood years of these victims were so severely affected by the horrific experiences they endured. GMP could and should have done much more to protect them. “The failures of our past in Child Sexual Exploitation are well known, and fortunately today there is a much better understanding of the CSE than before the Operation Span trial in May 2012, and we pledge to leave no stone unturned to bring these delinquents in justice, regardless of the passage of time, through our exclusive Force CSE unit. “We will try to continue to improve our responses to such horrific circumstances, to prevent the same from happening in the first instance and to relentlessly prosecute the perpetrators so that they are fully accountable. I hope that my apology and commitment will correct his bad practices.” past will offer some comfort to those we have failed. “We also agreed with the recipients to publish my full apology on our website, links to which can be found below.” Read more related articles Read more related articles
