The new grooming gang scandal that shames Britain | UK | News
Silhouette of an unknown girl with Maggie Oliver (Image: Getty Mirrorpix)
A police force that failed to lay charges after two investigations into a major child sexual abuse case branded one survivor an “attention seeker” and accused her of “choosing her lifestyle”, it has been revealed.
Humberside Police have apologized to the woman, now in her 20s, for “victim blaming” the observations of officers involved in the initial investigation.
The revelation comes after police last week closed their second investigation into a grooming ring centered on takeaways and taxi drivers in Hull.
This follows an almost four-year investigation that identified 44 potential suspects after the case was reopened in August 2022, first highlighted by the Sunday Express.
The victims of the gang accused of targeting female students in the city expressed their sadness that no results were obtained even though a total of seven years had passed.
The woman who filed the complaint stated that she was raped by at least 22 men in 2017, including a man in his 30s who took her to a hotel in her school uniform at the age of 16 and was considered vulnerable within the scope of the social services protection plan.
He discovered the views of some officers after receiving case files from the police force, which are sometimes referred to as “enabling” criminals.
She said: “There were a lot of victim-blamers on my record who said things like I was looking for attention and that I chose this lifestyle. I wasn’t surprised by the outcome of such attitudes.
“It was very disappointing to find out it was closed. Although I didn’t have high hopes that all of the men would be charged, I thought there would at least be some charges and justice.”
An investigator apologized in writing and said police were “deeply sorry.”
He added: “The content is unacceptable and not to the standard I would expect officers in this force to communicate. Some of the content is victim blaming. These entries do not reflect the values of this force.”
Scandals about how police forces treated white working-class victims of child sex trafficking gangs, who were exploited mostly by men of Pakistani origin and Muslim faith, first emerged in the Rotherham and Rochdale cases, where girls were abused from at least the late 1990s.
The 2012 Serious Incident Review, commissioned by Rochdale Borough Safeguarding Children Board following the conviction of a grooming gang in May 2012, revealed shocking failures by police and social workers to protect vulnerable children and highlighted victims being treated as “choosers” and “child prostitutes”.
Former Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver resigned from the force in 2012 because she was a key whistleblower involved in such investigations.
He said it was appalling that the same attitudes emerged in investigations almost a decade later.
He said: “They talk the talk but only walk the walk when it gets reported in the media. This kind of attitude only multiplies the harm of abuse a millionfold. We continue to hear that lessons have been learned, but they haven’t and this is more than just mistakes, it’s incompetence.”
Former police officer Maggie Oliver, who groomed gangs in the North West, is brought to justice (Image: Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)
Ms Oliver took some of the Hull victims to meet Baroness Anne Longfield, chair of the newly launched National Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs, as part of an advisory group in February.
He is currently fighting for cases in Hull to get one of the local inquests to become part of the overall investigation.
The Sunday Express first revealed the story of Hull grooming gangs in October 2019, after a social worker working for the city council claimed the girl’s allegations were not taken seriously enough by police and social services.
Six arrests were made within a few weeks of our first contact with Humberside Police and a further 28 arrests were made in the following months.
When no charges were received in November 2020, we sent a series of detailed questions to the relevant police and social services units.
This led to then Deputy Chief Constable Chris Noble and Mathew Buckley, then Head of Legal and Democratic Services at East Riding of Yorkshire Council, writing separate letters calling for nothing to be published if it would compromise investigations.
But the investigation was abandoned eight months later, leading us to publish a special report in July 2021 detailing the difficult challenges experienced by the three girls.
One of them revealed that she had been raped by more than 100 men, including men who filmed her in balaclavas, starting from the age of 13.
The Sunday Express published the story about the Hull maintenance team in July 2021 (Image: Express)
A Humberside Police spokesman said of the closure of the latest investigation: “As is required in all investigations of this nature, a conclusion must be reached to determine whether the investigations meet the threshold of evidence to be formally referred to the CPS for a charging decision.
“After a thorough and detailed review of all available evidence relevant to this investigation, no charges were brought against the suspects in this case.”
Commenting on the apology, they added: “Since receipt of the complaint we have taken clear and direct action to improve awareness and professional standards across the organisation.
“We have introduced specific training with detailed guidance on the use of victim-blaming language, both in the way officers speak to victims and in how they record information.
“A formal apology has been issued to the victim concerned. We recognize the impact such language can have and recognize that it falls short of the standards we expect.”
