Maggie Oliver, a former detective who blew the whistle on the authorities’ refusal to tackle mostly-Muslim rapist “grooming gangs” in Manchester, England, has called for senior police officers and social workers to be prosecuted amid further abuse revelations.
Oliver, who now leads the Maggie Oliver Foundation supporting abuse survivors, spoke out in an article for The Telegraph following an independent review into child sexual exploitations (CSE) in multicultural Bradford which found, yet again, that police, social workers, and local government had failed victims — and that, more worryingly, some children “remain unprotected”.
“Since I launched my foundation in 2019, we’ve been contacted almost every day by survivors who, it has to be said, are mainly from the North of England. We’re currently dealing with 31 cases from West Yorkshire alone. But there are many cases from Greater Manchester, Hull, Cumbria, and the West Midlands that all follow much the same pattern of abuse: predominantly Pakistani older men targeting mainly working-class white girls, including some in the care system, but all vulnerable in one way or another and hence ‘easy pickings’ for the abusers,” Oliver lamented.
She said that “successive governments of both political stripes have refused to grapple with the problem as they have been too afraid of being accused of racism“, but that another factor has also been important in the systemic failure to stop the abuse: classism.
“There remains an attitude that these victims deserve what has happened to them. They are judged to be making a lifestyle choice, rather than as vulnerable children who are being exploited,” she explained.
Oliver highlighted one particularly egregious case raised by the Bradford probe; that of 14-year-old Anna, who was actually placed in foster care with the parents of an abuser on the recommendation of a social worker.
“We had no similarities in race, religion or culture and I continued to be subject to domestic violence and was subject to a coercive controlling sexual relationship with a known perpetrator. I was frightened to leave, in fear of an honour-based killing.
“At 14 years old I was engaged to be married, taking on the role of an Islamic wife fulfilling the needs of my husband and the extended family, somewhat like a maid,” Anna recalled.
“Many reports of abuse and assault were not addressed, and Anna had two children while she was still a looked after child,” noted the Bradford report, which said — with depressing familiarity to Britons who have been following the still-unfolding rape gangs scandal nationally for years now — that there are still “lessons that need to be learned” in the city.
“I would like to see criminal prosecutions brought against senior police officers and social workers who knowingly allow this abuse to continue,” said Oliver, who herself left Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to blow the whistle on its refusal to tackle groomers.
“If just one chief constable was taken to court for gross neglect of duty, I’m sure it would be a game-changer,” she said, adding that she was “angry and ashamed at what this country has repeatedly allowed to happen.”
To date, no senior police officer or council official has been imprisoned, lost their public sector pension, or otherwise been meaningfully punished for allowing grooming gang abuse to go on, with various national and local investigations managing to spread blame vaguely across institutions rather than zeroing in on individuals to be sanctioned.
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