00:00 laid bare in 173 damning pages. An independent report into historic child
00:07 sexual exploitation in Rochdale which says children were left at the mercy of
00:12 grooming gangs for years because of failings by senior police and council bosses.
00:17 We have found compelling evidence that there was widespread
00:20 organised sexual exploitation of children within Rochdale from at least
00:26 2004 onwards. GMP and Rochdale council were made aware of significant networks
00:33 of men engaged in the widespread exploitation of children but failed to
00:40 prioritise their protection. In May 2012 nine men from Rochdale and Oldham were
00:46 found guilty of exploiting girls aged between 12 and 15 for sex. The girls were
00:52 given drugs and alcohol and then raped in rooms above takeaway shops. Today's
00:58 report says that between 2004 and 2013 there were probably at least 74 children
01:05 being sexually exploited and that in 48 of those cases there were serious
01:10 failures to protect the child. Child sexual exploitation was a low priority
01:15 and under-resourced by Greater Manchester Police and it identifies 96
01:20 men in Rochdale who are still deemed a potential risk to children. There was a
01:25 tiny number of the abusers ever held to account in relation to years of abuse.
01:32 They are still walking the streets of Rochdale. The report highlighted the
01:37 indifference of the local authority to the plight of youngsters, mainly white
01:42 girls from poor backgrounds, all of them potential victims of abuse by Asian men.
01:47 There is just no getting away from the fact that this was a huge failure. Things
01:55 that should have been prevented because of what had been learnt in Manchester in
02:00 2005, action should have been taken to prevent a repeat of these failures but
02:06 also to protect the children who were at risk in Rochdale during that time and
02:11 you know that was a very significant failing by the Greater Manchester system
02:16 that it didn't prevent a repeat. The report says the failure to prioritise,
02:20 detect, disrupt or prosecute should firmly be laid at the door of the senior
02:26 officers in the force throughout the period of 2004 to 2013. Greater
02:31 Manchester Police's chief constable between 2008 and 2015 was in fact knighted
02:37 in 2012 for services to policing. Today the current chief constable offered this
02:43 apology. Where you see what these children went through, their childhoods
02:48 were utterly destroyed with such profound consequences for the rest of
02:54 their life. It is a source of profound regret that that ever happened to them
02:58 and insofar as GMP's failures to protect those people I am very sorry. Of the 74
03:06 children believed to have been exploited, successful convictions were only made for
03:10 13 of those cases. For many of the Rochdale survivors this report is too
03:15 little too late.
03:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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