Sexually exploited children in Oldham were failed by those who were meant to protect them

A report has been published looking into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.

Oldham authorities failed a twelve-year-old girl who was raped multiple times by different men, and police missed opportunities to bring her abusers to justice, a damning report has concluded.

Almost three years after being commissioned, a review into allegations of historic child sexual exploitation has found that children in Oldham were being exploited and let down by services which tried and did not protect them.

Among its damning findings, the review has uncovered that:

• The Rochdale grooming gang leader Shabir Ahmed worked as a welfare officer in Oldham unchecked for three years despite being accused of severe child sexual abuse.

• Social workers said girls being drugged and violently raped are “putting themselves at risk”.

• Oldham Borough Council gave taxi driver licences to men convicted or accused of serious sexual offences involving women and children.

• Shisha bars were known to be a threat - but vulnerable children as young as thirteen still visited them for years.

In an individual case, the review found that Sophie - not her real name - fell into the hands of predators after trying to report a sexual assault at Oldham Police Station, which led to a furtourth twenty-four hours of torment in which she was raped repeatedly.

The review, commissioned by the Oldham Borough Council in 2019 and written by experts Malcolm Newsam and Gary Ridgway, looked at how authorities have dealt with child sexual exploitation between 2011 and 2014 and one specific case dating back to 2005.

It was launched on the back of allegations made on social media, which have gained a large following and have begun to exert considerable influence within Oldham politics - contributing to the dethroning of two council leaders in just two years.

However, the report states that it has found no evidence of a widespread cover-up of sexual exploitation in the borough, and between the years 2011 to 2014, services endeavoured to prevent at-risk young people from being taken advantage of. But the authors say that while strategies were good on paper, they often did not translate into protecting children on the ground from abuse.

The ‘Messenger’ service, set up in 2006, aimed to safeguard children against sexual exploitation and involved Oldham Borough Council, social workers, specialists from the charity Barnardo's, and Greater Manchester Police.

After being launched, Operation Messenger found scores of children, some as young as twelve-years-old, who were being groomed in the borough.

A risk register said that the possible harm to children was so high that the “worst-case” risk was that a “young person could be killed.” However, the review finds that ‘commendable strategic approaches did not always translate into the right level of safeguarding for young people at risk of child sexual exploitation.

A Greater Manchester Police detective admitted that the Messenger service was a “small unit and could not deal with all these vulnerable girls.” The review team have found a “structural flaw” in the design of the Messenger service in which only one qualified social worker functioned as a conduit between the specialist team and frontline social workers.

The review has found that these care workers’ assessments were not always up to scratch, and managers did not give enough oversight or direction. This was backed by investigating ten complex cases of vulnerable young people, which found that none were protected from child sexual exploitation.

Plans put in place by professionals were more devoted to watching abuse than putting in place an “assertive plan” to prevent and disrupt it. Instead, social workers often said that girls were not taking responsibility for protecting themselves, and phrases such as “putting herself at risk” were extensively used.

“The review reviewed, despite the evidence that the children were being drugged or made senseless on vodka then subjected to violent rapes, often by several men in succession, and to serious physical assaults, coercion and threats,” states.

“The quality of casework was generally inferior and characterised by a failure to appropriately initiate multi-agency child protection procedures when these children were known to be at risk of significant harm.”

There was an ‘over-reliance’ on the need for victims to cooperate with police by pressing charges, despite the often coercive and threatening relationships with their abusers, and even in the cases where there were sees and forensic evidence.

Police had a ‘significant’ amount of information on some men grooming and abusing children. Still, despite this, it appeared that they could exploit their victims with “relative impunity due to the failure to disrupt and target their activities.”

Following these findings, the Oldham Borough Council and Greater Manchester Police have agreed to review these cases and consider whether further action can be taken against the men who abused these children.

At the heart of the report is the horrific case of Sophie, a young girl living in Oldham who was both systematically abused and systemically failed.

Her case, which dates to 2005, was included in the review after she wrote an open letter to then council leader Sean Fielding asking for it to be included, following years of denials from authorities that mistakes had been made.

However, in their findings, the review’s authors are utterly scathing in their assessment of the response of both Greater Manchester Police and local social services in how they treated Sophie - and let her abusers walk free. The team recommended that Greater Manchester Police and Oldham Borough Council “publicly acknowledge the serious failures and apologise to Sophie.”

There were “at least” two occasions when safeguarding procedures should have been begun, which may have protected Sophie from the ‘predatory males who ended up abusing her’ aged just twelve-years-old, the report states.

One man, Paul Waites - named only as “Offender E” within the report - groomed her using internet chat rooms, which led to him sexually assaulting and raping them in the summer of 2006.

Despite numerous admissions by Sophie to social workers that she was in contact with an older man, whom she believed to be eighteen or nineteen, and that he was her ‘boyfriend’, evidence that he was a risk to her was not followed up.

Waites was, in fact, in his early thirties at the tie and a serial paedophile. He was jailed in 2009 for having indecent images of children and, in 2015, was convicted of the rape of Sophie and sentenced to eleven years in prison.

In 2020 the former teacher was handed a life sentence for sexually abusing another girl in 2005. The review team concluded that a ‘competent’ review of Sophie’s file in 2006 would have revealed the “many warning signs” and that the council and Greater Manchester Police had “failed to follow their procedures in protecting Sophie from the risk of serious harm”.

“In our opinion, there was sufficient information available to the officers investigating the series of rapes against Sophie in October 2006 to identify Offender E as a potential threat to Sophie,” Newsam and Ridgway write.

“We regard this as a missed opportunity. If further action had been taken, it could have led to the earlier apprehension and conviction of Offender E.”

At the same time as Waites was grooming Sophie, she was subjected to a horrific series of assaults by several strangers within a twenty-four hours attending Oldham Police Station to report a sexual assault in a churchyard; the desk officer told her to come back with an adult when she “was not drunk” and effectively placed in the hands of more predators who were also leaving the station.

This led to her being sexually assaulted in a car, then abandoned in the borough and raped in the house of a man, Sarwar Ali, whom she had asked for directions. Finally, she was picked up by a man posing as a taxi driver, Shakil Chowdhury, who had promised to help her.

Instead, he took her to another property on Attock Close, where she was subjected to a terrifying and sustained series of rapes by him and four other men. Of these numerous assailants, only Chowdhury and Ali were ever arrested. Chowdhury was jailed in 2007 for six years after pleading guilty to six counts of rape.

The review team found “several failures” in investigating the multiple rapes reported by Sophie.

They say they have seen “no evidence” to supply assurance that the correct enquiries were conducted into the first sexual assault and the rapes by the men she met at the police station.

Newsam and Ridgway state that if, when arriving at the police station, Sophie had received the “appropriate response needed to protect her,” she would have been “spared the ordeal she was then subjected to.”

During his trial, Chowdhury named two other men involved in the rapes of Sophie as part of his mitigation. Still, the report states that Greater Manchester Police did not follow these up at the time and is branded “another serious failure.”

The review team said that Sophie was “shocked and dismayed” that Greater Manchester Police had “not pursued these lines of investigation” and had not shared the information with her “despite ten years of her seeking answers.”

Despite two different professional standards investigations by the force in 2013 and 2018, this was not picked up by either inquiry. Instead, the first investigation concluded that “no concerns were identified” with how the police oversaw her case.

However, an internal review by Greater Manchester Police in 2014 found “serious weaknesses” in the original investigation, which led to a significant police signification called Operation Solent being launched.

The report concludes that the Oldham Borough Council also missed opportunities to intervene with Sophie using child protection procedures, which could have led to more protective action. Although the rapes were reported to the local authority, there was no strategy put in place that would have ensured an “adequate protection plan” for Sophie.

“There were significant opportunities missed by children’s social care to intervene and put appropriate arrangements to protect Sophie,” Newsam and Ridgway write.

“We believe that the interventions of both the council and Greater Manchester Police fell far short of what was required to protect Sophie at the time, and these failures have been compounded by the denials that have subsequently been issued to Sophie and feed a view that both agencies are more concerned about covering up their failures than acknowledging the harm had been done to a vulnerable young person.”

The notorious Rochdale grooming gang leader Shabir Ahmed and his links to Oldham and the council are also investigated as part of the review, which has uncovered “serious failures” in how authorities dealt with the predator.

Later sexual abuse by Ahmed could have been prevented if earlier “offending behaviour” and the threat he posed to children had been addressed, the review concludes. The report has found a significant allegation of child sexual abuse made in 2005 against Ahmed.

This occurred three years before the later widespread grooming and gang rape in Rochdale, which also saw abused girls let down by police and social services.

Known as ‘Daddy’ by his victims, he was found guilty of two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and trafficking for sexual exploitation and was sentenced to nineteen years imprisonment. In June 2012, he was found guilty of thirty rape charges and was jailed for an added twenty-two years, adding three years to his overall prison term.

Ahmed had worked at the Oldham Borough Council between 1988 and 2006 and was employed as a welfare rights officer seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre.

This role would have meant he would “potentially have had contact with a range of vulnerable adults and their children.”

The review team said they believe there were “serious failings in how the council and Greater Manchester Police investigated concerns” about Ahmed. At the same time, allegations of child sexual assault were being levelled at him during his employment as a welfare officer.

The full details of his case have not been made public due to concerns about the jigsaw identification of his victims.

However, a summary of the case included within the report finds that as early as 2005, Greater Manchester Police was notified of a serious allegation of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Ahmed.

The victim, now an adult, alerted police that Ahmed had also potentially had contact with a young child who lived outside of Oldham. A crime report was not sent on the back of this information which Greater Manchester Police said was in line with its working practices at the time. However, the review team said the National Crime Recording Standard at the time required a crime to be recorded.

Greater Manchester Police did not inform the local authority responsible for the child and did not let Oldham Borough Council know, which was then Ahmed’s employer.

As a result of the disclosure that he potentially presented a severe risk to children, Newsam and Ridgway say a full assessment should have been undertaken to assess the dangers posed to any other children he may have met.

But instead, “insufficient enquiries were made into whether his role gave him access to vulnerable adults and children.”

“If this had happened, it may have potentially avoided the tragic abuse of other children,” the report states.

In February 2008, Ahmed was arrested for sexual assault on a child, and that July was also arrested on suspicion of abducting two other children.

However, the review states that neither of the two children made a complaint, no crime was recorded, and no further action was taken.

When queried by the review team, “Oldham Borough Council was unable to find any record of being notified of these allegations by Greater Manchester Police.” And there is no evidence that Greater Manchester Police had notified the council about the allegations so it could investigate the risks he may have posed to children he could have been involved with through his job.

Oldham Borough Council were also not involved in later “strategy discussions” between Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale board about Ahmed and the 2008 and 2005 allegations.

Even after Ahmed was charged with sexual assault at the end of September 2008, no action was taken by the Oldham Borough Council to undertake a safeguarding assessment or consult with the police force.

He would not be jailed for his prolific sexual offending until 2012. In 2011 he was charged with the rape of the child in 2005 and remanded in custody.

The probation service let Oldham Borough Council know, and “given the profound child sexual abuse, this should’ve been a further opportunity to initiate a full assessment of Ahmed’s circumstances, but there is no evidence of this having occurred.”

Greater Manchester Police requested copies of files about Ahmed and his family, which informed the Oldham Borough Council about the child who lived outside of the borough and could have been put at risk.

This “significant information” should have prompted the authority to begin a multi-agency strategy discussion to assess the threats presented to any other children. However, the review states that the council “has never been able to locate any record to explain why this never occurred.”

The following year another young woman bravely revealed Ahmed had also abused her, and Greater Manchester Police let Oldham Borough Council know of the allegations.

The abuse occurred while he was employed as a welfare rights officer, but it is unknown whether he had been professionally involved with her family.

However, the report states that children's social care “inexplicably closed the case within a few days without undertaking any assessment.”

The authority has been “unable to locate anything further on this child,” and the review finds there is no evidence of an assessment of her allegations or her vulnerability.

“The review team have been informed that the case was discontinued by Greater Manchester Police on the basis that there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”,” the report states.

“Neither Greater Manchester Police nor Oldham Borough Council could assure the review team that the child’s allegations and vulnerability were appropriately managed.

“The review team concluded that there were multiple severe failures by Greater Manchester Police and Oldham Borough Council to follow the procedures to investigate the threat Ahmed presented to children.

“If these procedures had been followed, his offending behaviour could have been addressed at an earlier stage, and potentially the abuse of his subsequent victims may have been prevented.”

The review finds that girls as young as thirteen who were known to be sexually exploited visited private shisha bars in Oldham for three years.

It has been revealed that although the council and police later looked to disrupt the activities of behind-closed-doors shisha bars, there were weaknesses in the approach to safeguarding at-risk children.

The local authority and Greater Manchester Police were aware of the threats posed by shisha bars and cafes of grooming and potential exploitation by the end of 2010.

Senior police officers said that derelict pubs in Oldham town centre were being bought and sublet to “Asian young men” who ran them as private shisha venues.

“It was this pseudo business front but operating outside any licensing structure and targeting and trying to entice young people to the premises which I was concerned about and targeted,” one Chief Inspector wrote.

Patrols and intelligence reports linked these establishments’ operations with vulnerable young people - specifically young women known to be at risk of sexual exploitation.

Four girls involved with Operation Messenger were known to frequent “Cafe Mist” shisha bar.

A raid of Cafe Mist in December 2010 by Oldham licensing officers and Greater Manchester Police found twenty-five young men and women aged between sixteen and twenty-five in the venue, along with a “strong smell of cannabis” and evidence that alcohol had been consumed.

There were “serious concerns” a month later those four girls in their early teens - known to be vulnerable to sexual exploitation - were present, along with two young men linked to drug dealing.

The review has found that two of these children were still frequenting shisha bars eighteen months later. And it has been set up that those eighteen children visiting these shisha bars were at risk of being groomed and sexually exploited.

“There was mounting evidence throughout 2012 that shisha bars continued to present an opportunity for sexual exploitation,” the report states.

“Shisha bars were a magnet for young people vulnerable to sexual exploitation, and it is also clear that children were being exploited on the premises.

“One child was seen having sex at a well-known shisha bar and disclosed that she went to another shisha bar to “sleep with lads”.”

At this time, other bars of concern in the borough included AYCE, Fusion and Kloudz.

Greater Manchester Police raised Kloudz as a threat as it had private rooms to rent upstairs. There were “serious concerns about the sexual activity in the rooms and the potential links to child sexual exploitation.”

It was reported that two vulnerable girls had spent the night at a shisha bar and had been having sex.

Police officers and council officials entered Kloudz after a Police Constable saw a girl leaving the premises “upset and crying.”

They found two rooms occupied by Asian men in their early twenties, another with alcohol in the building, and two other girls.

On the evening of the next day, the same constable reported seeing a seventeen-year-old man dragging a girl into the back of the shisha bar.

He took hold of the man, and the child was found hiding inside the toilets. She revealed she had been on the premises a week earlier and police said that social services were informed.

However, the council said a referral was not received from Greater Manchester Police, and “despite the concerns expressed,” she continued to be unknown to social care.

Greater Manchester Police admitted this report had not been appropriately followed up and needed further enquiries - but these had not been completed by the time the review was published.

In another case, police visited Oasis Café. They issued three fixed penalty notices following reports by a parent that her teenage daughter had been smoking shisha at the bar with older Asian men.

A fourteen-year-old child continued to visit shisha bars, and numerous concerns were raised by charity Positive Steps about her, including drinking half a litre of vodka every night with older people.

“Although many intelligence reports of Asian males and young girls visiting these premises were raised, the intelligence reports were not forwarded to the Messenger team as they were not known “Messenger subjects”,” the review states.

“We believe this is a critical weakness in the Greater Manchester Police response to shisha bars at the time and a significant missed opportunity to quantify the scale of the threats presented to children.

“While officers in Greater Manchester Police were concerned about these threats, it is apparent to us that the response throughout 2011 and 2012 was having minimal impact on the operation of shisha bars and the threat they presented to vulnerable young people,” the review finds.

Threats and reports of vulnerable and school-age girls visiting shisha bars continued until mid-2013, with girls known to the Messenger team visiting Leisure Lounge shisha bar.

“The risks around child sexual exploitation are massive,” the Chief Inspector in the borough wrote in February of that year.

Efforts to disrupt activities at shisha bars were thwarted by the legal framework of the time - much to the frustration of some local councillors.

In an email to police in April 2013, “Councillor U” wrote: “I cannot understand why we are struggling to gain entry when we have all these concerns; surely police have powers to get in! Is there any learning from Bradford/Blackburn as these two local authorities have had shisha bars for many years?”

This began a coordinated campaign by authorities to close these shisha venues and alert young people to their risks.

The review states that multi-agency visits to these premises were undertaken, and approval was looked to gather intelligence through a covert operation.

From 2011 to 2013, the council and police collaborated to “disrupt the shisha bar business model” by deploying a range of operations, including fire safety and environmental health.

Schools were requested to notify parents that the bars and cafes were not as they pretended to be and not safe. However, the report finds that this information was not relayed.

By the end of 2013, most shisha bars had closed, and a follow-up operation in 2014 did not highlight any ongoing concerns about the ones that remained.

The review finds that Greater Manchester Police and the council understood the threats presented by shisha bars and that they were “trying to address these concerns.”

“We believe this disruption model was advanced for the period and was not without impact,” the report states. “While robust action was taken to close some of the shisha bars, this was not always achievable given the legislation at the time.

“The council recognised these limitations and took the initiative in seeking to amend legislation passing through Parliament at the time.”

However, the report clearly shows a ‘weakness’ in the approach to safeguarding children visiting shisha bars, and intelligence was not always channelled to the proper officers. They had been charged with detecting and preventing child sexual exploitation.

The specialist Messenger team, set up to tackle grooming, did not take part in the disruption activities and was not ‘sufficiently resourced’ during this time to undertake initiative-taking investigations.

The review finds that several working Oldham taxi drivers had been accused of rape or sexual offences against children - but kept their licences.

Two drivers alleged to have assaulted girls should have revoked their licences by the council, and several “known offenders” had been granted or had their taxi licences renewed by councillors.

“The council’s licensing panel had previously approved several licences to individuals who had been convicted of serious sexual offences against children,” the report states.

However, the authors say they have been provided with “no evidence” that senior managers or councillors looked to cover up the potential exploitation of children by local taxi services.

They add that national guidance at the time was not “sufficiently robust” to prevent the issuing of licences to people will sexual offence convictions, although it has now been strengthened.

Taxi drivers were recognised as a threat by those working with children at risk of sexual exploitation within the town hall - but the review finds that more could have been done to protect girls and women.

Concerns were raised internally in 2012 about a driver accused of a sexual offence against a child and whether he was a “fit and proper person” to hold a licence.

Although the driver was acquitted, he had admitted in his evidence that he had known the girl under sixteen for several months before the alleged offence, having met her in an illegal shisha bar.

He had also admitted using his taxi for the “purpose of sexual activity” with the alleged victim, which took place in a public car park.

Following the Rotherham scandal in 2014, the Oldham Borough Council reviewed all the cases where licence holders had been accused of sexual offences.

There were originally five drivers found who had serious criminal convictions, but only one of these was taken to the licensing panel and had his licence revoked.

One of the remaining four went on to commit a sexual assault on a young female passenger in 2015. He had been convicted of an indecent assault on a woman in a shopping centre and received a conditional discharge.

He was convicted in 2017 of the last assault, and the judge in the case queried why a licence had been granted given his earlier conviction, which triggered a formal complaint to the council.

Following this, the council’s chief executive Carolyn Wilkins ordered officers to review all licensed drivers, around 1,300 people.

In January 2015, a review of licensed drivers involved those convicted of a sexual offence or where intelligence was held on them.

The report listed nine drivers, where one had been convicted of offences against children.

Of these nine, six licences were “revoked or ended.”

One driver had been questioned by police about two separate alleged sexual assaults, three years apart, on two young female passengers.

“Although the police took no further action, the legal advice to the panel was clear that it should make the judgement on the “balance of probabilities”,” the report states.

“It is our view that there were sufficient concerns presented to the panel regarding these allegations for it to revoke the driver’s licence.”

There were also ‘concerning’ details of the offence by another driver. It was alleged that a victim was a customer who had been sexually assaulted in his taxi and then raped.

The Crown Prosecution Service had taken no further action, but this was the only detail supplied to the licensing panel.

The current guidance followed by the council recommends:

• Nobody with a sexually related conviction or convicted of an offence against children should hold a licence. This decision can also be made based on intelligence on the balance of probability.

• These matters are delegated to the head of licensing to ensure swift action is taken to refuse such licences if an application is made.

• They can also at once suspend a licence if they are notified about an offence.

Oldham’s head of licensing, John Garforth, who also chairs the Greater Manchester Licensing Network, looked to strengthen the quality of information and intelligence shared by the police with local councils.

He raised the matter formally with the former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Ian Hopkins, in 2018 but did not get a response.

Greater Manchester Police has now confirmed it has commissioned a review of the content, application, and senior ownership of the force’s policies on disclosure around taxi drivers.

Unlike the Operation Augusta report, which exposed widespread failings within children’s homes in Manchester, the latest review finds no evidence of such endemic exploitation in Oldham.

But it concludes that some children in the care of Oldham Borough Council were still being abused.

Attempts to stop this abuse were, in “many instances”, successful. However, on other occasions, tries to intervene were ‘frustrated’, it says.

The report finds evidence that some children who had not been groomed before entering the care system were drawn into sexual exploitation through the encouragement of other residents.

A specialist children’s home for girls, Rivendell, was set up in 2007 to protect vulnerable young people - many of whom had been groomed.

For a year, it collaborated closely with the police and Messenger partnership, and staff worked night and day to try and prevent girls from leaving to visit predators.

“Nonetheless, it was evident that abusers continued to attempt to lure the children away,” the report states.

This typically begins with a phone call, leading to men collecting girls in cars.

Staff said that the victims told them they were first approached by younger men who would become their ‘boyfriends’ to build trust and later introduced to older men who would exploit and abuse them.

A staff member told the review team it was “all very organised”, adding: “It was organised child sexual exploitation.

“It was grouping whom all knew each other, whether from taxis, takeaways, diverse groups of Albanians in their takeaways… they knew what Rivendell was and would use their connections.”

After a year, funding for the extra support around Rivendell was reduced, which in turn saw the close links between the home and police diminish. Staff say this made the task of protecting residents “more challenging.”

In 2010 it was agreed that the location of Rivendell was “not ideal” and the presence of children, who were already being sexually exploited, could attract “unwanted attention from abusers”. Consequently, the purpose of the home became more generic, and it began accommodating children from across the borough.

In 2014 a former staff member alleged on social media that Pakistani men would drive around and wait for girls to come out of Rivendell and that care home workers were “not allowed to detain the girls”.

However, the review finds that other staff “completely disputed” this account and said they prevented girls from leaving with potential predators by talking to them and confronting men who came to the home.

A review of children’s homes in the borough in 2014 highlighted a case of a girl who was “openly accepting money for sex”. She was using heroin and had reported having sex with Asian men for money.

She had resisted attempts to protect her and had been missing from home on 215 occasions. “In a situation which is intractable, the police and partners are proactively pursuing all routes to improve her level of safety,” a report state.

Newsam and Ridgway state in their report: “There is evidence that some children in residential settings were being exposed to child sexual exploitation.

“Some of these children had suffered this abuse before their admission. There is also evidence that some children who had not been exposed to sexual exploitation were drawn into it through the encouragement of other residents.

“However, the evidence suggests that residential staff worked in a professional and supportive way with these children to win their trust and protect them, as far as possible, from further abuse.

“We have seen evidence that Oldham council would use secure accommodation to protect the child in some of these intractable cases.”

Sizeable portions of the report are dedicated to proving whether authorities, the police, council, and political leaders covered the activity of grooming gangs in the borough.

The review team conclude they find no evidence of a widespread cover-up of sexual exploitation.

However, in Sophie’s case, it appeared that the council and Greater Manchester Police were more concerned with covering up their failures - and compounded these failures with denials that did not acknowledge the harm that had been done to a vulnerable young person.

The review finds no evidence that senior managers or councillors looked to cover up the potential exploitation of children by local taxi services.

And the team were provided with no evidence, either through interviews or documentary review, “to suggest that there was widespread exploitation of children in residential settings in Oldham.”

Allegations that a BBC journalist was pressured to drop a story investigating the risks of child sexual exploitation in shisha bars in the borough were also investigated.

They found no evidence that the journalist ‘colluded’ with the council in not highlighting the potential threat posed by shisha bars. The story was broadcast in February 2014.

An official statement released by Greater Manchester Police said they only had two pieces of intelligence about potential child sexual exploitation, and neither of these was substantiated.

This was based on the response of a police sergeant who was asked to supply information about the media enquiry.

The review team said they believe the response was “not deliberately ‘spun’ to downplay the threat presented by shisha bars but stood for the view of police officers in the district at the time.”

“While there had been, during the period 2011 to 2012, several intelligence submissions in respect of shisha bars and evidence of young people at risk of child sexual exploitation attending these premises, at the time of the press release, the description was a proportionate statement of what was known and the potential risk these premises presented,” says the report.

“We have seen no evidence to suggest the messaging was to protect Oldham Labour party or that local politicians specifically led this direction.” This included the council leader at the time and current Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton Jim McMahon.

“There was, however, a strong belief held at a serious level by both Greater Manchester Police and Oldham officers, also shared by politicians, that the threats presented by shisha bars might be exaggerated by the media and used by far-right interests to promote their agenda.”

The review team said that there was ‘no doubt’ that during this same period, there were ‘legitimate concerns’ by the council and police that high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders could be ‘capitalised on by a far-right agenda and lead to the victimisation of the Pakistani community.’

“However, it is clear from all the evidence we have seen that the council and its partners in no way avoided addressing this and saw successful disruption and prosecution as the route to winning the confidence of all communities in Oldham,” they write.

“There is significant evidence that the council did everything possible to publicise the threat of child sexual exploitation.”

Reports went to council committees; bi-annual meetings were held with the leader, chief executive, cabinet members and the opposition leader to discuss safeguarding issues. The council introduced a training module on child sexual exploitation for councillors to attend.

This included the roll-out of performances of a play, “Somebody’s Sister, Somebody’s Daughter,” about sexual exploitation shown to more than 3,000 Oldham pupils across all the borough’s schools.

Then-council leader Jim McMahon wrote on his blog in 2014 that “anyone who shies away from accepting that in Rotherham, Oxford, Rochdale, and here in Oldham - and that this form of abuse is Pakistani men targeting white girls - is not helping the victims and nor is it helping the Asian community at large”.

He said that despite court cases being jumped on by far-right campaigners that were, in fact, “more of a reason to act.”

“If we don’t tackle wrongdoing, we give more oxygen to those who seek to gain politically by accusing those in the authority of cover-ups and failures,” he wrote.

The review team say they believe this ‘clearly refutes’ the suggestion that Mr McMahon intended to protect perpetrators from the Pakistani community but instead wanted to tackle it head-on.

In response to the report, Greater Manchester leaders have apologised for the failings by both police and child protection services.

Oldham Borough Council leader Amanda Chadderton said: “We fully accept the findings of this independent report.

“It highlights clear failings, where our services at the time were not good enough to protect vulnerable young people suffering the awful abuse. For that, I am deeply sorry.

“I can never fully understand what those girls went through, and I also know that an apology now will never make up for what has happened in the past.

“I do hope to er some reassurance that, as a council, we have not stood still since the review period.

“We have learned from reports conducted in other towns and cities across the country, and from changes in national guidance, and have changed the way we do things.

The way we work has already moved on immeasurably.

“That said, we are not complacent. We can and will improve further, wherever we need to.”

Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, said: “The safeguarding arrangements that were in place in Greater Manchester Police during the period covered by the review were not good enough to protect children from sexual abuse.

“I want to offer my sincere apologies to everyone affected by the events considered in the report. Our actions fell far short of the help they had every right to expect and were unacceptable.

“I am sorry for the hurt and ongoing trauma they have suffered because of what happened to them.”

He added that he intends to meet directly with Sophie and the organisation supporting her to apologise in person.

“However, I would also like to take the opportunity today to state publicly that I am very sorry for the failings in how we responded to her call for help; for how we did not record or sufficiently investigate the crimes committed against her and did not do enough to listen and support her during the subsequent reviews we undertook of her case.

“I offer no excuses but can assure you that our approach to tackling child sexual exploitation has vastly improved and is now a policing priority.”