Child abuse report findings - GMP still face issues in fighting ‘devastating’ exploitation

Greater Manchester Police has improved tackling child grooming by treating it like organised crime - but still face fundamental issues in fighting ‘devastating’ exploitation. 

That’s according to the fourth and final reports into how authorities dealt with child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Greater Manchester, released today (Thursday).

Originally commissioned by mayor Andy Burnham in 2017, previous reviews examined how child abuse perpetrators initially got away with their crimes in Manchester, Oldham, and Rochdale. 

The final reports, from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and Ofsted, assessed how well GMP and councils approach investigating CSE today.

New findings reveal more than a tenth of the staff in GMP’s dedicated CSE ‘major incident team’ – which investigates serious grooming cases and assists regular detectives with their own child abuse probes – ‘are not trained to the level required to do their job’.

That applied to 13 of the 98 staff in the team, inspectors said.

The team is supposed to be larger, with 10 vacancies at the time HMICFRS went into the force.

But rank-and-file officers told inspectors ‘the force is increasingly relying on investigators from other teams to cover these vacancies temporarily, and it hasn’t replaced staff who have left’. 

GMP recruited retired detectives as ‘investigators’ to fill gaps in staffing, the review said.

Staff in that team also faced psychological trauma as many did not access existing support from GMP.

Inspectors also identified issues with sharing data between the police and councils to co-ordinate CSE enquiries; the amount of time it can take investigations to conclude; and a lack of training for staff carrying out ‘peer reviews’, an essential method for authorities to learn from past cases and improve their protection of children.

But the head of HMICFRS, Michelle Skeer OBE, concluded ‘victims and survivors should have confidence to come forward and that Greater Manchester Police will respond and actually investigate appropriately’.

The ‘areas of improvement’ for GMP

Specifically, Ms Skeer’s team reviewed all GMP records of 74 children identified in Rochdale as potential victims and survivors of CSE.

In some cases, they found failings in the way the force initially responded to complaints and how cops carried out investigations — meaning some victims’ cases weren’t adequately looked at.

In total, the Inspectorate ruled there are four ‘areas of improvement’ for GMP.

The first was GMP ‘should review its CSE major incident team resourcing to make sure that it has enough trained investigators and Home Office large major enquiry system staff to support investigations’, after finding 10 posts were vacant in the department, which rank-and-file officers told inspectors ‘the force is increasingly relying on investigators from other teams to cover these vacancies temporarily, and it hasn’t replaced staff who have left’.

Of the 98 staff in the CSE squad, 13 ‘aren’t trained to the level required to do their job’, the report added.

Investigators in the team are at risk of facing psychological damage due to the nature of their work, HMICFRS said, but noted ‘none had ever been given a psychological questionnaire or assessment, or offered enhanced psychological support’.

That prompted the second area for improvement, telling GMP to ‘make sure that officers and staff working on child sexual exploitation major incident team investigations access the well-being provisions available, including enhanced psychological support’.

Issues were also identified with the ‘professionalising investigations programme (PIP 4) investigator’, described as ‘a competent decision-maker and can provide advice or review support as required’ after cops ran into ‘problems getting information from the local authorities’.

The report said: “It should make sure the PIP 4 investigator holds regular meetings with senior investigating officers in the child sexual exploitation major incident team to provide overall strategic management of these complex investigations.”

Finally, issues were found in the ‘peer review’ process — where GMP officers, children’s social care, and health services examine cases from across Greater Manchester on how they can learn and improve child protection.

“One district reviewer was new to the role with no previous experience of case file auditing, so relied heavily on colleagues for advice throughout the process,” the report said.

“Several of the district peer reviewers told us that they weren’t assigned enough time away from their existing responsibilities to complete the peer review process.”

It recommended: “The force should complete a further skills audit of all child sexual exploitation major incident team personnel and put an updated training plan in place to make sure they have the necessary skills for their role.”

What has GMP changed?

Although four criticisms were levelled at the force, two ‘areas of innovative practice’ were also singled out.

Top cops were also praised for treating grooming like ‘serious and organised crime’ and employing similar tactics used to smash drug and weapons gangs, such as analysing data on when children aged between 14 to 16 repeatedly go missing.

That was part of a wider ‘cultural shift’ within GMP that says ‘investigating child sexual exploitation is now considered “everyone’s business”,’ the report added.

Another was GMP’s ‘victim care packs’ which provide personalised documents for CSE survivors, including an official apology from a senior police officer if appropriate.

Probes are now taken at a pace victims are comfortable with, but that can lead to ‘lengthy’ investigations, inspectors found.

Despite encouraging signs ‘in terms of how they investigate child and criminal exploitation’, Ms Skeer said GMP ‘cannot be complacent’.

She explained: “We’ve identified a lot of innovative practice but you can’t be complacent because of the nature of offending and you’ve got to always be looking to try and improve practice within the force.

“They have certainly put an effort into actually improving child protection and child abuse and child exploitation and how they investigate and making sure they’ve got the trained personnel in the right numbers working in the force to actually try and address these issues.

“But it’s also about trying to prevent, so understanding the information and actually working with partners to make sure you can prevent.

“It’s such a traumatic crime with lifelong implications for a lot of individuals.

"You can never be complacent.

"I think you’ve always got to look, certainly in policing and partnership, but actually how you can further improve practice in this area.

“So it’s never good enough, I don’t think.

"You can’t be complacent.

"You’ve got to drive standards up.”

More to follow - GMP chief inspector Stephen Watson, will be speaking at a press conference at 8am this morning (Thursday) along with deputy mayor Kate Green.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is believed to be ill and will miss it.

---

Do you have a story for us? Want to tell us about something going on in and around Oldham? Let us know by emailing news@oldham-chronicle.co.uk , calling our Oldham-based newsroom on 0161 633 2121 , tweeting us @oldhamchronicle or messaging us through our Facebook page. All contact will be treated in confidence.