Sex grooming: MP slams police over ‘snobbery’

Class snobbery by police against young girls from council estates allowed the Asian sex grooming gangs to flourish, the local MP has said.

Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale, said officers’ attitudes to victims’ backgrounds was one of a catalogue of failings by Greater Manchester Police and other agencies in their handling of the scandal, highlighted in the Serious Case Review.

Mr Danczuk said: “This highlights exactly the concern I raised earlier this year when I said there needed to be a change of culture within GMP in tackling child abuse.

“I have also said judgments were made against young people on council estates because of their background and class, and this report confirms this.

“The approach has been completely wrong. Senior police officers keep talking about deploying more resources, but they’re sending out untrained officers who cannot win the trust of victims. We need better leadership on this issue.”

Mr Danczuk said it was time to stop “endless inquiries” and for the police and the local council social services to get on with doing their job properly.



A “significant part” of the sexual exploitation committed against young girls in Rochdale should have been predicted and prevented, the serious case review found.

Five of six victims on whom the report focused were “clearly in need of early help and at times intervention” by safeguarding agencies for several years before they were abused.

The publication of the review comes more than 18 months after nine Asian men were convicted of the systematic grooming and sexual abuse of white girls in Heywood and Rochdale in 2008 and 2009.