Description
Later sexual abuse by notorious Rochdale grooming gang leader and paedophile Shabir Ahmed could have been prevented if earlier offending behaviour and the threat he posed to children had been properly addressed, a damning report has found.
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 failed to protect them.
The review, commissioned by Oldham Council in 2019 and written by experts Malcolm Newsam and Gary Ridgway, looked at the way authorities have dealt with child sexual exploitation in Oldham between 2011 and 2014, and one specific case dating back to 2005.
Among its damning findings, the review has uncovered that Shabir Ahmed worked as a welfare officer in Oldham unchecked for a year despite being accused of serious child sexual abuse.
Ahmeds links to Oldham and the council had been investigated as part of the review, which has uncovered serious failures in how authorities dealt with the predator.
The report has found that there was a significant allegation of child sexual abuse made to police in 2005 against Ahmed whilst he was working at Oldham Council.
This occurred three years before he was arrested in relation to the 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 the purposes of sexual exploitation and was sentenced to 19 years imprisonment.
In June 2012 he was found guilty of a further 30 rape charges and was jailed for an additional 22 years, adding three years to his overall prison term.
Ahmed, now 69, worked at Oldham 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 state they believe there were serious failings in how both the council and Greater Manchester Police investigated concerns in respect of Ahmed while 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 jigsaw identification of his victims.
However a summary of the case included within the report finds that as early as 2005, GMP was notified of a serious allegation of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Ahmed.
The victim, now an adult, also alerted police that Ahmed had also potentially had contact with a young child who lived outside of Oldham.
A crime report was not submitted on the back of this information which GMP said was in line with its working practices at the time. However, the review team says the National Crime Recording Standard in place at the time required a crime to be recorded.
GMP also failed to inform the local authority responsible for the child, and also did not notify Oldham Council which was then Ahmeds employer.
As a result of the disclosure that he potentially presented a serious risk to children, Newsam and Ridgway say a full assessment should have been undertaken to assess the risks he posed to any other children he may have come into contact with.
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, and consequently no crime was recorded and no further action taken.
When queried by the review team, Oldham Council was unable to find any record of being notified of these allegations by Greater Manchester Police.
And there is no evidence that GMP had notified the council about the allegations, so that it could investigate the risks he may have posed to children he could have been involved with through his job.
Oldham Council were also not involved in subsequent strategy discussions between GMP and Rochdale Council about Ahmed, and both the 2008 and 2005 allegations.
Even after Ahmed was charged with sexual assault at the end of September 2008, no action was taken by Oldham council to undertake a safeguarding assessment, or liaise 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.
Oldham Council was notified by the probation service, and given the profound child sexual abuse, this shouldve been a further opportunity to initiate a full assessment of [Ahmeds] circumstances but there is no evidence of this having occurred.
GMP requested copies of files about Ahmed and his family, which informed Oldham Council about the child that lived outside of the borough that could have potentially 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 she had also been abused by Ahmed, and GMP notified Oldham Council of the allegations.
The abuse occurred while he was employed as a welfare rights officer, but it is not known whether he had been involved with her family in a professional capacity.
However the report states that childrens 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 council was able to provide the review team with any assurance that the childs allegations and vulnerability were appropriately dealt with.
The review team conclude that there were serious multiple failures by both Greater Manchester Police and Oldham council to follow the procedures in place 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.
Further findings
The review also finds that a number of working Oldham taxi drivers had been accused of rape or sexual offences against children but kept their licences.
Two drivers who were alleged to have assaulted girls should have had their licences revoked by the council, and several known offenders had been granted or had their taxi licences renewed by councillors.
Following the Rotherham scandal, in 2014 Oldham council reviewed all the cases where licence holders had been accused of sexual offences.
There were originally five drivers identified 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 later assault, and the judge in the case queried why a licence had been granted given his previous conviction, which triggered a formal complaint to the council.
Following this the councils chief executive Carolyn Wilkins ordered officers to undertake a review of all licensed drivers, which were around 1,300 people.
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 in relation to two separate alleged sexual assaults, three years apart, on two young female passengers.
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 subsequently raped.
The Crown Prosecution Service had taken no further action, but this was the only detail that was supplied to the licensing panel.
He raised the matter formally with the-then chief constable of GMP, Ian Hopkins, in 2018 but did not get a response.
GMP has now confirmed it has commissioned a review of the content, application, and senior ownership of the forces policies on disclosure around taxi drivers.
Cover up?
Large portions of the report are dedicated to establishing whether authorities, the police, council and political leaders, covered up the activity of grooming gangs in the borough.
The review team conclude they find no evidence of a widespread cover up of sexual exploitation, and the review finds no evidence that senior managers or councillors sought 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.
An official statement released by GMP stated that they only had two pieces of intelligence about potential CSE, and neither of these were substantiated.
This was based on the response of a police sergeant who was asked to provide information in relation to the media enquiry.
The review team says 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 in fact 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, and the council introduced a training module on CSE for councillors to attend.
This included the roll-out of performances of a play, Somebodys Sister, Somebodys Daughter, about sexual exploitation which was shown to more than 3,000 Oldham pupils across all the boroughs 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 particular form of abuse is predominantly 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 was in fact more of a reason to act.
If we dont tackle wrongdoing, we give more oxygen to those who seek to gain politically by accusing those in authority of cover-ups and failures, he wrote.
The review team say they believe this clearly refutes suggestion that Mr McMahon was intending to protect perpetrators from the Pakistani community, but rather wanted to tackle it head on.
What the authorities say
In response to the report, Greater Manchester leaders have apologised for the failings by both police and child protection services.
Oldham 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 most 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, however, to offer some reassurance that, as a council, we havent stood still since the time period the review refers to.
We have learned from reports carried out in other towns and cities across the country, and from changes in national guidance, and have changed the way we do things as a result.
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 GMP during the time 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 that they had every right to expect and were unacceptable.
I am sorry for the hurt and on-going trauma they have suffered because of what happened to them.