I missed this story from April of this year but it’s so rare to have a police force admit that they are mired in incompetence that it is a story I still wish to comment on despite the passage of time. The story appeared in the New English Review magazine and is about a case brought against Greater Manchester Police by young women who had been abused by Muslim majority rape gangs but who had not had justice or indeed a proper investigation of what had happened to them from GMP.
The New English Review, quoting from the Manchester Evening News and commenting (in italics )on it said:
The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police has admitted the force were “borderline incompetent” in their handling of the Rochdale grooming gangs.
Stephen Watson also said that officers working for the police force at the time “parked an element of professional curiosity” in the way it dealt with the issue. He said it was something he had been assured is now “radically different.”
It comes after GMP agreed to pay substantial damages to three victims. All were children when they were repeatedly raped and sexually abused by gangs of men in Rochdale.
Mr Watson also offered the women an in-person apology for the police failings in their cases – namely mistakes in not investigating the abusers, and often treating the girls as perpetrators and not victims.
The Chief Constable today (19 April) acknowledged that his predecessors had “failed” children in the past, and said that under his leadership, cases are dealt with very differently. (we hope; it’s not a police responsibility but there is the little matter of the un-deported perpetrators still roaming the Rochdale Asda, intimidating victims)
Mr Watson became the head of GMP in 2021. Police failings, which were highlighted in previous reviews of grooming gangs operating in Greater Manchester happened under the likes of previous chief constables including Sir Peter Fahy.
Personally I believe that GMP didn’t just skirt the borders of incompetence but fully crossed over the line with how it has dealt with its area’s Islamic grooming gang problems. The big question for me is has the GMP changed with regards to this area of crime? The rape gangs are still alleged to be operating, not just in the Greater Manchester Area but elsewhere. The big test for the GMP will be in how they deal with these contemporaneous cases. If they only concentrate on historical abuse cases, which can end up being notoriously difficult to prosecute as much of any physical evidence may long ago have been lost, then it will be a sign that things have not changed. If however the GMP suddenly start working on the current cases and current complaints and get results for these investigations then we will know that genuine change has occurred.
In my area the police have to all intents and purposes completely withdrawn from the streets. They continue to persecute motorists and persue easy money from those who are normally law abiding but as for any real police work or going after real criminals it just doesn’t happen. I haven’t seen a police uniform in my area for over two years and I am out walking the dog and walking to the shops every day. It is my honest opinion that a life of crime is now a reasonable career to choose, the work is easy to none existant, the rewards are tax free and the risk of being caught is practically nil.
@ Roy:
I know what you mean.
The Police will turn up on your doorstep if you have “upset” someone with a sentence, look, or word, threaten you with a hate crime prosecution and enter your non-crime hate incident on your (non)criminal record so that if you need an extended DBS your “hateful” nature will be declared (so you can wave that nice job bye-bye) but not for burglary, theft or even (some) sexual assaults (according to the BBC).
As another commentator on another site put it: “everything in the UK is policed except crime”.