A national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs across England and Wales will place the historic failures in Oldham, Greater Manchester, under a stark spotlight. The investigation, forced into being after a political firestorm, will specifically examine how ethnicity, religion, or culture played a role in the responses of authorities who repeatedly let down vulnerable children.
A Pattern of Abuse Ignored
Concerns in Oldham emerged long before the term 'grooming gang' was widely used. As early as 2003, social workers noted girls from local children's homes repeatedly going missing, often found with the same groups of older men. By 2006, the problem had escalated, with groups targeting schoolchildren. One victim, known in court as Child X, was just 12 when she was first targeted. By the age of 14, she had been abused by an estimated 300 men and was addicted to crack cocaine and heroin.
Ruth Baldwin, then Oldham council's executive director for young people and families, warned in December 2006 of the "enormity of the problem," stressing these were not teenage relationships but exploitation by men in their 20s, 30s and beyond.
Operation Messenger: A Groundbreaking Failure
In response, Oldham launched Operation Messenger, a multi-agency taskforce involving the council, police, health services and Barnardo's. Praised as groundbreaking and award-winning at the time, a damning 2022 safeguarding review commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham later revealed its profound failings. It found the quality of casework by police and social care was "generally very poor," with a systemic failure to initiate proper child protection procedures.
The review found no evidence to support claims of a council cover-up to protect votes. However, it confirmed that while offenders came from various backgrounds, exploitation by British Asian men, particularly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage, formed a significant part of the caseload. Authorities were paralysed by the fear of fuelling far-right groups like the BNP and English Defence League, especially after the town's racial tensions during the 2001 riots.
A 2011 police memo acknowledged the "perception that there is a conspiracy of silence due to political correctness" while warning that further cases risked exploitation by extremist groups and increased hate crimes.
Victims Treated as 'Problem Children'
The case of Samantha Walker-Roberts epitomises the catastrophic failures. In October 2006, aged 12, she was kidnapped from a police station while trying to report a sexual assault. She was trafficked around Oldham and raped for hours by five men at the home of Shakil Chowdhury.
Only Chowdhury was convicted. Vital forensic evidence was destroyed or returned to him, and despite naming accomplices in court, police did not follow up. One alleged accomplice later tried to murder his wife, who told police in 2011 he had confessed to raping a 12-year-old. The Messenger team again took no action.
Walker-Roberts, now 32, spent years campaigning for an inquiry. She discovered neighbours recalled a "conveyor belt" of children arriving at Chowdhury's house, with at least one attempting to alert the council before his arrest. She says victims were seen as "problem children causing chaos" rather than children being abused.
In a perverse twist, the justice system sometimes punished victims. When Child X stabbed an alleged abuser, police pursued an older teenager who had introduced her to the gang. That young woman, herself a victim, received a suspended sentence and was placed on the sex offenders register.
Greater Manchester Police stated that the treatment Walker-Roberts endured was "far from the standard survivors can expect today," adding that complex investigations into historical cases continue.
The national inquiry, with its dedicated focus on Oldham, now represents a long-awaited chance for accountability. It will scrutinise not only the cultural factors that influenced the response but also how the very agencies meant to protect children viewed and failed the young victims in their care.
