Police investigating alleged child sexual exploitation offences committed against Victoria Agoglia are focusing on two prime suspects, the Manchester Evening News can reveal. It is understood detectives will hold talks with Crown lawyers soon regarding the potential for charges being brought.
Another man was interviewed this month for the first time by detectives but was later released and the case against him discontinued. However, police are also seeking to identify another man they wish to speak to in connection with an investigation that began in 2019. Two other suspects have now died.
Background of the Case
The 15-year-old, who was living in a home under the responsibility of Manchester City Council, died in September 2003 after she was injected with heroin by a man then aged 50. Two months before her death, she told social workers she was being forcibly injected with drugs and raped but no effective action was taken to protect her.
Her death was the catalyst for the exposure of the widespread sexual abuse of girls in the Greater Manchester area. It was her death which prompted Greater Manchester Police to launch the ill-fated Operation Augusta, during which evidence came to light that Victoria had been subjected to sexual exploitation and abuse for several years prior to her death.
Augusta identified 97 suspected offenders and at least 57 children believed to be victims. A review commissioned by the then Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, in 2017, and published in 2020, revealed Augusta was discontinued in 2005 due to issues over resources. A number of the men identified went on to commit, and be convicted of, sex crimes.
GMP 'Actively Investigating Two Suspects'
In May 2024, the MEN reported how five men at that time remained under investigation on suspicion of child sexual exploitation offences against Victoria. That was revealed as a new inquest into her death was opened at Rochdale Coroner's Court.
At a pre-inquest review hearing, it emerged GMP had launched a specific investigation into her death, codenamed Operation Bernese, in 2019 - running alongside but separate from other GMP CSE investigations.
Now, 23 years after Victoria's death, the MEN can reveal a new suspect was interviewed by police - one of seven suspects regarding her alleged sexual exploitation - but officers have decided to take no further action against him.
But in a statement issued this week to the MEN, a GMP spokesperson said they are 'actively investigating' two suspects. They said: "We're continuing to actively investigate two suspects relating to child sexual exploitation against Victoria, with one suspect being interviewed as recently as this month.
"This uniquely tragic circumstance of this case continues to present added challenges that detectives are determined to work through to secure long-awaited justice for Victoria and her family.
"We are acutely aware of the time this investigation is taking and the prolonged impact this is undoubtedly causing. We are ensuring we continue to update Victoria's family and the coroner to bring her loved ones closer to the answers they deserve."
Five suspects have been arrested or voluntarily interviewed on suspicion of a number of CSE offences against Victoria. They are aged in their 40s and 50s. The most recent suspect was voluntarily interviewed earlier this month.
Two additional suspects were never arrested due to them being deceased. One further suspect has not been identified. The status of the suspects now is that police have made a decision to take no further action against three of them and two remain under investigation.
At the opening of the new inquest in May 2024, Francesca Whitelaw KC counsel for GMP said there was a "current live criminal process". She said "significant progress" was expected to be made in the Bernese investigation over the coming six months, when a "consideration" of charges would then be made.
But two years and five months on since the opening of the new inquest and seven years since Bernese was launched, no one has been charged.
The only person to be convicted was Mohammed Yaquab, of Sussex Street, Merefield, Rochdale, who was charged with two offences of administering diamorphine and was sent to prison for three-and-a-half years.
Original Inquest's Verdict Quashed
The High Court quashed the verdict of an original inquest into Victoria's death held in 2007 at which coroner, Simon Nelson, concluded authorities could not have foreseen the tragedy.
Mr Nelson, in a narrative verdict, recorded: "Whilst the local authority and other agencies could and should have anticipated Victoria's propensity to abscond (and return), consume alcohol, abuse drugs, mix with inappropriate individuals and provide sexual favours this knowledge and these acts would not in my view amount to a real and immediate risk to life.
"No inferences can be made that the events from the 24 September were reasonably foreseeable. Victoria's death was therefore neither the result of a breach of the authority's protective duty pursuant to Article 2 and notwithstanding Victoria's dependency not by reason of a gross failure on the part of the authority to meet her needs, nor indeed by reason of any failure that would have had a significant bearing on her death. There was no breach of the authority’s protective duties under Article 2.
"There is no evidence of a gross failure to meet Victoria's needs that would have had a significant bearing on her death."
But the review commissioned by Mr Burnham in 2017 and published in 2020 found that social services ‘failed to protect her’. The damning 2020 report said the coroner's narrative verdict recorded at her inquest 'significantly underplays the coercion and control she was subject to' in terms of child sexual exploitation.
It also suggested the content of the report, following information gathered as part of the review, could represent new evidence. It found Victoria was threatened, assaulted and taken back to her residential unit 'intoxicated'.
Victoria's family was finally granted their request for a new inquest by the Attorney General in March 2024. But it cannot proceed in full until GMP's current criminal investigation is concluded.
Victoria, who was known as Vicky and used her stepfather's surname of Byrne, spent time in care homes across Greater Manchester. She had ambitions of becoming a hairdresser and a model.
The commissioned report said she disclosed she was involved in sexual exploitation and alleged rape and sexual assault. "While we found evidence of multi-agency meetings, not one of these occasions resulted in a child protection investigation to protect Victoria from significant harm," the report added.
"Although Victoria was cared for by Manchester City Council, a man who had been previously identified as her so-called 'pimp' was given permission to visit her in her accommodation three times a week."
Diary Recovered by GMP in 2019
In September 2020 the MEN revealed a diary written by Victoria had been recovered by police - 17 years after her death. At the time it was said the journal will play a significant part in the new inquiry into the abuse she suffered.
GMP became aware of the existence of the diary in May 2019 but only obtained it in August 2019. It had been in the possession of Manchester council.
Operation Green Jacket was launched by GMP in May 2018, aimed initially at re-investigating child exploitation in 2004/05. The scope of Green Jacket has grown as result of GMP and Manchester council reviewing historic files and speaking to victims and alleged perpetrators.
This has uncovered additional historic information and victims that were not seen by the original 2004/5 investigation. It means the number of victims has grown from the original 25 reviewed in the report commissioned by the mayor, and is still continuing.
In 2020, a Manchester council spokesperson said: "We have proactively worked with Greater Manchester Police to support Operation Green Jacket and share the determination of all involved to bring perpetrators to justice.
"We have shared the diary with GMP as quickly as we could within the correct legal processes. We are also assisting the coroner with inquiries.
"The diary - which parties were aware of at the relevant time - and all matters relating to Victoria are subject to a live police investigation and ongoing coronial inquiries and as such it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on the detail."
It is understood the council would refute any suggestion they had been sitting on the diary.
But a council source told the MEN in September 2020 : "Manchester council has been in possession of a diary belonging to Victoria. The police found out about it last year and it has taken a long time for them to get it. Questions are being asked as to why. The contents are horrible. It is very odd that it was not made available sooner."
In October 2020 a Coroner ruled Manchester council must hand over crucial documents about Victoria's death to her grandma. The council had launched a legal fight to stop them being released.
But senior Coroner, Joanne Kearsley, dismissed the council's application, saying it is "flawed" and "a backdoor" challenge to her previous ruling that Victoria's maternal grandmother, Joan Agoglia, is a proper person to have the material.
In a statement issued this week a spokesperson for Manchester City Council said: "We can confirm as guidance that all requested materials have been supplied and there are no outstanding requests."
Joan Agoglia first lost her adopted daughter, her second child Donna, to brain cancer. Donna's death left several children without a mum, the eldest being Victoria aged just eight. The child had been a 'mother hen' during Donna's illness, Joan said, always looking after her brothers and sisters.
Despite their grandma's protestations, the children were taken into care and Victoria became one of dozens of children in Manchester preyed upon by a paedophile grooming gang in the early 2000s. She never knew her natural father and social services decided her stepfather was not fit to look after her so she was placed in care and spent time in homes across Manchester.
At the 2007 inquest social worker Michael Godfrey described Vicky as 'a small, fragile-looking thing' who hoped to become a model or a hairdresser. He said: "When she was good, she was very good, but sometimes she would get the devil in her."
Simon Crabtree, representing Manchester City Council, said: "In the context of guidance there was nothing further the local authority could have done to prevent Vicky's untimely demise." He added: "Vicky clearly was a child who by conventional standards behaved in a way in which many children and young people would not behave, and in a way which parents would not, or at least should not approve. However that does not make her an unworthy individual, quite the contrary, she had many redeeming qualities. She was not 'bad' but misguided in her youth."
