Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Fiends were allowed to slip net and carry on vile abuse
OPERATION Shelter, the biggest probe into sex abuse in the UK, has been plagued by a string of controversies.
In 2015 it emerged that Bahmani Ahmadi, who admitted 18 charges including sexual assault and grooming, had been released in 2012 after complaints that he had sex with a girl of 15. The 22-year-old was subsequently convicted of the offence.
It has also emerged that a policeman was sacked for failing to investigate Ahmadi’s phone when he dealt with the 2012 complaint. If the handset had been checked, it could have revealed the extent of the fiend’s grooming. Instead, it was two years later that he was charged and jailed.
Northumbria Chief Constable Steve Ashman said: “It was evident that an officer who had an opportunity to investigate an individual offender hadn’t done a very good job.
“In fact, the standard of investigation fell so far short of what I would expect that we deemed it to be grossly negligent and he was dismissed.”
Chances were also missed to snare the gang exposed by XY in Operation Shelter, which came under the umbrella of Northumbria Police’s Operation Sanctuary campaign.
The gang continued abusing for three years after a convicted sex offender was spotted with drunken teenage girls, a court heard. Several addresses in Newcastle were identified as being hotbeds for the exploitation of girls. A dad went to one to find his daughter in the grip of drug mephedrone. He told Newcastle crown court: “She couldn’t stand, her head was flopping. She was unable to protect or look after herself.”
And in 2011, Abdul Sabe, 40, was seen ushering young girls into the back of a 4x4 by a probation officer who knew he was on the sex offenders’ register.
He and co-defendant Habibur Rahman, 28, were given warnings for cannabis possession but a police log stated “nothing untoward” happened. Abuse continued for three years before the gang was rounded up in 2014.