‘Scrapping rape unit will let sex offenders slip through the net...’
FORMER DETECTIVE SLAMS MOVE TO PLACE SPECIALISTS IN LOCAL TEAMS
THE detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police over the Rochdale grooming scandal has branded the scrapping of its dedicated rape unit a ‘massive step back.’
Maggie Oliver believes the failures that allowed the Rochdale perpetrators to escape justice for several years could be repeated when GMP’s specialist team is disbanded.
The ex-detective constable quit GMP in disgust due to the way a victim in the 2012 grooming case – which she was involved in investigating – was treated.
Portrayed by Lesley Sharp in the BBC drama Three Girls, Maggie has become a vocal critic of the force.
Now she has spoken out against the axing of the force’s Serious Sexual Offences Unit (SSOU), a move revealed by the M.E.N. last week.
Police chiefs say placing rape detectives back with local teams, rather than in one centralised department, spreads their expertise across the force area.
The force says there will be no cuts to the numbers of these specialist detectives, and the chief constable has said GMP takes sex crime ‘extremely seriously.’
But several figures with close knowledge of the SSOU have told the M.E.N. that they fear specialist rape investigators will now end up doing generalised police work, losing the skills needed to gain the trust of sex attack victims.
Mrs Oliver told the M.E.N. that having a specialist central group of officers working together – using a database to spot patterns, trends and share information – was crucial to investigating complex sex crimes.
And she said she was ‘absolutely certain’ that sending rape officers back into stretched local divisions could lead to them swept up in investigating other cases.
She said: “I’ve worked on a division. Jobs arise on that day and have to be dealt with.
“Those sex crime cases are going to go on the back-burner. Victims will be sidelined and serial sex offenders will slip through the net.
“The reason the original Rochdale grooming investigation failed was because it was dealt with by divisions – and GMP recognised and acknowledged we needed more resources to concentrate on the volume of that kind of crime.
“They are exactly the kind of jobs an allsinging all-dancing SSOU was put together to deal with.
“It would be like saying you’re going to disband the counter-terrorism unit. It’s a massive step back. This proves once and for all that they haven’t learned any lessons.”
GMP have insisted the same number of specialist detectives will remain under the new set-up, but will work at borough level instead of force-wide.
The M.E.N. has asked for confirmation that they will all still spend 100 per cent of their time working sex crime cases, but has not received a direct response.
When her criticisms were put to GMP, the force re-issued a statement made last week by Chief Constable Ian Hopkins about the changes.
“GMP takes the investigation of sexual offences extremely seriously,” he said. “We have specially-trained detectives who work with victims to investigate allegations. We work in partnership with and provide financial support to St Mary’s, the best sexual assault referral centre in the country. We also work at a city and borough level with Independent Sexual Violence Advisors. This is all designed to provide the best possible support to victims of sexual violence. Policing has changed dramatically over the past seven years. We have responded to the challenges of having 2,000 fewer officers and to the changing nature of crime with a very clear plan for the future of policing in Greater Manchester.
“We have moved specialist detectives to a borough level, in line with our operating model, to work much more closely with those partners who also provide significant support to victims. The same specially trained detectives will be investigating sexual violence at a borough level.
“We have strengthened the governance around these investigations by dedicating four detective superintendents across the force to take responsibility for those detectives and the investigations in support of local policing.
“The reality is that there has been no central team investigating sexual violence for seven months.
“To clarify, this has not reduced the number of officers investigating serious sexual offences, it has merely moved their experience to help across the force area.”
GMP takes the investigation of sexual offences extremely seriously Chief Constable Ian Hopkins