CBB’s Maggie: I’ll reveal how police failed grooming victims
FORMER DETECTIVE PROMISES TO ‘DISH THE DIRT’ ON FAILINGS OF POLICE IN SEX GROOMING SCANDAL
DURING her time in the Celebrity Big Brother house, former detective Maggie Oliver plans to ‘dish the dirt’ on how police failed victims of the Rochdale sex grooming gang.
Maggie claims there is ‘far more’ information about the scandal than was broadcast in the BBC’s Three Girls drama last year.
The former DC, from south Manchester, has become an early favourite to win CBB. She has told the M.E.N.’s sister title The Mirror: “I am going to be talking about what happened. Far more than ever came out in the drama. That was a tiny snapshot of what went on.”
Maggie has so far been praised for her appearance in the CBB house this week, with M.E.N. readers hailing her ‘a strong woman’ and ‘a hero.’
She added: “The Rochdale case made me ill, it was the hardest two years of my life and I didn’t know where that journey would lead.
“I just knew I was going to give my job up.
“I was unemployed, I had to move out of our family home which I’d been in for 25 years and move into an apartment.
“But, I can look myself in the mirror and it’s restored my faith in people because one voice made a difference.”
In 2012, nine mostly Pakistaniheritage men were jailed for sexually abusing five white girls and then sharing them with other men across the north west.
Maggie has heavily criticised a 2008 internal report into the first investigation and quit the force to turn whistleblower in 2013.
A BBC drama mini-series Three Girls, starring Maxine Peake, covered the story when it aired on the BBC last year.
Maggie was portrayed in the programme by actress Lesley Sharp.
The former detective now hopes ex-chief constable of GMP Sir Peter Fahy will be ‘worried’ about what she will reveal during her time on CBB – and even adds: “I hope they wheel him in as one of the men on the show.”
Sir Peter told the M.E.N.: “I was very open about the failings at GMP and other organisations at the time.
“At the end of the day we achieved a successful prosecution which highlighted these issues to the whole country.
“I think the underlying issues are the failure of the criminal justice system, the abuse of the victims and the failure of the care system.”