Mps slam the ‘amnesia’ of cops over grooming probe
MPS have slammed the ‘amnesia’ of former high-ranking cops who say they do not remember the short-lived Augusta grooming investigation - as one parliamentarian claimed evidence of a ‘cover-up’ is ‘clear.’
They have also called for a full Home Office investigation into the way grooming gangs operate, as well as demanding a fresh inquest is held for Victoria Agoglia – who died, aged 15, after being forcibly injected with heroin. The calls also include better protection for police whistleblowers.
At a debate on the scandal organised by Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer, members of both main political parties expressed their disgust at the way authorities abruptly shut down the huge probe into child grooming in 2005.
The Manchester Evening News has reported previously how Augusta was closed after little over a year, leaving nearly
100 potential suspects to lie on file despite both the council and police knowing that abusers were operating ‘in plain sight.’
Its failures were revealed in a review commissioned by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, published last month.
Mr Stringer described a sense of ‘despair and outrage’ at the behaviour of both organisations, calling it a ‘gross failure in public policy.’
That included both the council and the police, he said, but told fellow MPs a particular concern was the way senior officers at the time – all of whom have gone on to promotions either in GMP or elsewhere - claim to remember little to nothing about Augusta.
“One of the many worrying factors about this report is that the social workers and more junior police officers have vivid and clear recollections of the operation,” he said.
“Two of the senior officers became chief constables afterwards, and their recollection of events is either nonexistent or hazy.
“I simply do not believe that someone who had been in charge of such an operation and received such awful reports would not remember - the junior officers have clear memories of how it was finished.
“That, of course, meant that the perpetrators, who were known about by the police and social workers, carried on, as the report says, in plain sight.”
Describing the ‘amnesia of senior officers involved,’ he praised former detective Maggie Oliver, the whistleblower who worked on Augusta and eventually helped prompt the mayor’s review.
“If there had been a different culture and stronger protections for whistleblowers, allowing those junior police officers and social workers to report such cases in the knowledge that they would not lose their careers, I believe more would have been done,” he said.
Senior investigating officer Tony Cooke, now at the National Crime Agency, said he had ‘cooperated fully’ with the mayor’s review.
Dave Thompson, at the time divisional commander and now chief constable of the West Midlands, also said he cooperated.
He said he had ‘no recollection’ of the operation, but insisted that it would not have been ended by an officer of his rank.
Other senior officers involved - who told the inquiry they either had little recollection of the investigation or did not respond to its authors at all - have not replied to our request for comment, including former head of public protection Steve Heywood and Dave Jones, who was head of CID at the time and subsequently went on to head up North Yorkshire police.
Bolton West MP Chris Green said it was ‘incredible’ that the review had been unable to identify which senior officer, as gold commander, had taken the decision to shut down the operation, adding: “The minutes from GMP’s meeting where it was decided to end Operation Augusta have disappeared-and, by amazing coincidence, the minutes from the council disappeared.”