‘Axing of sex crime unit is a step back’

THE detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police over the Rochdale grooming scandal has branded the scrapping of its dedicated rape unit a ‘nonsense’ and a ‘massive step back’.

Maggie Oliver believes the decision will effectively put rape cases on the ‘back-burner’, claiming it proves the force has not learned any lessons.

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 and has since become a vocal critic of the force.

She was later portrayed by Lesley Sharp in the BBC drama Three Girls.

Now she has spoken out furiously against the axing of the force’s Serious Sexual Offences Unit (SSOU), a move revealed by out sister paper the M.E.N. last week.

Police chiefs say placing rape detectives back with local teams, rather than in one centralised department, will allow them to work more closely with the community.

But several figures with close knowledge of the unit 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.

Maggie backed that view, adding she believed the decision was down to a lack of money.

“This is convenient for GMP,” she said.

“My guess is neighbourhood policing teams are stretched for resources and they have again decided to put victims of sexual abuse on the backburner.

“What message is that sending out? We are in the middle of a national inquiry looking at why as a country we have failed generations of victims of sex crime. And what do GMP do? They close down the SSOU.”

Maggie worked on a number of big cases while on the force, including on the Major Incident Team and Operation Span, the investigation into Rochdale’s grooming scandal that resulted in nine men being jailed in 2012.

She said 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.

It meant younger officers could learn from more experienced colleagues, spend time gaining the trust of victims and share knowledge, she said.

She is ‘absolutely, 100pc’ certain that sending those rape officers back into stretched local divisions will automatically see them swept up in investigating other cases, she added.

“I’ve worked on a division,” she said.

“Jobs arise on that day and have to be dealt with - prisoners in the cells.

“You might think at the start of the day ‘this is what I’m doing to do today’, but you walk in and there’s a been a burglary overnight and five burglars are locked up. “Those sex crime cases are going to go on the back-burner. The reality is it takes a lot of time and effort and commitment to gain the trust of the victim of a sex crime and those officers will no longer have that luxury.

“GMP know that full well.

“Victims will be sidelined and serial sex offenders will slip through the net.”

GMP designed Operation Span specifically because sex crimes had not been investigated properly within the local teams, she added, pointing out its botched predecessor investigation in 2008 had failed for that very reason.

“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,” she added.

“They are exactly the kind of jobs an all-singing all-dancing SSOU was put together to deal with.”

As sex crimes remain firmly on the public agenda, particularly in the context of the ongoing national child abuse scandal and the #metoo campaign, she said axing the unit was a ‘massive step back’.

“It would be like saying you’re going to disband counter-terrorism unit. Would GMP argue they’d be able to do equal quality of work in divisions to the work done by counter-terrorism unit?

“But they’re not disbanding CTU, are they? They’re not disbanding the traffic unit. They’re disbanding the serious sexual offences unit.

“It’s a nonsense. This is crossing another line when it felt we were moving in the right direction. It’s a massive step back. This is not ‘stand by and let it happen’ situation.

“This proves once and for all that they haven’t learned any lessons. They’ve taken it right back to where they started and worse.”

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 100pc of their time working sex crime cases, but has not received a direct response.

Maggie called on mayor Andy Burnham - who does not take operational decisions, but is politically accountable for the force - to urgently review the move, adding that it would ‘show how serious he is about addressing GMP’s failures’, a reference to the child abuse review he launched earlier this year in the wake of the Three Girls drama.

“Police officers working in that department - if they weren’t frightened would be saying this too,” she said.

“I’m speaking out on their behalf. This decision is about convenience and about budget.

“They can bluster and bluff as much as they want. The answer is not to close that unit. The answer is for the government to step up to the mark and resource policing properly.

“They all need to be standing their ground because that’s what the public want.”

When her criticisms were put to GMP, the force re-issued a statement sent ●●Former detective Maggie Oliver, who worked on the Rochdale grooming gang investigation, has slammed the scrapping of Greater Manchester Police’s dedicated rape unit on behalf of the chief constable, Ian Hopkins, on Tuesday morning.

“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.

“This commits us to working in a much more integrated way with partners, which is in line with the Greater Manchester public service reform principals.

“It also means placing as many officers and staff at a local and borough level as possible and only centralising capability where it is so specialist it is not cost effective to provide it any other way.

“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.”

Deputy mayor Bev Hughes, who oversees policing on behalf of mayor Andy Burnham, said: “The specialist unit may be closing, but the specially-trained officers remain, this time working in local communities where GMP believes they will be best-placed to ensure that victims receive the best possible service they deserve, and the public expects.

“By working locally, those officers will be better-connected to the community and the vital support networks available to victims as they begin the difficult job of rebuilding their lives.

“GMP successfully tested this approach in one part of Greater Manchester before extending to make sure it does what it intends to do.

“I fully understand the concerns that the public will have over this, which is why I have asked the Chief Constable to keep this under review and provide me with regular updates to ensure that victims of rape and sexual assault are supported fully in their hour of greatest need.”