Turned away by cops – and into the hands of predators
MINUTES after being turned away from Oldham police station for ‘being drunk’, 12-year-old Sophie was in the hands of vile sexual predators.
Incredibly, while she was still at the police station, she was beckoned by two men who asked if she wanted to get in their car and ‘chill’. Sophie said at that time she was ‘scared to go home’ so went with the men.
One of the men had gone into the police station to submit his driving licence to the desk.
It was the beginning a night of torment in which she was raped multiple times by men, most of whom have never been caught.
While the report found that authorities failed to properly investigate the crimes her, in 2006, it was also damning about the response of social services to Sophie’s plight.
Council staff accused her of being ‘prone to fantasise’ and ‘putting herself at risk’.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were told the names of two of her attackers but failed to charge either of them with a crime.
When as an adult Sophie complained to the council about the handling of her case, officers branded her as ‘litigious’ and told her too much time had passed for it to be looked into.
GMP also denied any wrongdoing and refused to admit failures to Sophie and her family, despite launching its own probe that identified missed forensic evidence.
These combined failures have meant she has spent the past 15 years fighting the institutions that were supposed to protect her.
One man, Sarwar Ali, was arrested over his attack on Sophie.
However, he was then released following a bail application. An illegal immigrant, Ali then disappeared. He is still at large. In May of 2007, Shakil Chowdhury was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison for his part in multiple rapes of Sophie.
During his trial Chowdhury named two other men involved in the rapes as part of his mitigation, but these were not followed up by GMP at the time, the report said, which is branded as ‘another serious failure’.
GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson said: “The safeguarding arrangements that were in place in GMP during the time period covered by the review were not good enough to protect children from sexual abuse.”
He added he intends to meet directly with Sophie and the organisation supporting her to apologise in person.
“However, I would also like to take the opportunity today to state publicly that I am very sorry for the failings in how we responded to her call for help; for how we did not record or sufficiently investigate the crimes committed against her and did not do enough to listen and support her during the subsequent reviews we undertook of her case.”