WE CAN PROTECT YOU
Police pledge after sex grooming scandal
LESSONS learned from the Operation Shelter grooming gang probe will help police stop sex predators targeting generations of women and girls.
That’s the view of a top cop who has vowed officers will do all they can to try and keep vulnerable females safe in the future.
Seventeen men and one woman were jailed last year as part of Northumbria Police’s Operation Shelter investigation.
The probe targeted a network of predators who groomed troubled women and girls in Newcastle’s West End, then passed them around for sex.
But now the investigation, one of the most complex in the force’s history, is over, police have vowed to use all they have learned to prevent others from becoming victims in the first place.
And today Det Supt Mick Paterson has told how officers are now better than ever at tackling sex predators and identifying potential victims so they can be protected from harm. He said: “We can’t say it will never happen again. But I think we have got a much better understanding now. The environment that we are creating in the Northumbria Police force area is a hostile one for anyone who wants to commit a sexual offence, or prey on a vulnerable person.”
Northumbria Police’s Operation Sanctuary was launched in 2014 in response to allegations of sexual exploitation from two females. Subsequent investigations resulted in the launch of Operation Shelter, which targeted the grooming network in the West End.
Newcastle Crown Court heard how the men would lure their troubled victims to house parties known as ‘sessions’ where they would be plied with drink and drugs and passed around for sex.
Those convicted were handed jail sentences totalling almost 200 years in September.
However, after bringing the vile fiends to justice, police now aim to identify potential victims and look after them before they are harmed.
Now under the brand name ‘Sanctuary’ Northumbria Police’s work to protect all vulnerable people from exploitation continues.
And Det Supt Paterson explained that identifying those at risk so they can be cared for before they become victims is now a key priority for every officer in the force.
“Operation Sanctuary started with an enquiry based on one section of the community being preyed on by another section of the community. That was an investigation in the same way you would have a murder investigation or an organised crime investigation,” he said. “We have still got that hardcore team of investigators, but what we learnt from that is that there was an unknown that we now know about. We have learned how the victims can be identified.”
When someone potentially at risk of harm comes to the attention of officers, police work with social services and other organisations to keep them safe.
“I think we are very skilled now that when a young person is identified we are very very quick to do wrap-around care with them,” said Det Supt Paterson. “We look at everybody’s vulnerabilities. And there are vulnerabilities existing in domestic situations and relationships too.
“We are so live to everybody’s vulnerability that every single thing that comes to us is thoroughly investigated.”
Through the Operation Shelter investigation it became apparent that the perpetrators were identifying girls from difficult backgrounds and grooming them by giving them the attention they craved. Detectives believed the victim selection was calculated and deliberate, with the offenders choosing those they thought no one would believe.
However, Det Supt Paterson said this would be much more difficult for predators in the future.
“There were some very vulnerable children who came from challenging backgrounds finding themselves in positions and situations where they can be befriended by a male who will show them some attention and buy them gifts, and that gift was often drugs and alcohol,” he explained. “That relationship very quickly becomes sexual, but the sex is non-consensual. And then they are passed around other likeminded offenders.
“What we do now is identify those children and young people who are at risk and get care wrapped around them with police, charities and social services to keep them safe. It’s all about trying to identify those young people before they become victims.”
And when girls have become victims of similar offending and made a complaint, detectives are now highly skilled at taking evidence from those who may struggle to explain what has happened to them.
“No one should ever think; ‘No one will believe this girl,’” said Det Supt Paterson. “We have had Rotherham and Oxford and now it has happened here in our city, in Newcastle. It is our understanding that we weren’t skilled at the time to understand the accounts of very vulnerable young people.
“I’m not saying they weren’t believed. But their accounts will have been very lacking in detail and there was very little corroborative evidence. And when we did try to get accounts from them they were so frightened by their abusers that they didn’t want to disclose anything to us. If we get an account off a vulnerable young person, it’s likely to be incoherent, lacking in detail. We
now understand it’s a very daunting experience for people to give evidence.
“But we now have dedicated teams who spend time with them, gaining their trust. Very often they don’t believe they are victims and we have to break that barrier. What we have seen is when they do come forward, and we get disclosure, we are able to spend time with the victims and listen to their accounts.”
Operation Sanctuary was launched with a wave of publicity as police asked the public to support them and look out for signs of sex exploitation in their own neighbourhoods.
And gradually the people of Tyneside have started to help officers by being their eyes and ears, reporting anything that worries them.
“The public are far more live to situations where they feel a little bit uncomfortable,” said Det Supt Paterson. “In the past a lot of vulnerable young people were hiding in plain sight and people didn’t understand what exploitation was. We have had cases of the public ringing in concerns about children gathering in parks. It can seem very innocuous but the public are becoming live to the fact that these people could be at risk. We will also look at those places in our cities and our towns where these things can happen, like fast food outlets and parks, and work with the businesses.”
It is the force’s hope that more and more victims will be saved from the ordeal of abuse and consequently will not have to make statements or give evidence. Det Supt Paterson added: “What we are continuing to do under Sanctuary as a brand, and what we are doing as a force, is bringing everything to do with keeping people safe, looking after the most vulnerable people, the night-time economy, trafficked children, and missing teenagers who do potentially put themselves in harm’s way, all under one umbrella.
“There’s an investigative element who carry out complex investigations involving very vulnerable children.
“But we also have 3,500 officers out there every day. What we are moving towards is working with the whole force and all our partners to say protecting the very vulnerable is everyone’s business.”