Council ‘gave taxi licences to abusers’

A COUNCIL at the heart of a child sex abuse scandal handed out taxi licences to convicted offenders, including one who went on to attack a 14-year-old girl, a damning report has found.

Oldham council approved the licences despite knowing some applicants had been accused of sexually abusing teenage girls in the town.

A 2014 review identified five drivers with convictions, but only one had his licence revoked. The next year Moshraf Ali, who had been allowed to continue driving, sexually assaulted a 14-yearold girl as he drove her home at night. He was jailed in 2017.

Details of the case were outlined in a report published yesterday that details how the local authority and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) failed child sex abuse victims.

It documents how Shabir Ahmed – ringleader of a grooming gang in Rochdale, who is now serving a 22-year jail sentence – was employed by the council as a welfare rights officer and seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre.

Despite concerns raised about him and his arrest for the sexual assault of children, police failed to tell his employers. “If this had happened, it may have potentially avoided the tragic abuse of other children,” the report said, citing “multiple failures” by GMP and the council.

However, the report concluded there was no evidence of an institutional cover-up.