Lost to the Wind
The Scandal of Safeguarding Votes Instead of Safeguarding Our Children
In February 2004, following the death of the 15 year old child, Victoria Agoglia, Greater Manchester Police launched Operation Augusta. Two months before her death, Victoria had reported that an older man had sexually assaulted her and injected her with heroin. The police believed Victoria had been involved in “child prostitution” within the South Manchester area and elsewhere (though they do not clarify where the ‘elsewhere’ is). By springtime the following year, Operation Augusta had identified a grooming network of older Pakistani-heritage men, in the Rusholme area of Manchester, who they believed were raping vulnerable children living in care homes. In the damning report that was later to follow, police confirmed that this was taking place ‘in plain sight’.
Within a year, the police identified 97 suspected paedophiles and at least 57 of their children victims. Many of the victims, came forward and bravely agreed to testify against their abusers.
As horrific as the figures sound — an organised network of nearly 100 predominantly Pakistani members of a grooming gang targeting and raping children in one the the United Kingdom’s major cities, MAGGIE OLIVER, at the time a Detective Constable involved in Operation Augusta, believed these numbers were just ‘the tip of the iceberg’. A reason for this was the absence of data. Councils from across Greater Manchester ignored requests and failed to provide her specialist team with figures. Maggie Oliver had this to say,
“We tried to get information from every local authority in Greater Manchester, but many of them refused to provide it...”
Separate to the issue of Councils withholding information, even the senior investigating officer of Operation Augusta later admitted that he also tried to keep the number of potential victims in check and the onus had been on the victims, vulnerable and powerless children that had already been repeatedly failed by the authorities, to report their abusers.
Yet despite the lacklustre effort from GMP and the unwillingness of the councils to co-operate, 97 potential paedophiles were identified and witnesses secured to testify. It is at this point Greater Manchester Police closed down Operation Augusta. Though both Greater Manchester Police & Manchester Council both claim to have lost the minutes of the meeting at which they agreed to shut down Operation Augusta, a frontline police officer involved in the investigation confirmed that,
“...the offending target group were predominantly Asian males and we were told to try and get other ethnicities.”
Other significant quotes extracted from official reports and the testimonies of police officers confirmed the significance of race in the investigation.
- officers were aware of "many sensitive community issues" around policing in south Manchester in 2002 and 2003
- impact of community tensions "clearly had to be considered”
The report, when it finally came 15 years later, found fears over race relations appeared to have played a part in senior police thinking when tackling grooming gangs comprised of predominantly Asian men.
Unfortunately, even after the initial failings were exposed and the subsequent cover ups confirmed, not a single police officer, politician or public official involved in helping facilitate the systematic grooming and gang rape of White Working Class girls by predominantly Pakistani, occasionally Bangladeshi and almost exclusively Muslim members of the grooming gangs. Events played out in Manchester in an almost identical pattern to elsewhere where these cover ups were exposed.
“Girls were lost to the wind. What has been the cost of all these lives? We will never be able to put a number on how many lives have been lost. I want the law changing so there can be retrospective accountability for people whose duty it is to protect the vulnerable. It’s knowing and deliberate neglection of duty…[those who were involved] should be charged with gross misconduct - it’s criminal - where is the accountability?” - Maggie Oliver
Moving on to Oldham
Findings from the forced inquiry into the grooming gangs in Oldham has confirmed that both Greater Manchester Police and the Labour Party run Oldham Council were involved in covering up the grooming and gang rape of the town’s children. These findings have emerged despite the Council being responsible for setting the terms of reference of an inquiry which severely restricted the times and locations that the investigators could review.
As news of the devastating findings began to circulate, the Leader of Oldham Council, Arooj Shah, and her officers immediately began repeating the tired old ‘lessons have been learned’ rhetoric. To most people, how lessons could have been learned remains a mystery for a Council that has been in constant denial from the moment the allegations against them were made.
Geraldine McKelvie
Having initially claimed ‘‘bare faced lies’, followed by running to the mainstream media accusing victims and their families of making up stories of abuse, their disgraceful actions even included senior figures in the Council identifying the employers of concerned members of the public and writing to them claiming they were far right activists and attempting to have them sacked from their jobs for speaking out against the grooming and gang rape of the town’s children!
Contrary to any lessons having been learned by an out of control Oldham Council and their in accelerated Special Measures Greater Manchester Police partner, every action of both organisations has been attempts to hide their role in the cover up and escape any accountability for their failings. They have even resorted to a vindictive campaign to discredit and criminalise members of the public through a joint operation, Operation Hexagon. This clearly unlawful operation targeted whistleblowers and secretly compiled dossiers on them in an attempt to have them arrested and prosecuted.
A Watershed Moment
Whilst the pattern of failures in Oldham is not too dissimilar to Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, Oxford, Manchester, Hull and countless other places, campaigners believe the increased level of hostility towards whistleblowers in Oldham is because the evidence of CSE in the town has uncovered direct evidence of the involvement of at least one senior Labour Party politician in the cover up. This is a watershed moment.
In the same way that members of the fake liberal metropolitan elite initially claimed the grooming gangs were a far right conspiracy and the children victims had either made up their stories or were willing participants in their abuse, so too are they now mocking those of us who are correlating the cover up with a desire to safeguard votes instead of safeguarding our children. Irrespective of their attempts to shift focus elsewhere, this is not the first time the link has been made. As part of the report investigating CSE cover up in Rotherham, the renowned investigator Alexis Jay OBE referenced how -
‘Labour-dominated council turned a blind eye to the problem because of their desire to accommodate a community that would be expected to vote Labour…’
In her extraordinary report, Jay refused to use the term political correctness and instead referenced what she believed was the underlying motive in why these crimes were ignored. As well as refusing to brand White people as Far Right racists who would take to the streets and burn down the mosques, she equally ignored the lazy racist narrative that the failure was a consequence of fearing upsetting ethnic minorities. Not surprisingly, what Jay referred to was buried as quickly as possible but it is still there for those that want to find it.
Helen Pidd
We now know that the grooming gangs are real. We know that Working Class White girls were raped and sold by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men. We know who protected then and even know why. The question I have is a simple one. Are we going to let the likes of JIM McMAHON MP (who is incriminated in using the funeral of Lee Rigby and ‘maintaining community relations’ to hide news of grooming gangs in Oldham), other Labour Party politicians and their Council Officers get away with what they have done?
And to avoid any ambiguity to the conclusions that I draw from having reviewed the evidence, let me be clear on what I believe took place is in towns and cities across England where children were groomed and gang raped this way. Labour Party politicians that control these areas decided to prioritise safeguarding their votes instead of safeguarding our children.
Do Not Fear Them. Do Not Fear Any Of Them
Raja Miah MBE
For the last 3 years, I have exposed Council corruption and the cover up of the grooming and gang rape of children of Oldham. Providing a voice to the betrayed, demonised and oppressed working class communities of my home town, I have used my skills and expertise to help hold powerful politicians and public officials to account for their actions. Despite being a Muslim of Bangladeshi heritage, I have been branded a racist and far right activist by those that seek to discredit me. The local newspaper, the Oldham Times, have even falsely reported that I have been arrested as part of a Child Sex Exploitation investigation.
The consequence of my work has also resulted in the endorsement of my murder by the leader of Oldham Council, Cllr AROOJ SHAH. The Oldham MPs JIM McMAHON & DEBBIE ABRAHAMS have attempted to frame me for crimes I did not commit and even police officers from a proven corrupt and paedophile protecting in accelerated Special Measures Greater Manchester Police have arrested me in a desperate attempt to silence me.
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