Child sexual exploitation is a ‘real and ongoing problem’ that has become a new social norm in some neighbourhoods of Greater Manchester, a report out this morning concludes.
The independent Report carried out by Ann Coffey MP was commissioned by Tony Lloyd, the Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner, to see what has changed since the Rochdale grooming case in 2012 and what more needs to be done.
In it she recommends a radical new approach to tackling CSE to be led by young people, which recognises that the police, justice system and children’s services alone cannot succeed in protecting children, especially at a time of deep spending cuts.
“Police, social workers, prosecutors and juries made up of ordinary people, all carry attitudes around with them. This could go some way to explain why in the past six years in Greater Manchester there have only been about 1,000 convictions out of 13,000 reported cases of serious sexual offences against under 16-year–olds,” she says in the report.
She expressed concern that the Crown Prosecution Service highlighted that one victim wore cropped tops and that another had been described as a ‘slag’ by her father in cases that were declared “No Further Action”.
“This may reflect the difficulties of prosecuting these cases in court when prevailing public attitudes often still blame children and young people for their own sexual exploitation,” she will say.
The report found that CSE will not be tackled unless there is a sea change in public attitudes away from a culture of blaming children and young people for bringing about their own sexual exploitation.
“Young people are still too often being blamed for being a victim. We need to get across the key message that whatever young people wear and however sexualised they appear, they are still children and need our protection.” says Ann Coffey
Figures obtained from Greater Manchester Police as part of the inquiry reveal that many children are still being preyed on.
There have only been 1,078 convictions out of 12,879 reported cases of nine major sexual offences against children under 16 years old in Greater Manchester in the last six years
Ann Coffey was alarmed to see that the Crown Prosecution Service highlighted that a victim wore cropped tops and that another had been described as a “slag” in cases that were declared “No Further Action”.
This may reflect the difficulties of prosecuting these cases in court when prevailing attitudes often still blame children and young people for bringing on their own sexual exploitation
There were very high numbers of children and young people going missing and absent from home and care with 14,712 episodes recorded in Greater Manchester from January to September 17 this year
Concerns about the under-reporting of CSE. GMP figures on recorded sexual offences for under 18 year olds between June 1 2013 and May 3 2014 show that only 111 cases out of 1,691 were “flagged” on the police computer as CSE
There are 260 ongoing police investigations into child sexual exploitation.
This includes 174 recorded crimes, of which 18 involve multiple perpetrators.
Ms Coffey prioritised speaking to children and young people and victims during the inquiry and has put their unaltered voices at the front of her report. Some schoolgirls told her that they were regularly approached by older men in the street and urged to get into cars on their way home from school.
One girl yelled: “Leave me alone, can you not see I am a little girl. I am in my uniform.”
The girls felt powerless and that they had to accept these approaches as part of everyday life because it had become normalised.
The young people talked about the pressures they feel under, with the increased sexualisation of children and lack of respect for girls. They also spoke about their fears of speaking to ‘suits’ and ‘uniforms’ in the agencies that are supposed to protect them but which they feel look down on them.
Greater Manchester Police received 2,286 pieces of intelligence relating to child sexual exploitation in the nine months between March 2013 and January 2014 under a new recording system. Ms Coffey said this was evidence of higher level of awareness amongst the public and agencies since the Rochdale case, which should be built upon.
“The whole community needs to be involved and informed about trends and types of CSE in their local area,” she said.
Ms Coffey also called for CSE to be declared a public health priority like alcohol, drugs and obesity.
The report recognises that positive changes have been made by GMP and other agencies since the shocking Rochdale trial in 2012 in which nine men were jailed for grooming girls with alcohol, drugs and gifts before forcing them to have sex with multiple men.
It welcomes the fact that GMP now has a specialist CSE team in all 11 police divisions, an improvement from two pre-Rochdale, and has increased the number of dedicated specialist CSE officers from 12 in June 2013 to 39.
Project Phoenix, set up with the aim of developing a cross boundary multiagency response to CSE, has made good progress. But more needs to be done to develop sharing of resources across police and local authority boundaries if children at risk of CSE are not to be subjected to a post code lottery.
