The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester has admitted that the force failed over the Rochdale Child Grooming scandal and described the operation as bordering on incompetence.
Last week Watson met with some of the victims of the scandal and apologised to them for the failings of the force telling them
“It is a matter of profound personal regret that the childhoods of these victims were so cruelly impacted by the dreadful experiences they endured. GMP could, and should, have done much more to protect them.”
Chief Constable Watson, speaking on BBC Radio Manchester, said:
“The bottom line is we’ve failed children in the past, we simply did, there’s no beating around the bush.
“I don’t think people did it out of a sense of badness, I don’t think people did it because they were incompetent.
“But I think organisationally we were borderline incompetent in the sense that we just didn’t do things then that we absolutely do now.”
Mr Watson said that when he was a young police officer if a missing child was found with an adult, the focus was on recovering the child.
Now the adult would “as night follows day” be arrested, he said.
