Grooming gang victims whose rapists are still walking free say no one cared about them because they were from poorer backgrounds.
They today savaged Keir Starmer‘s humiliating U-turn on having a national inquiry as Rochdale whistleblower Maggie Oliver said if one of the victims was the PM’s daughter then their abuser would be in jail.
Survivors Jade and Chantelle sat side-by-side with the former police detective as they recounted the horrific years-long abuse they had suffered with them both still waiting for justice two decades later.
Mrs Oliver, who left Greater Manchester Police force in disgust over their handling of the gangs, pointed to Jade and Chantelle as she told Good Morning Britain today ‘these kids didn’t matter’.
‘This has been twenty years of my life,’ she told co-hosts Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid.
‘Jade and Chantelle are two examples of thousands of girls who have been failed by countless professionals, chief constables, prime ministers, and home secretaries. Everybody turned away and blamed the girls.’
Chantelle was described as being ‘easy’ to be labelled by police as a prostitute and complicit, despite being groomed and raped from the age of 11.
While, jawdroppingly, it was Jade who was convicted of being part of a grooming gang and placed on the sex offenders’ register when she was arrested at her 60-year-old abuser’s home when aged 16.
Survivor Jade was jawdroppingly convicted of being part of a grooming gang and placed on the sex offenders’ register when she was arrested at her 60-year-old abuser’s home when aged 16
Former police detective Maggie Olive is flanked by survivors Jade (left) and Chantelle (right) as the trio appeared on Good Morning Britain today
Prime Minister Keir Starmer made an humiliating U-turn on a national inquiry into grooming gangs over the weekend
She served 14 months and now can’t even take her child on a school trip.
Jade at times struggled to hold back tears but stopped short of saying it would give her any closure to see her rapist jailed.
‘Then I did, now I think what’s the point? I’ve been suffering for 16 years and they are going to be sentenced for four years or something,’ she said.
She now has called for her conviction to be overturned but said ‘I’ve been let down so much, so having faith is hard’.
‘I got arrested from a 60-year-old man’s house [her abuser] and they didn’t arrest him they arrested me,’ she said.
It is a case that still makes Mrs Oliver break down in tears today as she called for ‘every police officer and social worker’ involved in her case to ‘hand their heads in shame’.
But she had little faith that a new national inquiry would end with their abusers finally facing justice as she took aim at the PM.
‘Keir Starmer does not want to do anything, so they are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do something,’ she said.
A review by Whitehall troubleshooter Baroness Casey is expected to conclude that years of warnings about abuse of white girls were ‘institutionally ignored for fear of racism’
In her 90-minute film Groomed: A National Scandal, investigative reporter Anna Hall spoke to victims of grooming gangs, including Jade and Chantelle (pictured)
Survivor Jade remains a convicted sex offender and cannot join her own children on school trips
Survivor Chantelle was groomed and raped by a gang in Manchester from age 11
Mrs Oliver called on Baroness Casey to lead the new inquiry, saying she is the only person she has faith in after the Whitehall troubleshooter contacted her to meet with some of the survivors.
She is today set to publish a damning report that is expected to conclude that years of warnings about abuse of white girls were ‘institutionally ignored for fear of racism’.
Mrs Oliver said the announcement of a new national inquiry was ’empty promises and words’.
She pointed to a seven-year inquiry published in 2022 that listed twenty recommendations that were yet to be implemented.
‘The other thing, the uncomfortable truth is the vast majority of these abusers are Pakistani-Muslim men,’ she said.
‘Nobody wanted to rock the multicultural boat. So now twenty years later public pressure has forced this. But those at the top still do not want to do anything about it.’
She added: ‘We’ve had an announcement about a national inquiry: the devil is in the detail. I’ve been involved in a national inquiry. Seven years, hundreds of millions of pounds, twenty recommendations still not implemented. What will be different about this?’
Jade was asked what she would ask the PM if he was here. She puffed out her cheeks and said ‘I don’t even know’ before she nervously started laughing and added: ‘I don’t even want to answer that if I’m honest.’
Jade and Chantelle were two of five survivors who recently appeared in Anna Hall’s 90-minute documentary Groomed: A National Scandal on Channel 4.
they told their stories of the men who took advantage of them when they were teenagers.
Jade met her abusers after she moved out of her mother’s home to go and live with her father, who she described as an alcoholic and ‘raging heroin addict’
It was her father’s drug dealers who would invite her to parties and offer her a place to stay.
She said the men would get her drunk and ‘make me feel special’.
Jade was placed into care when she was 14 years old. She remained in contact with the men who continued to invite her to parties.
In her interview, she showed Anna evidence of how the grooming started – hundreds of messages inviting her to various parties, which then turned into asking for sexual favours.
She said: ‘I have gone home with black eyes, ran up the road naked to try and get away and they have picked me up.’
Asked by Anna how many men abused her, she replied: ‘It is in the hundreds, but I try not to go there.’
In 2009, police became concerned about Jade after she had continuously gone missing from her home. They placed her on a police protection warning, which would force officers to investigate if she were missing again.
A few weeks later, Jade and a friend attended one of the parties. She told Anna she woke up to police surrounding her.
Jade was arrested and subsequently convicted for inciting sexual activity on a minor.
Less than a month after police had put her under a protection order, she had been arrested on grooming charges. She had turned from a victim to a criminal in the eyes of the law.
She served 14 months and was placed on the sex offenders’ register, leaving her unable to have contact with people under 18 – even though she was under 18 herself.
To this day, Jade remains a convicted sex offender. Her abusers have never faced criminal charges.
She said: ‘He is still walking free, having a happy life with his wife and kids.
‘I have never been able to experience a school trip with my kids because they do a CRB check. They still class me as a sex offender.’
Chantelle, alongside her brothers and sisters, was moved into care age eight.
By age 11, they were moved to Manchester, where she said men began appearing outside the children’s home.
She began what she believed was a relationship with a man aged in his 20s while she was at least nine years her senior.
He asked her to perform oral sex on himself and other men in his car.
Chantelle said her abuser gave her gifts of an expensive ring, clothes and a mobile phone.
Chantelle was targeted by a grooming gang in Manchester when she was 11 years old
When she bravely went to the police to tell them about the sexual abuse she had suffered, they confiscated her phone and ring. Police said Chantelle was a child prostitute and was putting herself at risk.
To this day, Chantelle’s abusers have never been charged.
A report that identified more than 300 young women at risk from Asian grooming gangs in Rotherham was blasted as ‘toxic’ by the Home Office.
Youth worker Jayne Senior helped author the report, having initially been tasked to investigate what was then known as ‘child prostitutes’.
Asked by Hall whether the report’s allegations were ignored because the perpetrators were ‘overwhelmingly British-Pakistani’.
Senior replied: ‘I was told on more than one occasion that I needed to stop rocking the multicultural boat. We were talking about children that were being exploited, trafficked, tortured, raped.’
The documentary also followed Mrs Oliver, who in 2003 was tasked with heading up Operation Augusta – a police operation into grooming gangs in Manchester.
Their investigation found perpetrators of grooming were almost exclusively Asian adult males associated with the restaurant trade and their crimes ranged from assault, to rape and manslaughter.
In 2004, she met with survivor Steph – one of 57 victims identified in the operation.
While on a car ride together, Steph had spotted a car she recognised as belonging to her abuser. A man who had imprisoned and raped her in a flat in Manchester for two days.
She then saw him get out of the familiar car, too.
Mrs Oliver returned to the station and searched the man’s car on the police database. She was then contacted by internal investigations, who asked why she had searched the man’s vehicle.
In a shocking revelation, she was told her team could not continue to investigate the man, as he was a serving police officer who was under investigation.
Later that year, she had to take compassionate leave due to her husband’s illness. When she returned in 2005, Operation Augusta had been shut down.
It was a decision that Greater Manchester Police came to later apologise for and has now made efforts to contact victims who were previously identified.
