Suicide car bombing in Pakistan kills 14 soldiers and injures 25 people
The attack targeted a military vehicle in North Waziristan around lunchtime despite a curfew across the tribal district to facilitate the movement of security forces, the intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
An initial investigation said 1,760 pounds of explosives were used in the assault, causing severe damage to houses in the area.
The wounded were 15 soldiers and 10 civilians, including children, the officials said. Pakistan's military gave lower casualty figures, saying the attack killed 13 soldiers and wounded three civilians. It blamed the incident on rival India, without providing evidence.
Footage of the blast in Khadi village showed bandaged children lying on the floor near shattered glass and debris.
A Pakistani Taliban faction, the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Northwest Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is home to several outlawed militant groups that frequently attack security personnel. Pakistan blames Afghanistan for giving them haven, a charge denied by Kabul.
In March, Pakistani analyst Abdullah Khan told The Associated Press that the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction was 'more lethal' than the Pakistani Taliban and was competing with them.
Khan, the managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, also said there was a revival of banned organizations like Lashkar-e-Islam, which operates from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, contributing to an overall escalation of militant activity in Pakistan.
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NBC News
5 hours ago
- NBC News
Political exiles fleeing Bukele's crackdown in El Salvador say 'history is repeating itself'
The fiercest voices of dissent against President Nayib Bukele have long feared a widespread crackdown. They weathered police raids on their homes, watched their friends being thrown into jail and jumped between safe houses so they can stay in El Salvador. Then they received a warning: Leave immediately. It's exile or prison. A combination of high-profile detentions, a new "foreign agents" law, violent repression of peaceful protesters and the risk of imminent government detention has driven more than 100 political exiles to flee in recent months. The biggest exodus of journalists, lawyers, academics, environmentalists and human rights activists in years is a dark reminder of the nation's brutal civil war decades ago, when tens of thousands of people are believed to have escaped. Exiles who spoke to The Associated Press say they are scattered across Central America and Mexico with little more than backpacks and a lingering question of where they will end up. "We're living through a moment where history is repeating itself," said Ingrid Escobar, leader of the human rights legal group Socorro Juridico, who fled El Salvador with her two children. "We've lost everything," she said. Bukele's administration did not respond to requests for comment. 'We'll have to leave this country' Bukele, 43, has long been criticized for chipping away at democracy and committing human rights abuses in his war on gangs, in which the government waived constitutional rights and arrested more than 1% of El Salvador's population. Activists and journalists say for years they have faced mounting harassment and threats from the self-described "world's coolest dictator," whose tongue-in-cheek social media persona, bet on bitcoin and tough-on-crime discourse has gained him the adoration of many on the American right. Despite 60% of Salvadorans saying they fear publicly expressing political opinions in a recent poll, Bukele continues to enjoy soaring levels of approval because violence plummeted following his crackdown on gangs. Escobar — one of the populist's most vocal critics — said that as her organization challenged the government through thousands of legal cases, police constantly surveilled her family, showing up outside her mother's house and her 7- and 11-year-old children's schools. "One day, we'll have to leave this country," she told them, hoping it wasn't true. But things have reached an inflection point in recent months as Bukele grows emboldened by his alliance with President Donald Trump, namely due to the detention of hundreds of Venezuelan deportees in a Salvadoran prison made for gangs. In May, the El Salvador government passed a "foreign agents" law resembling legislation used by Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua to criminalize dissent by targeting organizations receiving overseas funding. Shortly after, police detained Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer at El Salvador's top human rights organization Cristosal, accusing her of corruption. López denies the allegations. As police escorted her in shackles to a June court appearance, she shouted: "They're not going to silence me! I want a public trial!" Her detention came amid the arrests of several critics. On Thursday, Cristosal announced it had quietly evacuated all of its staff to Guatemala and Honduras, and shut down operations in El Salvador. "The justice system has been weaponized against us," said Cristosal leader Noah Bullock. "Nobody in El Salvador has any doubt that the government can detain whoever it wants and disappear them in prisons indefinitely." 'If I stay, will I die?' Escobar soon received news that her name appears on a list with 11 other journalists and activists targeted for detention. Escobar, who was about to enter treatment for sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, worried that if she was thrown in prison, she wouldn't receive care. Around a third of hundreds of deaths in prisons under Bukele were caused by a lack of medical attention. "I asked myself one question: 'If I stay, will I die?'" she said. In June, she and her children slipped across the Guatemala border, flew to the U.S. and then to another Latin American country. She looks over her shoulder every day. Many of the exiles asked AP to not disclose their locations, fearing they could be tracked down. Others who have fled were too scared to speak on the record, even anonymously. A couple flees Journalist Mónica Rodríguez, 40, and her husband, 37-year-old activist Steve Magaña, are in exile. They were among a handful of people who documented on video Salvadoran police violently quashing a peaceful demonstration. Hundreds of protesters, including children and elderly people, wanted the president to stop the eviction of their rural community on a road near his house. "It contradicted Bukele's discourse," Rodríguez said. "They were repressing people and we were the ones evidencing it." Bukele later posted on the social platform X that the community had been "manipulated" by NGOs and journalists, then announced the foreign agents law. Soon came the arrests and more people fled the country. Rodríguez said police showed photos of her and her husband to the community, asking where they were. Rodríguez and Magaña were already scared after masked police officers raided their home months earlier, seizing computers, cellphones, Magaña's credit cards and hard drives containing Rodríguez's reporting materials. The couple went into hiding, hopping between four safe houses in San Salvador before leaving the country. In June, the Association of Journalists in El Salvador reported that at least 40 journalists fled the country in a matter of weeks. 'We've lost it all' For some, including 55-year-old Jorge Beltrán, a reporter who served in the Salvadoran military during the civil war, it's a case of déjà vu. Between 1979 and 1992, war raged between a repressive, U.S.-backed government and leftist guerrillas. While there's no universally agreed upon number, historians believe tens of thousands of political exiles fled, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists. The U.N. estimates around 1 million people left the country over the course of the war. "I never thought I'd live through something like that again," Beltrán said. "The armed conflict paved the way for a fledgling democracy we enjoyed for a few years. ... Something was achieved. And now we've lost it all." The journalist investigating corruption in El Salvador for the newspaper El Diario de Hoy said he pushed back against legal attacks before going into exile. Beltrán was sued by a business owner with close ties to the government over "moral damages" for his investigation that uncovered evidence of corruption. He was ordered to pay $10 million by a Salvadoran court. Meanwhile, he said, officials constantly harassed him for not revealing his sources in stories about human trafficking and continued forced disappearances. He eventually received a call from a government official warning that police might come for him. "I recommend you leave the country. You're one of the 'objectives' they're looking to silence," Beltrán said he was told. "You can leave journalism, but they'll make you pay for what you already did." He left El Salvador alone with two bags of medicine for high blood pressure and his war injuries, a book about government repression and two letters from his wife and daughter saying they hoped they would meet again one day. With bags still packed in another Central American country, he said he wants to seek asylum in Canada. Noting Trump and Bukele are allies, it's the only place in the hemisphere he thinks he will feel safe.
The Independent
9 hours ago
- The Independent
For hope on climate change, UN chief is putting his faith in market forces
For nearly a decade United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been using science to warn about evermore dangerous climate change in increasingly urgent tones. Now he's enlisting something seemingly more important to the world's powerful: Money. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Guterres hailed the power of market forces in what he repeatedly called 'a battle' to save the planet. He pointed to two new UN reports showing the plummeting cost of solar and wind power and the growing generation and capacity of those green energy sources. He warned those who cling to fossil fuels that they could go broke doing it. ' Science and the economy show the way,' Guterres said in a 20-minute interview in his 38th-floor conference room overlooking the New York skyline. 'What we need is the political will to take the decisions that are necessary in regulatory frameworks, in financial aspects, in other policy dimensions. Governments need to take decisions not to be an obstacle to the natural trend to accelerate the renewables transition.' That means by the end of the fall governments need to come up with new plans to fight climate change that are compatible with the global goal of limiting warming and ones that apply to the their entire economy and include all greenhouse gases, Guterres said. But don't expect one from the United States. President Donald Trump has pulled out of the landmark Paris climate agreement, slashed efforts to boost renewable energy and made fossil fuels a priority, including the dirtiest one in terms of climate and health, coal. 'Obviously, the (Trump) administration in itself is an obstacle, but there are others. The government in the U.S. doesn't control everything,' Guterres said. Sure, Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, but many states and cities are trying to live up to the Biden administration's climate-saving goals by reducing the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that release heat-trapping gases, Guterres said. Invest in fossil fuels, risk stranded assets? 'People do not want to lose money. People do not want to make investments in what will become stranded assets,' Guterres said. 'And I believe that even in the United States, we will go on seeing a reduction of emissions, I have no doubt about it.' He said any new investments in exploring for new fossil fuel deposits 'will be totally lost' and called them 'just a waste of money.' 'I'm perfectly convinced that we will never be able, in the history of humankind, to spend all the oil and gas that was already discovered,' Guterres said. But amid the hope of the renewable reports, Guterres said the world is still losing its battle on climate change, in danger of permanently passing 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degree Fahrenheit) warming since preindustrial times. That threshold is what the Paris agreement set up as a hoped-for global limit to warming 10 years ago. Many scientists have already pronounced the 1.5 threshold dead. Indeed, 2024 passed that mark, though scientists say it requires a 20-year average, not a single year, to consider the threshold breached. A scientific study from researchers who often work with the U.N. last month said the world is spewing so much carbon dioxide that sometime in early 2028, a couple years earlier than once predicted, passing the 1.5 mark will become scientifically inevitable. Guterres: 'We need to go on fighting' even as it looks bleak Guterres hasn't given up on the 1.5 degree goal yet, though he said it looks bad. 'We see the acceleration of different aspects of climate change., rising seas, glaciers melting, heat waves, storms of different kinds," he said. 'We need to go on fighting,' he said. 'I think we are on the right side of history.' Guterres, who spoke to AP after addressing the U.N. Security Council on the Israeli occupation of Gaza, said there's only one way to solve that seemingly intractable issue: An immediate ceasefire, a release of all remaining hostages, access for humanitarian relief and 'paving the way for a serious political process leading to the two-state solution. Some people say the two-state solution is now becoming extremely difficult. Even some saying it's impossible. But the question is, what is the alternative?' Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are all crises, Guterres said, but climate change is an existential problem for the entire planet. And he said people don't realize how climate-caused droughts and extreme weather can feed poverty and terrorism. He pointed to the Sahel as an example. 'We see that people live in worse and worse conditions, less and less capacity to grow their crops, less and less capital,' he said. 'And this is largely due to climate change.' 'Everything is interlinked: Climate change, artificial intelligence, geopolitical divides, the problems of inequality and injustice,' Guterres said. 'And we need to make sure that we make progress in all of them at the same time.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Scottish Sun
2 days ago
- Scottish Sun
My girl, 12, was groomed & raped by 50 Asian men for 6 years…they'd climb through her bedroom window but cops blamed HER
Louise Hopwood's daughter was taken off her because of grooming gangs but the abuse got even worse in the care homes 'I WAS HELPLESS' My girl, 12, was groomed & raped by 50 Asian men for 6 years…they'd climb through her bedroom window but cops blamed HER 'DO you know how old she is?!' Louise Hopwood could barely contain her anger when an older Asian male called her mobile and asked for her 12-year-old daughter. Advertisement 9 Louise Hopwood with daughter Jamie Leigh Jones, a grooming gang survivor Credit: Glen Minikin 9 Jamie as a youngster before grooming gangs ensnared her Credit: Glen Minikin 9 Police shockingly published mugshot of Jamie around calling her a 'teen yob' knowing she was being abused by gangs Credit: GMP Shocked, she told the man she would call the police if he ever contacted her or her daughter Jamie Leigh Jones again. Little did she know that one ominous phone call would be the start of an unrelenting nightmare, where Jamie – now 28 - would spend the next six years of her life being groomed, drugged, raped and passed around over 50 older Asian men in Oldham, Greater Manchester. OMINOUS PHONE CALL Police and social services would let the family down at every turn – despite Jamie being the most reported missing child the area had ever seen. And mum-of-four Louise, now 48, would have to watch; heartbroken and helpless as her daughter was taken off her and put into care, where the abuse worsened and a never-ending stream of rapists from the town's Pakistani, Bengali and Kurdish communities, were given easy access to sex traffic the then teen around the North. Advertisement Men would climb into her bedroom window in care homes while staff would turn a blind eye or even drop her off to meet abusers and buy her a McDonald's to 'keep quiet'. Police found Jamie being raped but put her in handcuffs, labelled her a prostitute and even circulated her mugshot as a young teen calling her a 'yob'. LABELLED A 'YOB' 'It was like they took a piece of my heart away when they took Jamie into care,' tearful Louise told The Sun. 'I knew she wasn't safe but I couldn't do anything to stop it. I'd see cars picking her up - I'd call the police, I'd call social services - but it was like shouting into a void.' Advertisement Jamie's grooming hell began when her family moved to Oldham for a new start and she was placed in a PRU school due to poor attendance issues. An older girl at the school befriended her, promising to 'look after her' and introduced her to an older Asian male, who showered Jamie with gifts – money, cigarettes and alcohol. 'She came round to my house with Jamie and she said 'Don't worry I'll look after her,'' Louise said. ALONE & VULNERABLE 'I did think, 'Why does a 15 year old want to hang around with a 12 year old?' but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Advertisement 'I let her go out with her because I wanted to meet new friends, we were new to the area and she didn't know anybody. 'Looking back, I think the girl had been told to recruit a younger girl. The sick fact is the girls stop being desirable to these men when they reach 15/16 - they want them younger. 'Jamie didn't have any friends and I think that made her vulnerable.' 9 Louise says she was 'heartbroken' when authorities took Jamie off her - only for the abuse to worsen Credit: Glen Minikin Advertisement 9 Louise with Jamie around the time of the grooming Credit: Glen Minikin 9 Jamie age 12, the age she was when she was first raped by sick groomers Credit: Glen Minikin Not long after Jamie's first meeting with the man who would go on to groom and rape her, Louise received the brazen phone call. 'I was kind of panicked, I was just so shocked,' she said. Advertisement 'I answered the phone and it was an older Asian man asking for my daughter and I said, 'You sound like a fully grown man, what are you ringing my daughter for? Do you know how old she is? She's 12. 'And I threatened him, I said if he rings us again, I will phone the police. I never got a phone call from him again after that.' What Louise didn't know at the time is that the calculated groomer immediately bought Jamie her own mobile phone, and told her chillingly 'Don't show your mum.' CYCLE OF ABUSE Jamie, who bravely waived her anonymity and told her story for the first time here, says she was soon sucked into a harrowing cycle of abuse, where she was plied with booze and drugs and raped for the first time a few weeks later, age 12 in her abuser's car. Advertisement From then, Jamie would go missing almost every day – failing to return from school and coming back in the early hours after being used and abused by the gangs. 'It became nearly a daily occurrence where she'd go to school and not come back," Louise said. 'Social services were involved at that time because she was refusing to go to school, so I couldn't keep her off. 'They were paying for a taxi to take her to and from school but she'd never come home. Advertisement 'I'd ring them and tell them she hadn't come back, and they'd say, 'Well if she's not back by the last bus, report her as missing'. 'I would wait until the last bus at 10.45pm then report her missing. 'Every day I reported her missing. The police would come round, do the same rigmarole, looking around my house, asking for a description of Jamie, any distinguishing marks, I'd go through it all again and again. It felt out of my control. I tried everything. Social services said at one point she [Jamie] was the most reported missing girl in Oldham Louise Hopwood, Jamie's mum 'And then they'd go away and do nothing. Advertisement 'I'd just had a young baby, so I couldn't leave the house, I would just sit and worry.' Louise said she tried everything to keep Jamie safe and begged social services and police for help, but they would tell her just to put her 'foot down' or that Jamie was making the "wrong lifestyle choices". 'Sometimes Jamie would run out the house, I'd try to stop her, I'd follow her to the top step and I could see the car park and they [the groomers] were picking her up at the car park," she said. 'Straight away, I'd phone up the police, give the make and model and registration of the car and I naively think that she'd be home within an hour. Advertisement 'No, she'd come home at four o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, drunk, drugged up. 'It was hard. I'd have to make sure that she was okay, that she was sleeping on her side, that she's wasn't sick in her sleep. 'And then the same thing happened again and again and again. NOWHERE TO TURN 'I'd lock the windows. I'd take her phone off her. I'd have the keys to the front door hidden under my pillow. Advertisement 'At the time, I didn't know about grooming gangs, I just knew something wasn't right with these older men wanting to be with my daughter. 'I used to talk to Jamie's friends so I started to realise what was going on. Eventually I found out she had been raped and I tried to get help. I went to the police, I went to social services. 'It felt out of my control. I tried everything. 'Social services said at one point she was the most reported missing girl in Oldham.' Advertisement Harrowingly, Louise believes she has blocked out some of the details of her daughter's abuse from her mind, as she struggled to come to grips with it. 'I know Jamie was gang raped, because we've talked about it over the years,' Louise said. 'And it's in her police and social services files that I reported it. 'But I can't remember her telling me that she'd been gang raped, and I can't remember reporting it. Advertisement 'I honestly think I blocked it out of my mind because it's something that a parent can't deal with. I can't face it.' 9 Jamie said care home staff turned a blind eye to the abuse Credit: Glen Minikin 9 One time Jamie had 60 Asian men call her in one night asking for sex Credit: Glen Minikin 9 Jamie Leigh and her mum both want to help other survivors and parents Credit: Glen Minikin Advertisement Jamie was sent to live with another family member – against Louise's wishes – and began getting in trouble with the police. One time Jamie remembers how she was given a new phone and the next day received calls from over 50 Asian men, all begging her to meet up with them and have sex. In one shocking episode, from when she was 14, police found her being raped by an illegal immigrant in an industrial estate but put her in handcuffs and arrested her for prostitution. NAMED AND SHAMED Then when Jamie was 14, Greater Manchester Police blasted a mugshot of her in local and national media after she was given an ASBO, despite knowing she was a vulnerable child who had reported rapes. Advertisement A quote from a police chief at the time that ran alongside Jamie's name and photo said 'teen yobs would be driven from' the town centre. Louise said she was "fuming" when she saw it – and the publicity it generated made already at-risk Jamie even more unsafe. 'They put her face in the newspapers and on TV knowing she was at high risk of exploitation and high risk of death,' Louise said. 'They called her a 'dirty diva'. I was fuming. It wasn't safe for Jamie. Advertisement 'I think they wanted to take her voice away, discredit her and discredit me Louise Hopwood 'I felt frightened for her because the comments I was reading were absolutely horrendous. People wanted to string her up. 'People were stopping and shouting at her in the street. "I believe police did that because she was making complaints that she was being groomed. 'I think they wanted to take her voice away, discredit her and discredit me. Advertisement 'So now she's been criminalised, she hasn't got a voice anymore, she can't speak. 'They do it to whistleblowers, they take their voice away by calling them racists. 'They had no reason to put her face everywhere. There were loads of kids getting ASBOS, why did they pick her. 'It was absolutely disgusting.' Advertisement PLACED IN CARE A judge ordered Jamie to be placed in a young offender's facility for her own safety, and after this she was taken to a series of three care homes in Oldham, where the abuse from the grooming gangs worsened. Jamie was told she wasn't allowed to visit her mother's home because it would place her little brother at risk, even though both Jamie and her mum say she was always a loving sister and would never harm him. 'I disagreed with Jamie being taken from me,' Louise said. 'I wanted her to live with me so I knew it was going on, so I could try and keep on top of what was happening. Advertisement 'She did better at my house even though she was still going missing. 'But after she was taken from me, things got worse. It was basically easier access for the grooming gangs. 'NO CONTROL' 'They were driving outside the care homes and picking girls up, waiting for girls to walk from the care homes and pulling them over, offering them drink, offering them money, drugs, everything. 'I just felt I'd lost everything, I had no control. Advertisement 'I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know if she was missing. I was constantly worried and on edge all the time because I didn't know if she was safe. 'I used to close my eyes at night time and I used to have visions of Jamie dead and lying in a gutter. And I can still see that now, it haunts me. 'I would visit her at the care home and social workers told me to back off. 'They said the work that they were trying to do with her, I was spoiling it and I need to back off. Advertisement 'But I kept going. I used to ring the homes up to see if she was back home on a night and if she wasn't back I'd report her missing.' 'NOWHERE TO TURN' Jamie, now firmly in the grips of the evil grooming gangs, said she felt utterly alone in the world when she was put into care. 'They took everything away from me and that caused me a lot of pain,' she said. 'I had nowhere to turn, no-one. They made sure that I had nowhere to turn.' Advertisement Between 2011 and 2015, Jamie and her mum had reported four rapes to Greater Manchester Police, but no action was taken against any of the perpetrators. Jamie says she eventually lost all trust in authorities and stopped reporting anything. FIGHT FOR JUSTICE Louise carried on gathering what information she could and passing to police in the hope they would take action. She gave them the login to Jamie's Facebook page, full of messages from sick predators – as well as passing on information she learnt from Jamie's friends. Advertisement In recent years, both Jamie and her mother have given evidence to Operation Sherwood, a GMP investigation into cases of historic child sexual exploitation in Oldham, and so far this year 12 men have been arrested in connection with the probe. However no men were arrested at the time of the offences against Jamie. 'I haven't got a clue why it's taken so long for arrests,' she said. 'I gave them enough information to arrest at the time but it was ignored. It's 15 years too late. How much evidence has been lost? Advertisement 'They left it open for more girls to be abused and that's unforgivable.' Louise and Jamie said the grooming and way they were treated by authorities has taken a huge toll on their family and relationships. 'FAILED BY SERVICES' Recently they've painstakingly gone through copies of Jamie's social services file, in an emotional bid to try and piece together what happened and figure out what went wrong. 'We've been failed by services,' Louise said. Advertisement 'It's affected all our family relationships. Her older brother felt helpless, every lad who has younger sister always want to make sure they're safe. So he feels he couldn't protect her or he let her down. He's struggling. 'It's took a toll on my and Jamie's relationship, we've had our ups and downs, she has blamed me for things, it's been rocky. 'It's awful for the survivor of course, but it's bad for everyone around them too 'We've been through all the reports from social services together. It was hard and it made us both angry. Advertisement 'I went to every meeting without fail and the one meeting I didn't go to, and they put block capital letters that I didn't turn up because I was waiting for a TV repair. Making out I put the TV priority over my daughter. 'I've been to all these meetings. I was at the care home all the time. I listened to everything that they were saying. I did everything they said and it never helped. Authorities respond Greater Manchester Police said: 'We have fully accepted our past failings in tackling this horrific abuse and are working with a number of survivors, who have placed their faith in the GMP of today and are supporting our active retrospective investigations. 'These are long and complex investigations, but our commitment is unwavering, and we will not allow passage of time to be a hindrance. 'HMICFRS and Ofsted published a report last week highlighting significant improvements we have made in how we protect children, respond to abuse, and investigate non-recent cases of CSE. 'GMP remains focused on listening to survivors and advancing our effective practice still further. We owe it both to those abused in the past and to our children today to sustain this most pressing of priorities, and we continue to give our commitment to do just that. 'We are actively investigating and supporting Jamie as we progress her case. While we understand that the impact of her past experience cannot be undone, we are confident that victims' experiences today would be significantly improved compared to those of previous years." Oldham Council said: "I want to commend Jamie Leigh for her extraordinary courage in speaking out and sharing her story. Her bravery is not only deeply moving but plays a vital role in ensuring that survivors are heard, and that real change continues to happen. "Across the country, councils, the police, and other agencies failed those affected by child sexual exploitation in the past. Oldham was no exception and we apologise again to survivors and their families. "We also recognise that these horrific crimes have not disappeared, but we are more determined than ever to root out those who abuse and exploit children. We will not rest until every child is safe and those responsible are held fully to account. "Oldham is absolutely committed to learning from the past. Thanks in no small part to the tenacity of survivors like Jamie Leigh, we are leading the way in tackling child sexual exploitation, putting survivors at the heart of our efforts, and doing everything in our power to ensure the mistakes of the past are never repeated. "We welcome both local and national inquiries, and we are clear that survivors must be at the centre of this process. Their voices are essential to building a safer future for every child." "I never stopped fighting yet I feel like I constantly have to defend myself. 'It's hard to admit but I do feel like a bad mum. I carry a lot of guilt. But I did the best I could. Advertisement 'I think if I had the right support, Jamie would have been better off with me, in my home. 'I'm not saying I was a perfect mum, but I have always been a loving mother and when they took Jamie away from me she had no one. 'And they took her to an even worse situation where the groomers had free reign.' Louise believes that the police officers who failed Jamie should be prosecuted and there should mandatory training for all officers on how to deal with child sexual exploitation. Advertisement BROKEN SYSTEM 'Yes they should be prosecuted because they shouldn't treat anybody like that,' she said. 'They see a child being raped and then say she's a prostitute? It's wrong. 'There needs to be some sort of public consequence so that these people in the services know that they can't get away with it in the future.' While Jamie was in care, Louise tried to set up a parent's group for other families who had been affected by grooming, backed by police – but no one turned up. Advertisement She believes that police who had promised to advertise the event never did, although she has no proof of this. But she's now committed to helping parents of sexual abuse survivors past and present and has set up a group in Oldham called Parents Matter. Mum's heartbreaking poem Deperate Louise wrote this poem to try and put her anger and frustration into words and let other parents know they're not alone: Why let these groomers, Near our kids, You should believe the child, Not the perpetrators fibs. Night after night, My heads in tatters, Is my girl safe, That's all matters Day after day, No education, Not home from school, Want her home the desperation. Send her out in the morning, To school she goes, Knowing she won't be back, The anxiety shows. Reporting her missing, Nothing is done, Ringing the police, The groomers carry on. Early hours in morning, My girl returns, Been drugged and used, So much hurt it burns. At least she's alive, Even though she's been through hell, Socail services ain't helping, She's becoming a shell. Im desperate for help, Nothings being done, Please someone help, My little one. I close my eyes, The visions I see, Is my girl dead in a gutter, Oh God the anxiety. Please help my girl, I'm begging you, She's not to blame, You know it too. Not a wink of sleep Weeks go by My girl still goes missing Still no help WHY? Now months go by, Its still going on, Your turning a blind eye, My girl you put the blaime on. Now years of this, She's now in care, She still going missing, This isn't fair. Now she's an adult, All the trauma she's had, Trying help her stay strong, Mums here in good and bad. My girl my warrior, I'm so proud of her She also has a list of recommendations she wants to make to those in power to stop grooming – which she believes is still happening in our communities – in its tracks. 'I've spoken to police officers, schools and asked them what can be done to stop this," she said. Advertisement 'There's people in suits who think they know it all, putting things in place, but they're doing it wrong. They've not lived it like us, and they should listen to us. 'Just things like they would organise meetings for Jamie to discuss the grooming at 9am in the morning. 'She'd been out all night, being abused, drugged, filled with alcohol til 4 or 5am and then she wouldn't turn up to the appointment. 'Then the services would turn around and say 'Oh, look, she doesn't want to work with us' and they'd give up.' Advertisement Louise said she supports the National Inquiry, announced by PM Keir Starmer in June, 'if they do it properly' but she worries that some girls are still reluctant to speak up because they are afraid of prosecutions if they recruited other girls – or even having their kids taken away if they disclose their vulnerable mental health. Louise and Jamie say they still have a lot of anger towards the perpetrators and the services that failed them but have decided to turn their anger at the situation into a positive by helping other parents and survivors. 'I just want to help other parents and help put a stop to this.' Louise said. 'I don't want other parents or children to go through what I went through or what Jamie went through. We can't change the past but we make changes now and improve a broken system.' Advertisement Police and social services both accepted their failings in relation to Jamie's case in statements to The Sun. Greater Manchester Police said it had "fully accepted our past failings in tackling this horrific abuse" and it was "actively investigating" the case. Oldham Council added: "Oldham is absolutely committed to learning from the past. Thanks in no small part to the tenacity of survivors like Jamie-Leigh, we are leading the way in tackling child sexual exploitation, putting survivors at the heart of our efforts, and doing everything in our power to ensure the mistakes of the past are never repeated."
