Greater Manchester Police investigating grooming cases with more than 700 victims
Michelle Skeer, His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said that since 2019, when GMP started to review its non-recent child sexual exploitation investigations, "the force has improved its understanding and approach to investigating allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation".
The document, published today, said police have live investigations into "multi-victim, multi-offender" child sexual exploitation inquiries, involving 714 victims and survivors, and 1,099 suspects.
GMP later said the force has 1,099 lines of enquiry relating to potential suspects but only 269 who are confirmed.
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• Various training gaps within the investigation team
• Lack of consistency in evaluating case files between social care, health and police
• Failures to initially support victims meant they had "lost trust and confidence" in police
The report was commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham in 2024 to evaluate whether police, councils and health services can protect children from sexual exploitation in the future.
Its release comes days after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was launching a new national inquiry into grooming gangs after previously arguing one was not necessary,
The findings were issued as the final part of the CSE (child sexual exploitation) Assurance Review process which started in 2017. The first three reports examined non-recent child sexual exploitation in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale.
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HMI Skeer said that the force has been trying to improve its service to those who have experienced sexual exploitation, but previous failings have badly affected trust in GMP.
She said: "For some, trust and confidence in the police had been lost, and the force would not be able to rectify their experiences.
"It is vital that improvements are led by victims' experiences, and if they do come forward, they are supported, protected and taken seriously."
'Very harsh lessons' prompt positive change
Home editor
@JasonFarrellSky
After three previous reports highly critical of GMP's handling of historical child exploitation cases, now comes a glowing report which indicates the force is learning from mistakes and striving to improve.
It shows that with intense scrutiny comes positive change. "We have, on the painful experience of children, learned some very harsh lessons," Chief Constable Steven Watson told me - the deep scars of the past have been a strong motivation.
There are those who believe this inspectorate report which scrutinises police processes and management doesn't take enough account of victim experience - and looking at the issue from that perspective may yield more negative results.
The mayor's office in Manchester is conscious of this and have been actively calling for a national inquiry, knowing that any UK investigation would undoubtedly look closely at Greater Manchester.
But it would be wrong not to congratulate some clear improvements at GMP and one thing Louise Casey's rapid review highlighted was that GMP are one of very few forces that are now properly collecting ethnicity data on perpetrators.
A recent report by Baroness Casey found a significant over-representation of Asian men who are suspects in grooming gangs in Greater Manchester, adding though authorities are in "denial" more needs to be done to understand why this is the case.
Inspectors also said there were "training gaps" in some investigation teams and issues with data sharing, with local councils sometimes not willing to provide detectives with information, leading to "significant delays in investigations" into grooming gangs.
It cites problems with intelligence provided by Manchester City Council, which took months to arrive and "was so heavily redacted that some pages contained only a few words", the report said.
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GMP is the only force in the country to set up a dedicated team to investigate grooming gangs. Called the Child Sexual Exploitation Major Investigation Team (CSE MIT) it has about 100 staff and a ringfenced budget.
In October 2024, the force told inspectors there were 59 live multi-victim, multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations, of which 13 were being managed by the CSE MIT.
The report adds: "The force fully accepts that it made mistakes in the past.
"It has taken positive and effective steps to learn from these mistakes and improve how it investigates recent and non-recent child sexual exploitation."
Separately, the Baird Inquiry published in July 2024 found officers at GMP were abusing their power - making unlawful arrests, unlawful and demeaning strip searches, sometimes treating victims as perpetrators, and traumatising those who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence.
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