Maggie Oliver confirms position on CSE reviews

Whistle-blowing former GMP detective Maggie Oliver who campaigns for survivors of abuse has spoken out to confirm her position on reviews into child sexual exploitation in Greater Manchester.

It follows a meeting of Oldham full council on Wednesday night which turned heated when a motion put forward by the Labour group calling for the introduction of mandatory reporting and a ‘Victims and Survivors Charter’ was discussed.

Members of the public who are demanding a full inquiry into abuse in the borough clashed with elected members, leading to proceedings to be adjourned twice.

Ms Oliver and the charity she set up to help provide support and legal advocacy to people who have suffered child sexual exploitation (CSE) and abuse, the Maggie Oliver Foundation, were referenced twice by councillors during the meeting.

While moving the Labour motion, council leader Arooj Shah highlighted the work of Ms Oliver and her foundation during part of her speech which covered the latest stage of the Greater Manchester assurance review, commissioned by the Mayor Andy Burnham which will monitor improvements made in all ten councils and GMP.

Coun Shah said: “I’d like to thank Maggie Oliver and her foundation for the support that they have given to this stage of the assurance review.

“Maggie has done more to drive awareness of the issue of CSE and its impact than anyone else that I could possibly think of and her ongoing support for the work we are doing across Greater Manchester is truly valued.”

This was later reiterated by another Labour councillor, Steve Bashforth, who said the government and the foundation were ‘with us on this’.

In her public statement, issued after the meeting, Ms Oliver confirmed that she does in fact support the final stage of the assurance review, which will assess whether Greater Manchester councils and police have the right culture and best possible systems in place to protect children from sexual exploitation.

However, she stressed that her support for this regional review is conditional on seeing the outcome, and should not be conflated into expressing support for the local Oldham assurance review, which she has previously raised concerns about.

And she said the council members had not sought her permission to mention her name or that of the foundation during the meeting, which meant survivors and their families ‘might feel let down’.

“I am a great believer that before change can happen, we need to know the true facts, and I hope this review will leave no stone unturned in seeking these,” Ms Oliver said.

“Of course we support anything which will protect children and so the review itself has my backing.

"I will reserve judgement on whether the review will achieve its aims until its findings are published.

“From our daily work supporting survivors, we are in no doubt whatsoever that the current system for investigating and prosecuting these devastating crimes is absolutely not fit for purpose, and the hundreds of survivors we are currently supporting would say the same.

“We have been contacted by survivors in Oldham and their families, concerned that we also back the review into historical CSE in Oldham, the findings of which were published last year.

"I want to clarify that this is absolutely not the case.”

She raised concerns that survivors of abuse were unable to have their voices heard during that assurance review, which was published in June last year.

The report was damning of failures by both police and Oldham council to protect vulnerable young people from abuse in the years 2011 to 2014, and in a specific case dating back to 2005.

But the review team said they found no evidence of a widespread cover-up of sexual exploitation.

However, Ms Oliver has also outlined her position on calls for a public inquiry, which is being fiercely campaigned for in Oldham, saying she does not believe it is necessarily the best avenue to get justice for victims.

An amendment tabled by the Conservative group calling for a public inquiry into the issue at Wednesday’s meeting was defeated.

“I also want to clarify my position on calls on the Home Office for a public inquiry into historical CSE in Oldham,” she said.

“I absolutely believe that survivors deserve to be heard and to get justice.

"I have spent the last two decades of my life campaigning for exactly this.

“Personally, however, I am not convinced that a public inquiry will achieve this.

"I know this from my observations over the past twenty years and perhaps the most serious example of this is the Home Office ordered Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

“This inquiry lasted seven years, costing multiple millions of pounds.

"Its findings were published across many reports from November 2020 to October 2022, making twenty recommendations which the government has still failed to implement.”

She said that despite this wide-reaching inquiry, ‘not a single person’ in public office had been held accountable for failings.

“I want to see power brought back to a local level and put into the hands of victims and survivors so their voices, experiences and opinions can be heard,” Ms Oliver said.

“I want to see not just perpetrators but those in public office responsible for turning a blind eye to these terrible crimes to face justice.

"The police have the power to do this if they are brave and really want to show that ‘lessons have been learned’.”

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