Alison’s vital police work

Alison Troisi

THERE aren’t many people with the deft touch to guide vulnerable victims through daunting court cases, but it’s all in a day’s work for police officer Alison Troisi.

And now Alison’s work as part of the Operation Messenger Team, to tackle child sexual exploitation in Oldham, has earned her a Pride In Oldham nomination.

Alison, who worked on the team between 2006 and 2007, said: “I’m really honoured to be nominated for this award, but it’s definitely a team effort.

“I’m really proud of what Messenger is doing, and I think it has been so successful because there are so many agencies working together on it.”

The team, which is made up of staff from the police, children’s charity Barnardo’s, Oldham Council, NHS Oldham and the Crown Prosecution Service, has worked hard to battle sexual exploitation and has already secured a number of prosecutions.

But it’s a tough job. Alison and her colleagues had to tread carefully, with many young people finding it difficult to talk about their ordeal.

She said: “The problem we did find was that many of the young girls who were involved don’t see themselves as victims. Some of them think their abusers are their boyfriends.

“You didn’t tend to find a common thread between the abusers, but the victims tend to have very low self-esteem and no self-confidence and this leaves them vulnerable to men who pay them attention.

“Because of this, sometimes we have to charge offenders with abduction and then when the victim becomes more comfortable with talking about what happened, we can introduce sexual offence charges.

“We also have to interview really well, so that we can extract confessions where possible.”

Alison (40) joined the police in 1996, before moving to the child protection unit in 2000. She left the Messenger unit towards the end of 2007 and has now been promoted to detective sergeant in the child protection unit based at Oldham Police station.

She said: “You have to be very careful with the young people because they’ve been through such an ordeal. Above all, it is important to assure them that it’s not their fault.

“We have a care home in Oldham now which offers specialist therapy for young people who have been in that situation and all the victims receive ongoing support.

“It gives me a lot of pleasure to see the young women further down the line getting on with their lives and achieving things. The Messenger team also received the Chief Constable’s Excellence award for partnership working in 2007 and that was a great moment for us.

“I have two children and my job has really brought home how important it is to nurture our young people because if we don’t the consequences can be devastating.”

The woman who nominated Alison, who cannot be named, said: “Alison has helped steer my daughter and many others away from sexual exploitation.”