A second watchdog review into which senior cop shelved an investigation into a south Manchester child sex grooming gang has failed to identify which officer pulled the plug, or the reason why.
At least 57 children and young girls - many of them in care - were raped and abused by up to 100 members of a gang of Asian men 18 years ago.
Two years ago a damning report commissioned by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham revealed it failed to establish which senior cop pulled the plug on Operation Augusta. Now, it has emerged the police watchdog has also failed to establish their identity after conducting its own two-year probe.
READ MORE: The children with no voice, the women who spoke up for them and those in power who wouldn't listen
Furious police whistleblower Maggie Oliver, who worked on Op Augusta, said: "Paedophiles were allowed to continue to abuse young girls for years. That's not acceptable in my opinion."
The mayoral probe found police and social workers knew what was happening but the abuse continued. The victims were hooked on drugs, groomed and sexually abused. One of them, Victoria Agoglia, 15, was forcibly injected with heroin. Social workers knew what was happening to her but failed to act, the report found. She died two months later.
The mayor's report also established that a high-level decision inside GMP was made to shelve the investigation. The end of the child sex ring operation was signalled at a meeting of senior officers on April 22, 2005, and rubberstamped by a 'gold' meeting later that day involving senior council officials as well as police officers.
"We believe, from the evidence that we have seen, that the decision to close down Operation Augusta was driven by the decision by senior officers to remove the resources from the investigation rather than a sound understanding that all lines of enquiry had been successfully completed or exhausted", the authors said.
The minutes of those meetings where the key decision was made - that the operation would finish on July 1, 2005 - have not been found.
The mayor's report referenced four key senior police officers and they were later named in a story by the Manchester Evening News : the retired chief constable of North Yorkshire Police - Dave Jones - who was the head of GMP's CID at the time; the current chief constable of West Midlands Police, Sir Dave Thompson, who was then commander of GMP's city centre division; a senior figure at the National Crime Agency Tony Cook, who was the detective superintendent and senior investigating officer on Op Augusta; retired officer Steve Heywood, who was the head of GMP's public protection unit back then.
Following the mayor's report, Greater Manchester Police referred three senior officers to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for investigation. On Thursday, the watchdog said it had discontinued its investigation into the trio and admitted it, like the mayoral probe, had failed to establish which senior officer had made the decision, or why.
The M.E.N. understands the three officers concerned are Dave Jones, Steve Heywood and Tony Cook, the latter being the only officer who could produce his notes of the key meetings. It is understood West Midlands Police chief Dave Thompson was not referred to the IOPC.
The watchdog said its 'independent investigation began in August 2020 and examined a 'significant amount of evidence from witnesses, including officers who had worked on the operation and senior social services employees'.
"Despite significant efforts, we were unable to determine who took the final decision to close Operation Augusta in July 2005, nor the rationale for doing so," said the IOPC.
The watchdog cited the 'lack of available records of meetings and decisions taken at that time' and that 'some former GMP-employed police witnesses were either unable or unwilling to engage with our investigation'. It did not refer to named officers but the mayoral review revealed all officers except Dave Jones responded to requests for information from the inquiry.
The IOPC continued: "Following a review in May 2022 of the substantial amount of evidence gathered, we determined there was no indication any of the three former officers had acted in a way that may have breached the standards of professional behaviour. As this meant there was no legal basis to continue the investigation, it was discontinued on 20 July."
The watchdog's Director of Major Investigations Steve Noonan said: "The findings of the mayoral report caused understandable concern and it was important for our investigation into the resourcing and decision-making behind Operation Augusta to be both thorough and independent of the police.
"We gathered and reviewed a significant amount of evidence, which helped us understand some of the actions taken back then. While we found evidence that arrangements were put in place for the future safeguarding of survivors of child sexual exploitation, unfortunately, we – like the mayoral review team – were not able to locate evidence showing who took the decision to close Operation Augusta and, more importantly, why.
"We have identified several areas of potential learning for GMP to consider and now await further information on how practices have changed since 2005, which will inform our decision on whether to issue any statutory recommendations."
Police whistleblower Maggie Oliver worked on Op Augusta and was stunned to discover that it had been shelved when she returned from holiday. She was interviewed by the IOPC.
She told the M.E.N: "I never expected this to lead to anything. It was clear to me that they would never pin responsibility on any serving surviving officer. The fact is paedophiles were allowed to continue to abuse young girls for years. That's not acceptable in my opinion."
She went on: "But the establishment protects the establishment. Things have changed in one way. People now know that there are cover-ups."
Neither GMP nor Manchester City Council have been able to locate minutes of the 'gold' meeting where the decision to close down Op Augusta was rubberstamped, the mayoral review revealed.
Only a note found in the 'policy log' of the senior investigating officer, Tony Cook, reported that Dave Thompson had stated he was unable to put permanent staff into Op Augusta and that it would close on July 1, 2005. In 2020, Dave Thompson told the M.E.N: "I would not have closed an investigation like this." Following the latest report, a spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: "Chief Constable Sir David Thompson was not subject to an IOPC referral. He assisted the IOPC as a witness when approached by them."
Tony Cook told the M.E.N: "I have fully co-operated with the inquiry. I gave them all the notes I took at the time. I fully assisted the investigation as I did with the mayor's review."
The chief constable at the time Op Augusta ended was Mike Todd, who was found dead near the summit of Snowdon in north Wales in 2008.
The IOPC review identified 'several key areas of potential organisational learning' for GMP including better record-keeping and retention.
Deputy Chief Constable Terry Woods said: "We welcome the IOPC report and recognise the conclusions very much echo that of the mayoral review into non-recent child sexual exploitation. The Greater Manchester approach to tackling and preventing child sexual exploitation is now thankfully entirely different to the timeframe of this report. In GMP we have a dedicated CSE unit who are committed to pursuing perpetrators and seeking justice for victims of CSE, regardless of the passage of time.
"This team has been behind a number of operations investigating non-recent CSE crimes, and just this week warrants were carried out across Manchester resulting in three arrests. This team work alongside the multi-agency safeguarding hub in every district, actively safeguarding vulnerable children and providing specialist support to anyone who comes forward as a victim of CSE, wherever they are in the region. This multi-agency response to safeguarding and tackling CSE is incomparable to the practices of 2005, and we will continue to engage with the IOPC on how practices have substantially changed since then and fully consider any recommendations they put forward."
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