Editorial: Justice remains unfinished in Rochdale

More than a decade has passed since the Rochdale child sexual exploitation scandal exposed one of the gravest safeguarding failures in modern British history. The men responsible have been convicted and imprisoned, but the question that continues to confront Rochdale is whether justice ended with those convictions.

Successive independent inquiries have reached strikingly similar conclusions. Reviews by Parliament, local safeguarding bodies and independent investigators found that vulnerable children were repeatedly failed by institutions responsible for protecting them. Victims were too often viewed as making 'lifestyle choices' rather than recognised as children subjected to coercion, rape, trafficking and organised sexual exploitation. Information was not consistently shared between agencies, warning signs were missed, organised offending was underestimated and opportunities to intervene were repeatedly lost.

The testimony of survivors remains among the most compelling evidence of those failures. Girls described repeatedly reporting abuse only to be disbelieved, dismissed as troublesome teenagers or treated as willing participants in their own exploitation. Children who regularly went missing were returned to the same environments where offenders continued to target them. Independent reviews concluded that professionals frequently focused on victims' behaviour rather than the methods of coercion used by organised offenders.

The criminal justice system eventually delivered significant convictions. Operation Span resulted in nine men being convicted in 2012 for offences including rape, trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children. Further investigations have led to additional prosecutions linked to historic child sexual exploitation across Greater Manchester. Judges described the offending as calculated, organised and profoundly damaging, recognising that many victims would carry lifelong psychological trauma.

Yet convictions answered only one question: the guilt of the offenders. They did not answer why children were repeatedly failed before those prosecutions ever reached a courtroom.

The official inquiries found that the primary problem was not an absence of legislation. The criminal offences already existed. Rather, agencies failed to recognise organised grooming, safeguarding procedures were inconsistently applied, intelligence was not always effectively shared and vulnerable children were too often judged instead of protected. Some reviews also concluded that concerns about community tensions influenced professional decision-making in certain cases, although they stressed that institutional failures were complex and involved multiple contributing factors.

Political debate over those failures continues today. Sir Keir Starmer has consistently defended his record as Director of Public Prosecutions, pointing to reforms introduced after the Rochdale prosecutions that encouraged prosecutors to focus more closely on suspect behaviour rather than relying heavily on assessments of victim credibility. Nigel Farage has repeatedly argued that institutional accountability remains incomplete and has called for wider national inquiries into organised child sexual exploitation.

Independent MP Rupert Lowe commissioned his own inquiry into grooming gangs, arguing that previous investigations had failed to provide full transparency or accountability. Lowe's report calls for mandatory recording of offender ethnicity, stronger criminal justice responses, improved national data collection and further investigation into institutional failings. While his inquiry does not carry statutory authority, it has become part of the continuing national debate surrounding organised child sexual exploitation and institutional responsibility.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan also faced criticism after asking for clarification during a London Assembly meeting about what was meant by the phrase 'grooming gangs' before responding more broadly on child sexual exploitation. The exchange became part of the wider political discussion over how public authorities describe organised abuse and communicate with victims and the public.

There have unquestionably been improvements since the original scandal. Greater Manchester Police has established dedicated child sexual exploitation capabilities, multi-agency safeguarding arrangements have been strengthened, inspection reports have recognised improvements in identifying vulnerable children and historic offenders continue to face prosecution years after their crimes. Those reforms are significant and should not be dismissed.

However, reform is not the same as accountability.

For many survivors, organisational apologies and revised procedures have never fully addressed the institutional failures identified by successive inquiries. Former Greater Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver has repeatedly argued that child sexual exploitation remains a continuing threat and has warned against believing the lessons of Rochdale have been fully learned. She has consistently maintained that safeguarding depends not only on procedures but on professionals who are prepared to challenge assumptions, recognise organised exploitation and place children's welfare above institutional reputation.

Child sexual exploitation has not disappeared. Police forces across England and Wales continue to investigate organised grooming offences while offenders increasingly exploit social media, encrypted messaging platforms, online coercion and county lines criminality. Organised abuse evolves. Safeguarding must evolve with it.

The greatest lesson from Rochdale is not that Britain lacked the legal powers to prosecute offenders. It is that institutions repeatedly failed to use those powers when vulnerable children first asked for help. Children who should have been believed were doubted. Warning signs that should have triggered intervention were overlooked. Opportunities to prevent further abuse were lost.

Rochdale Borough Council has acknowledged profound institutional failings and apologised to survivors. Public bodies have accepted that serious mistakes were made, while successive reforms have sought to strengthen safeguarding and improve inter-agency cooperation. Those changes deserve recognition.

Whether they have fully restored public trust is another question entirely.

Justice cannot be measured solely by the length of prison sentences imposed on offenders. It is also measured by whether institutions learn from catastrophic failure, whether public officials accept responsibility when safeguarding collapses and whether every vulnerable child reporting abuse today can expect to be believed, protected and acted upon without hesitation.

Until survivors believe those standards have been achieved, and until the public is confident that institutional accountability carries meaningful consequences as well as organisational reform, many will continue to conclude that justice in Rochdale remains unfinished.