Greater Manchester Police 'may face grooming case probe'

The report centred on the death of Victoria Agoglia and Operation Augusta

The police watchdog may examine Greater Manchester Police's investigation into child grooming after a recent damning report, the Home Office has said.

The review centred on 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia's death in 2003.

It criticised Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and other authorities for failing to protect children suffering "profound abuse" in the care system at the time.

Minister Kevin Foster said vulnerable youngsters were "let down by those whose job it was to protect them".

'Gross failure'

After the first phase of the report was published in January, GMP Chief Constable Ian Hopkins apologised for police failures in 2004 which allowed the abuse of children in care to continue by not thoroughly investigating the offences committed against them.

He said GMP was reviewing all the cases in the report and had made a voluntary referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

Chief Constable Ian Hopkins has apologised for GMP's failures

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham commissioned the report after the 2017 BBC documentary The Betrayed Girls.

It focussed on the death of Victoria - who reported being injected with heroin by a 50-year-old man - and GMP's subsequent investigation, Operation Augusta.

It had identified at least 57 victims of child grooming and 97 potential suspects but "very few" faced justice and a decision was made to close it down in 2005.

Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley and Broughton, said it was a "story of the gross failure... to protect vulnerable children".

'Death foreseeable'

The Labour MP said he "varies between despair and outrage at the failures" of GMP and Manchester City Council to protect young girls and boys from "predatory sexual exploitation".

Mr Stringer said he and four other Manchester MPs had written to the Attorney General asking for a fresh inquest into Victoria's death, adding "her death was eminently foreseeable".

In response Mr Foster said the report "told a story... of vulnerable young people let down by those whose job it was to protect them".

He said the IOPC was "scoping a potential investigation" into GMP regarding Operation Augusta.

He said the Attorney General was considering the request to reopen Victoria's inquest.

Shadow home office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds called for the minister to guarantee full funding be provided to GMP to "ensure they have all the resources necessary to bring perpetrators to justice".