MP's ferocious attack on a serving Chief Constable: As long as this police chief stays, paedophiles and sex abusers will get away with it, writes SIMON DANCZUK - Labour MP for Rochdale

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Soft: Greater Manchester Police's, Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy is well known for his liberal approach

For far too long, sexual abuse has been a voiceless crime. Victims suffered in silence because they had no confidence in the authorities and didn’t think anyone would believe them.

Thankfully we’re now seeing this crime dragged out of the shadows,  victims are feeling empowered to come forward and justice is being delivered. 

In my constituency of Rochdale I’ve seen first-hand the damage it does. We’ve had a major grooming scandal and the evil legacy of Cyril Smith to contend with.

Children have been raped and lives have been ruined. Slowly but surely the law is beginning to catch up with abusers.

However, I’m convinced some abusers are continuing to get away with it because the pace of change is being held up by one major obstacle: The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy.

Sir Peter is well known for his liberal approach. After the 2011 riots left a trail of ruin in Manchester and Salford, he famously said we shouldn’t concentrate on where the riots were, but on where things were going well. 

He added that no one would have backed the police if they had cracked down on the rioters. This wishy-washy approach is out of touch with public opinion and out of step with his fellow officers.
The same liberal approach is also way out of step with public opinion on how the police deal with sexual abuse.

Last week, we learned Greater Manchester Police is facing more inquiries into its response to sex crimes than any other force. This came as no surprise to me. A number of officers have contacted me to complain that political correctness was stopping them bringing sex abusers to justice. 

One whistleblower told the BBC she had to walk away from a career she loved because Greater Manchester Police would not support victims of terrible abuse.

Now, Sir Peter has been served with a criminal and gross  misconduct notice by the Independent Police Complaints  Commission. The charge is that Sir Peter and other senior officers put a 14-year-old boy at risk by allowing him to go into the flat of a suspected paedophile who was under surveillance. 

Matters have been made worse by the terrible way this has been handled, with the Police and Crime Commissioner effectively blaming red tape as the reason he couldn’t suspend the Chief Constable while this investigation took place.

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Past: The constituency of Rochdale has had a major grooming scandal and the evil legacy of paedophile MP Cyril Smith (pictured) to contend with

How can the man charged with looking after the security of people in Greater Manchester enjoy public confidence with a criminal and gross misconduct charge hanging over his head? 

I’ve already had calls from  victims involved in sex abuse cases who say they are no longer prepared to co-operate with the police while Sir Peter remains in post. It is time he stepped aside.

It’s noteworthy that the only person defending him is the  Liberal MP, John Leech.

Policing by political correctness and reluctance to act have been symptomatic of a wider problem in British policing that does not serve the public because it tries to ‘manage’ crime rather than tackle it. Although I believe we are, at last, getting to grips with abuse, far too much attention is paid to how things ‘play’ in the media and whether the police might be criticised.

Sir Peter exemplifies this approach and he’s been sending out terrible messages on matters of sexual abuse and the support of victims for some time.

In the wake of the Rochdale scandal, for example, where gangs of predominantly Pakistani men had groomed young white  girls, a community forum was launched. Addressing the meeting, Sir Peter said he had come to celebrate multiculturalism. 

At no point did he condemn evil crimes that had left girls suicidal. At no point did he  apologise for police failure to take their cries for help seriously many years earlier when the crimes were first reported. 

And at no point did he challenge the community to do more  to ensure the perpetrators had no place to hide.

Sir Peter's soft liberal approach helps no one...

It was left  to Nazir Afzal, brave chief crown prosecutor for the North West, to eschew this  politically correct sideshow and point out that people in the  community must have known what was going on.

Sir Peter’s approach was to play down the whole issue. And that’s what he’s been doing ever since.

In one explosive interview last year, the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire could barely contain her exasperation as Sir Peter squirmed and struggled to defend the police’s failure to act when girls told them they were being raped by older men.

It was car crash stuff. In the wake of a Special Case Review into the Rochdale grooming scandal, police failings were writ large, the report acknowledging that judgments were made against girls on council estates because of their background and class. 

But Sir Peter wouldn’t apologise. It was all down to ‘a culture of hopelessness’ he claimed.

He may as well have been talking about the culture behind his approach to this issue. The evidence continues to pile up and all he can do is utter platitudes.  Amazingly, Greater Manchester Police are on their third rewrite of a report for the IPCC on how they failed the main victim of the Rochdale grooming gang. It’s already been rejected twice. 

In the past two-and-a-half years, the IPCC has launched ten inquiries into alleged mishandling of sexual assault and rape complaints by Greater Manchester Police. One of these relates to Tracey Shelvey, a rape victim who felt so badly let down by the police she jumped to her death from a shopping centre roof two minutes away from my office. 

Sadly, Tracey is not the only one who has committed suicide as a result of police failing to properly support abuse victims.

I accept these are difficult cases and a massive challenge when resources are stretched. But we need to see strong leadership from the police, and Sir Peter isn’t providing it. 

‘He just does not get this issue,’ one former police officer told me. ‘When I told him I was worried that rapists known to the police were still walking the streets, he said I’d become “emotionally involved.” ’
Sir Peter’s soft liberal approach isn’t helping anyone. 

It’s damaging confidence in the police and putting at risk progress in securing justice for victims of abuse. 

I’ve met a number of other senior officers from around the UK tackling this same problem and their approach is far more professional and determined. 

Things have come to a sorry pass when police officers are starting to openly express their frustration over botched investigations into sexual abuse. 

This is a crime that unites the public in disgust and a shared desire to stamp down on abusers as hard as possible. 

It’s time Greater Manchester had a Chief Constable with the same view.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2726975/MPs-ferocious-attack-serving-Chief-Constable-As-long-police-chief-stays-paedophiles-sex-abusers-away-writes-SIMON-DANCZUK-Labour-MP-Rochdale.html#ixzz3AfhHFo2v
NWN: I never thought I would support the views of a Labour MP in an issue such as this. Fahy is an out and out New World Order marxist type. Political correctness is his middle name(s).The Police need coppers, NOT politicians like Fahy running the show.. This march of political correctness into top positions must be reversed!