Grooming gangs scandal: Police officer who blew whistle in Rochdale speaks out on latest government action
Maggie Oliver, who turned whistle blower over the Rochdale grooming scandal, speaks to Susan Griffin for the first time since Home secretary Yvette Cooper's announcement of new inquiries
A former police officer and whistle blower is urging the government to get on with implementing the recommendations made by a previous inquiry into grooming gangs.
In her first interview since the Home Secretary made the commitment for new localised inquiries into grooming gang scandals, Maggie Oliver, who was instrumental in exposing the Rochdale Grooming Scandal and the failures to protect child victims, is concerned the new government is not getting on with the job of implementing the Jay report’s recommendations.
Oliver said: “I've got a legal team representing me, and we submitted a pre-action protocol letter to the Home Secretary [Yvette Cooper] in January, giving her notice that I'm going to take them to a judicial review unless they implement the full 20 recommendations of the national abuse inquiry,” says Oliver.
The day after that letter was delivered, Cooper made a public statement that the Home Office will ‘lay out a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations’ by Easter.
This will include mandatory reporting, improved data gathering and a new cabinet minister for children. Oliver will be watching closely.
“When I resigned from the police [in 2012] and went public, I made the choice I was going to tell the truth to the very best of my ability, whatever the consequences,” she says.
Oliver has also voiced her concerns about Labour and Keir Starmer - despite the strong rebuttals from the government about Starmer’s time as director of prosecutions and prosecuting grooming gangs.
Oliver said of Starmer: “I don't trust him. As the Director of Public Prosecutions [and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013], my belief is he failed miserably in his duty to ensure the child rapists were prosecuted and that the sentences were inadequate for the horrendous crimes they had committed.”
The former detective for Greater Manchester Police turned whistle-blower has dedicated the last 15 years to speaking publicly about the systemic failings that allowed children to be raped and abused by paedophile rings, particularly in the north of England.
Not only were perpetrators rarely prosecuted, but the girls were often blamed for making ‘lifestyle choices’ by the very people whose primary job it was to protect them.
“He [Starmer] is still trying to dismiss this conversation as a conversation that has been hijacked by far-right extremists [due to perpetrators being predominantly of Pakistani descent]. In that accusation, the implication is that myself and victims and survivors and others who have spoken out against the corruption and the cover ups are far-right extremist.
“Well, I'm not a far-right extremist, the victims are not far-right extremists, and that is why we are in the position we're in today. People were frightened to have these conversations, but by not having them, we were allowing paedophiles to get away with destroying children's lives,” says Oliver.
Starmer was also criticised by embattled Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who appeared to mention grooming gangs in parliament for the first time in 2025, for behaving like ‘those of us who care about it are ‘the far-right’. But he can at least point to his own record of reopening cases, introducing a special prosecutor for child abuse and sexual exploitation, and, in his own words, that he left the role with ‘the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record’.
He reserved his most impassioned points to defend Jess Phillips - who was accused by billionaire X owner Elon Musk of being a ‘rape genocide apologist’.
"We have seen this playbook many times - whipping up of intimidation and of threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it," Sir Keir said at the time.
"Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims, they're interested in themselves," he added.
For Oliver, her ire isn't directed solely at Starmer and the Labour Party.
“The Conservatives were equally negligent,” she adds.
“I've met Rishi Sunak; I've met Suella Braverman. I've had numerous conversations with Priti Patel, with many politicians. I was part of IICSA [the Independent National Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse led by Professor Alexis Jay, which took seven years and was published in 2022], I was involved in the Rochdale independent review set up by [Manchester Mayor] Andy Burnham, and the Operation Augusta review [that examined the effectiveness of multi-agency responses to child sexual exploitation in Greater Manchester].
“And I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard public officials say how shocking this is…and absolutely nothing changes.”
Oliver also gave her thoughts on Elon Musk, tech billionaire and owner of X, who has written a number of posts about the subject matter to his 218 million followers.
Critics have argued the world’s richest man should keep his nose out of the UK’s national affairs.
But Oliver is thankful he has thrust the issue onto the global stage, saying it has prompted wider conversation - despite concerns about Musk meddling in UK politics.
“I hope the international spotlight and the national shame that the authorities should be feeling will put more pressure on the authorities to do what they should have done from the start. If a child is raped and the evidence is there, we follow the evidence and we prosecute,” says Oliver.
“This has never been about the ethnicity of the rapists. It's always been about upholding the law. The law should be equal, and we do not select which child rapists we prosecute.”
The social media posts have also prompted voracious debate about whether there should be a[nother] public inquiry.
“My take on it is, you can announce another national abuse inquiry into grooming gangs, but the devil is entirely in the detail. What are the parameters? Who is going to lead it? Who is going to contribute?” says Oliver.
“In the original IISCA inquiry, myself and several other people were granted non institutional core participant status, which meant we were central to that inquiry, and yet we weren't allowed to speak. My statement, for instance, was decimated from 52 pages to 18. It was a whitewash. I don't want another seven years and another £200 million on a paper exercise.”
Campaigning on grooming gangs is a relentless task, one that has almost broken her financially, mentally and emotionally, but she takes strength in the continued successes of The Maggie Oliver Foundation, a charity she set up in 2019 that provides emotional support and legal advocacy for victims and survivors of the abuse.
“I never want to speak on behalf of the survivors, but I do everything I can to facilitate them using their own voice to tell their own stories,” she says.
“But my role is to keep the spotlight on the failures of the authorities… I try not to waste my breath on the smoke screens, on [anything] detracting from the main route through this. I try and keep it to the facts. I do believe the public have their eyes open, and I don't think this is going to go away. We just have to just keep fighting the good fight, sharing the truth, fighting for change.”
What is the government doing?
In mid-January, Home secretary Yvette Cooper outlined the government's approach to tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Although no new national inquiry was announced the government will give an update by Easter about enforcing the recommendations of the Jay report.
New locally-led inquiries, supported by Tom Crowther KC who chaired the Telford inquiry, will develop 'victim-centred, locally-led inquiries' working with Oldham Council and up to four other pilot areas.
Where can people get support?
The Maggie Oliver Foundation was established in 2019 and has helped 4,154 survivors of child sexual abuse since 2019.
About the author: Susan Griffin has been working as a journalist and features writer for 20 years. She was part of PA Media’s features team for over a decade before going freelance in 2017. Now focusing on profile interviews, lifestyle articles and topical stories, her work has appeared across a wide range of publications including Metro, The Telegraph, Evening Standard, Daily Express, CNN Style and Big Issue North.
At The Lead we have spent time speaking to those involved in what took place in Rotherham and Rochdale, scandals which rocked those places and beyond. Katherine Quarmby’s sensitive long-read about the reaction and some of the underlying causes is well worth a read.
Similarity we are committed to in-depth constructive reporting on the challenges facing the North of England through The Lead North, especially in light of what took place in Southport. See our deep-dive on the Blackpool disorder which took place last summer in the wake of the tragic killings in Southport and also read Jamie Lopez’s dispatches from Southport after the murders and also following the sentencing.
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