Manchester Police Chief speaks out!

LAST week, our local knacker of the Cop Shop, Steve Heywood, Greater Manchester Police's assistant chief constable, spoke of the 'renewed' faith in the ability of the police to investigate child sex abuse.  Who'd have doubted they weren't up for it, given the reports from the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre have just reported a 30% rise in abuse reports nationally.

According to last Saturday's Rochdale Observer 'the Cyril Smith scandal has prompted a huge rise in reports of child sex abuse.'  The Observer goes on to report that with regard to Jimmy Savile; 'Much of the abuse is alleged to have happened in Manchester during the 1960s, when Savile was a dance hall manager and a presenter of Top of the Pops, broadcast from studios in Dickenson Road, Rusholme.'

With his finger wagging righteously, Steve Heywood declared:  'I believe the media focus on such matters and the subsequent scrutiny on police investigations has renewed the public's faith and confidence in the police service to compassionately yet robustly investigate these offences.'

Moreover, Mr Heywood said:  'Obviously, we always encourage victims of sexual abuse to come forward.'  Even when, ultimately law agencies like the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decide it's 'Not in the public interest' or 'completely without corroberation', as in the Cyril Smith case, or perhaps, as in a more recent case known to Northern Voices, when the Crown Prosecution Service mislay the police files in one of their Salt Mines in Cheshire.