Rochdale CPS: Another Legal Let Down?

Perverts on the Loose in Town where some Police say 'Law is just a Game'

NOT for the first time have questions been raised about the handling of cases by the Rochdale Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).  When last year, nine men were sent down for a grand total of 77 years for grooming and sexually abusing young girls at two local takeaways in Rochdale, a serving police office was concerned that the police and CPS had fallen down on the job by not prosecuting others involved.  This week, on the Radio Four program File on Four a former Detective Constable, Margaret Oliver, spoke out: 

'Men are still walking round the streets of Rochdale that these girls named as offenders.  They told me they are still meeting men in Rochdale town centre they named as abusers.'

Having now left her job because of how the Greater Manchester Police handled this case, Margaret Oliver told the BBC's program File on Four:  

'I've walked away from a career that I loved because I believe so strongly that 10 years down the line when somebody turns around and says why did nobody speak out about this, I can look myself in the mirror and know I have done the right thing.'

Apparently, when she complained about how the case was being handled, one police officer took her on one side and told her to understand that the way the law was processed was 'just a game!'

Margaret Oliver told File on Four: 

'I convinced these girls that we needed them as witnesses to protect other victims in that area from these same men.  They put their trust in me and I put my trust in GMP (Greater Manchester Police) to honour those obligations.'

This week, Sir Peter Fahy, the Greater Manchester Chief Constable, said of former Detective Constable, Margaret Oliver: 

'It is unfortunate that the officer lost that sense of objectivity, and became intensely embroiled with the victims and their families.'