Rochdale's Return to 'ROTTEN BOROUGHS'!

by BRIAN BAMFORD

DESPITE recent efforts to sanitise the news from Rochdale, this week saw the return of the town to the ROTTEN BOROUGHS' columns of PRIVATE EYE with the revelation of a local council-run home, which Ofsted has not named owing to 'safeguarding reasons', at which the inspectors found that there had been little or no control over the residents despite the fact that according to The Eye 'it only provides care and accomodation for six young people at most'.

The Eye reports: 'Following their visit, inspectors reported one girl known to be at risk of child sexual exploitation had shown staff "significicant amounts of money" she had collected while absent from the home....Two children who had gone missing for five days phoned the home and asked to be collected. A staff member told them there was no transport available. As Ofsted reported: "the children remained missing and at risk of harm until the following day".'

Last March, Ofsted classified the home as as "good", but reassessed it in January "following police involvement". The Eye concludes: 'The home has now been barred from taking in any more children until it can prove they will be safe.'

The Eye bemoans the general war cry of the Rochdale Council which when confronted with this kind of child neglect and abuse, which has a local history dating back to Cyril Smith and the grooming of young girls, arguing: 'Haven't we heard it all before?'

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Pimp groomer allowed access to Victoria Agoglia

Report reveals culture of gangland entitlement and intimidation!

YESTERDAY Joan Agoglia, the grandmother of Victoria Agoglia whose death triggered the now discredited police Operation Augusta probe into child sexual exploitation in Manchester, told a press conference how the young girl was systematically beaten, bruised and drugged by her groomers.

According to the Manchester Evening News [16th, January 2020]:
'Victoria, who was living in a home under the responsibility of Manchester City Council, died aged 15 after she was injected with heroin by a man then aged 50.'

A report issued this week found:  'Two months prior to her death, Victoria had disclosed to both her social worker and substance misuse worker that an older man was injecting her with heroin.'

It was her death in 2003, that led to the launch by the Greater Manchester Police of their probe and it emerged that she had repeated reported her abuse at the hands of much older Asian men, who according to the report seemed to 'operate in plain sight' in and around care homes often parking their cars outside.

The current report found Victoria had endured 'severe abuse and exploitation' for two years prior to her death.  Sometimes she was taken back to her residential home 'intoxicated'. 

Nazir Afzal was the former Chief Prosecutor for North West England.  He is a British Pakistani Muslim.  He was interviewed very briefly on the Radio 4 PM program on 19th, October 2019.

In the interview he made a quite astonishing claim which does not seem to have received the publicity it deserves so we thought it worth publicizing here.  He said (@34minutes): 'You may not know this, but back in 2008 the Labour government (under Gordon Brown and home secretary Jacqui Smith) sent a circular to all police forces in the country saying:  'as far as these young girls who are being exploited in towns and cities, we believe they have made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour and therefore it is not for you police officers to get involved in.'

In the Manchester case Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, who had commissioned the current report, has said that he will write to the Attorney General to ask that her inquest be reopened.

This case and others more recently, reflect a troubling trend in some areas of this country of a gang culture in which a kind of organised criminality prevails to which some in authority turn a blind eye.

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The Curse of Gesture Politics

by Les May

THE decision to posthumously strip Cyril Smith of his ‘Freedom of the Borough’ is unlikely to change the impression that Rochdale is a town where some strange things are allowed to go unchecked.

What it demonstrates is that Rochdale councillors are far happier with a symbolic gesture against a dead man who, more than 50 years ago at Cambridge House hostel, took an unsavoury interest in the genitals of a number of young men, than censuring a fellow councillor who has admitted to a ‘corrupt practice’ at the local election six months ago.

I don’t make reference to Smith in regard to Knowl View because the Danczuk book so muddied the waters that I doubt we shall ever have a true picture of Smith’s involvement, if any, in the unsavoury goings on at the school.  What we do know is that both the reports submitted to RMBC in the early 1990s dealt with sexual activity between the boys, some of it coercive in nature.

What will be of interest is whether the people behind the recent move against the memory of Smith will feel that they have to call upon Richard Farnell to be thrown out of the Labour party when the bill for ‘compensation’ falls on the desk of the Chief Executive, as it surely will.  Because of course that’s what the character assassination after Child Sex Abuse inquiry of Richard Farnell, was all about, upping the compo!

I remain unconvinced about Richard Farnell’s culpability as I don’t think whether he knew or did not know about the goings on at Knowl View would have made the slightest difference to the action taken to try to sort it out.  The same goes for Paul Rowen.  Hindsight is such a wonderful thing!

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Labour Leader Brought Council into Disrepute!

by Brian Bamford

THE leader of Rochdale’s Borough Council, Councillor Allen Brett, has now been found to have ‘brought himself, his office and the Council into disrepute’. This was the finding of an investigation into his conduct earlier this year before the local elections.

The investigation which was conducted by an independent solicitor, was launched in April after the local website Rochdale Online published an audio clip of comments he made at a local Labour Party meeting.

In the audio clip, Councillor Brett is heard explaining at an internal Labour Party meeting how a government grant of £12million is to be spent on the borough’s roads and footpaths.

Ending the two-minute clip, Councillor Brett can be heard saying:

‘

…the budget remains fixed at £12 million [inaudible]. I’ve been given an indicative list of where it’s likely to have [sic], but I’m not releasing it - because I’ll deny I’ve said this, and I’m very reluctant to say it even in this room –  if we don’t do [sic] successful in one ward, I might not spend any money in that ward. You can work that out, but I’ll deny I’ve said it; I will.’

This is followed, says Rochdale Online by ‘murmurs of “Milnrow” (a Rochdale ward) can be heard from others in the room as Councillor Brett says: ‘Because I’m not having, like I was canvassing yesterday, to be told in Milnrow…’

Councillor Brett has long been under criticism from a section of his party because of his long-term support for the notorious former Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, and also his loyal backing for his disgraced former predecessor as Rochdale Council Leader, Richard Farnell, who was discredited in a recent inquiry into child sex abuse.

Child abuse inquiry finds former Rochdale Council leader "lied under oath."

 "SHAMEFUL" - Ex-Rochdale Council leader - Richard Farnell

THE Labour Party have suspended former Rochdale Labour council leader, Richard Farnell, after he was found by the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), to have lied under oath. 

In the investigations first published report, Farnell was branded as "shameful" by the inquiry for refusing to take personal responsibility for the abuse - carried out by others, which occurred when he was first Rochdale Labour council leader between 1986-1992. The report describes Cllr Farnell as a person who "bullied and browbeat people" (which he denied) who was "bullish, self-opinionated, and unyielding."  It concluded that he was a person who was "prepared to blame others without acknowledging his own failures of leadership."

The report describes how for over 30-years, children were being sexually abused at Knowl View school, Rochdale town centre, the bus station, and the "notorious" Smith Street public toilets that were situated directly across the road from the Rochdale council offices.

The report says that the former Liberal leader of the council, ex-MP, Paul Rowen, who led the council in the mid-1990s, "bore considerable responsibility" for the school too, at best being "insufficiently inquisitive" about it and at worst having "turned a blind eye" by choosing to give its problems a "low priority."

In evidence given to the inquiry, Farnell claimed that he had only become aware of these concerns in the last "two or three years". Yet, fellow Rochdale Labour councillor, Peter Joinson, told the inquiry that Cllr Farnell had admitted in 2014 to having seen a copy of a report about the issue at the time, and by Mrs Cavanagh (head of Rochdale Social Services), who said she had "no doubt" he would have seen a copy of the report in 1992. The inquiry was also told that the then chair of education, Mary Moffatt, had also been aware of the allegations. The report therefore concluded:

"It defies belief that Mr Farnell was unaware of the events involving knowl View School..."

Councillor Farnell was once employed as a press and publicity officer (spin doctor) for Tameside Council where he was nicknamed Doctor Goebbels and sometimes, Mahatma propa-gandhi, for his abilities to spin a tale. Last March (2017), The Sun newspaper reported that as Rochdale council leader, Farnell, had "treated" himself to a 51% pay rise  - up to £47,304 from 31,224, while many Rochdalians saw their living standards fall and their council tax soar.  His nemesis, Cllr Joinson, was an elected Labour member of Tameside Council for seventeen years between 1987-2004. 

As a press and publicity officer, Farnell appears particularly accident prone.  If he has any future left in politics, he will have to do some explaining  to pull himself out of this mess which he has created for himself. At the time of writing, we understand Greater Manchester Police (GMP), are investigating 'possible offences' relating to the findings of the inquiry.

Rochdale Labour Party Boss Jumps Ship!

Faced with a no-confidence motion Councillor Farnell resigns
WORKERS at Rochdale MBC have been betting on when Richard Farnell would step down ever since he made a fool of himself at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, last October.  With each week they have been disappointed, but next Wednesday at a full Rochdale council meeting he was facing a motion of no-confidence tabled by Councillor Andy Kelly, the leader of the Lib Dems.  The motion stated:  “This council has no confidence in the leader of the council and calls for him to step down and resign his position until such time that the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) are made public.”

 
The Lib Dem motion follows the resignation of the secretary of the Rochdale Constituency Labour Party who protested at the party’s handling of the scandal.

The findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse are expected to be published before April.
 
Councillor Farnell e-mailed fellow councillors claiming he stepped down to prevent causing 'disunity.':

'Following the evidence to the child abuse inquiry there's been a persistent campaign from a small minority of members in the party calling for my suspension in an attempt to undermine my leadership and cause disunity in the party and group,'

In his letter to councillors, he blamed a ‘small minority’ of Labour members for ‘undermining’ his leadership ever since the Child Sex Abuse hearing.#

His resignation is immediately effective and his responsibilities will now be taken over by the council’s two deputy leaders, Allen Brett and Donna Martin, until a replacement is chosen.

 
In an agonising cross-examination at the Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry, Farnell continually denied ever having known about abuse in Knowl View boys’ school when he was last leader during the early 1990s - and placed the blame firmly on senior officers.

In the summing-up at the end of the Child Sex Abuse Inquiry it was concluded that it was ‘inconceivable’ that Coun Farnell had been unaware of the scandal.

Farnell's evidence was quickly condemned by the solicitorr acting on behalf of victims and since then four Labour branches in Rochdale have passed motions of no-confidence against him.

However, the Labour Party’s standard response has been that it must wait until the inquiry reports back next April until a decision was made on Councillor Farnell’s future in his role. Until now, the leader had appeared to be keen to hang on to power at least until next April.  The healthy stipend.he is on must have been tempting.

Farnell’s Danczuk Moment?

by Les May

AFTER the publication in April 2014 of the book which Matthew Baker appears to have written and Simon put his name to, Danczuk was the ‘go to’ man for all things to do with sexual abuse.  No-one bothered to check whether his stories were true or just so much hot air. Leicestershire police discussed aspects of the investigation into Greville Janner with him.  Aspects which later appeared in a national newspaper. (see Appendix)
Once he got into his stride he was ‘Mr Rent-a-quote’ for comments on the Labour leadership and when Corbyn became leader in September 2015 he had a lucrative sideline dishing the dirt in articles in the Daily Mail.  And then on the last day of the year after a few ill considered ‘tweets' it all unravelled.  From then on it was downhill all the way.  The slow slide back to the bottom of the heap had begun. In just 2 years he converted a 14,000 majority into a vote of less than 900.
The problem for politicians is that once the ball starts rolling downhill the once friendly press is happy to give it an occasional push to keep it moving.  The stories may have nothing to do with the job of being a politician, but they go to build a picture of someone who dos not deserve the voter’s trust.
Now I don’t think that Richard Farnell was entirely fairly treated at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). It appeared to me that he was treated as a hostile ‘witness’ which did not seem to be necessary if the intention was to elicit the facts.  But that being said, his claim that he knew nothing of the unsavoury events at Knowl View special school is, to say the least, implausible. But was it his Danczuk moment?   Is it enough to start the downward slide to being an electoral liability?
How long before the press notice that Knowl View wasn’t the first time that things went badly wrong on Farnell’s watch.  As Oscar Wilde put it in ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’,  ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness’.
Those with long memories will recall the Middleton Ritual Satanic Abuse scandal which resulted in 21 children being taken into care and in 2006 a substantial payout by Rochdale MBC.  Northern Voices pointed out in 2016 that this occurred when Farnell was Labour Leader in an article dated 21 January, but no-one seemed to notice.  Perhaps it is time for someone to ask him what he knew about this fiasco.
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/councillor-farnell-relaxed-about-danczuk.html 
Farnell has a choice he can ‘fall on his sword’ and go gracefully, or he can face the prospect of a less than favourable report from IICSA just before the 2018 local elections.  If he decides to stay he may face the prospect of some Labour members feeling unable to campaign whilst he is still Leader.

Appendix
25 August 2015
Chief Constable
Leicestershire Police Force Headquarters St Johns Enderby Leicester. LE19 2BX
Dear Sir,
I refer to statements made by Simon Danczuk MP in the House of Commons on 23 June 2015 and recorded in Hansard Column 214WH. I have extracted below the portion of his statement which I believe raises matters of concern about the actions of your force.
Quotation starts:
'I know the police are furious about this, and rightly so. Anyone who has heard the accusations would be similarly outraged. I have met Leicestershire police and discussed the allegations in some detail: children being violated, raped and tortured, some in the very building in which we now sit. The official charges are: 14 indecent assaults on a male under 16 between 1969 and 1988; two indecent assaults between ’84 and ’88; four counts of buggery of a male under 16 between ’72 and ’87; and two counts of buggery between 1977 and 1988. My office has spoken to a number of the alleged victims and heard their stories.'
Quotation ends.
Taken at its face value this suggests that Leicestershire police discussed with a third party, who though an MP, does not represent a constituency within the Leicestershire police area, matters of a confidential nature relating to a police investigation. I draw attention to the fact that Mr Danczuk specifically used the word 'discussed' suggesting that information was passed to him by the police service rather than that he was simply questioned about information which he might hold which was relevant to the police investigation. The detailed information regarding the nature of the charges in the remainder of the statement suggests that this interpretation is correct.
Even if it is considered appropriate to discuss these matters with Mr Danczuk the question arises as to why he was apparently not instructed that these matters were confidential. Mr Danczuk's choice of words in the first two sentences of the above extract could leave the impression that by not instructing him that the matter was confidential the police service was attempting to use an extra-judicial method to bring pressure to bear upon the
Director of Public Prosecutions. I stress that I am not making such an allegation.
The apparent failure to instruct Mr Danczuk that the discussions were confidential extends to an article in the Sun newspaper of 24 June 2015 headed 'Lord Janner "Raped kids in Parliament" claims Labour MP Simon Danczuk', and in which the matters discussed with him by Leicestershire police were repeated. As Mr Danczuk had made his claims under Parliamentary privilege he gave himself, and the Sun, protection against being sued for libel. On 24 July 2015 Mr Danczuk received a payment of £10,000 from the owners of the Sun for an article he had contributed to. He declined to say which article the cash related to.
If this payment does relate to the Sun article I believe it raises further questions about the wisdom of discussing material relating to the Janner case with Mr Danczuk without instructing him that the matter was confidential.
I am arranging for a copy of this letter to be sent to the Home Office because I think the concerns raised are applicable to similar discussions between other police forces and MPs who may use parliamentary privilege to make the discussions public.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Les May

Dire Predictions at Momentum Meeting

TONIGHT's meeting of Rochdale's Momentum group at the Woolworth Social Club was a pensive affair, as the anxious supporters of the Rochdale Labour Party pondered the probability of disaster at next May's local elections if Richard Farnell, the present leader of the Labour group, hangs on to power as Labour leader of Rochdale Council.

I had expected a lively desire to dance on Councillor Farnell's grave, given his poor performance at last week's Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.  But the two dozen or so participants at tonight's event were gloomy about the future prospects for the local party.

The current official Labour Party position regarding the Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, is that it will not comment until the Inquiry publishes its report on the 26th, April 2018.

Richard Farnell could remain in office until then at least, given that it s estimated that about 70% of the Rochdale Labour Party councillors are still apparently giving him their support.

Tonight, it seemed, that only a miracle could rescue the Rochdale Labour Party in time for next year's local elections.

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What Would You Have Done?

by Les May

RICHARD Farnell’s claim at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that he knew nothing of the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View which came to light in late 1991 and early 1992, seems somewhat implausible.  But this wasn’t a civil or criminal trial so ‘implausible’ is the most definitive thing that can be said.

The demand by one of the solicitors at the inquiry that he resign is just theatre; a bit of playing to the gallery to make it look as if he has earned his fees and that the inquiry has achieved something worthwhile.  Even so I find it difficult to imagine that Farnell has much of a future in Rochdale’s political scene.  Like Danczuk before him he has become a liability to Rochdale Labour party.

No doubt some of the careerists who discover they have backed the wrong horse, not once, but twice, will miss him; his numerous enemies will gloat and the rest will remind themselves of Jim Dobbin’s comments in 2014 that Farnell was perhaps unwise to take on the job of Leader with questions about Knowl View still unanswered.

I agree with Jim Dobbin.   But I also think that whether Farnell ‘knew’ or not is irrelevant.  Focusing on this distracts from the substantive issue of whether RMBC acted reasonably and appropriately when the Shepherd and Mellor reports of 1991 and 1992 referred to the high levels of sexual activity amongst the boys at Knowl View, some of it coercive in nature.  Would Farnell ‘knowing’ have made any difference?

The stories about Knowl View had already had an airing in the Independent on Sunday in September 1995 which no-one seemed to notice, least of all the people doing the shouting now. When they re-surfaced in 2012, with Danczuk fanning the flames, in the minds of the public the term ‘sexual abuse’ did not have its present increasingly elastic definition. It conjured up the idea of being something that adults did to children or other vulnerable individuals.  I doubt that in the minds of most people it encompassed situations where it was ‘boy on boy’ or where youngsters actively solicited homosexual contact.

The evidence points to the fact that where the contemporary evidence pointed to an adult having had sexual contact with one of the boys the police pursued the matter and prosecuted the individual concerned. What is less clear, at least to me, is the question of what is/was the legal status of the ‘boy on boy’ sexual activity, which appears to be what was going on at Knowl View.

Had it been a mixed school I don’t think this sort of query would have arisen. I’m not anti-feminist point scoring here when I say the lad, but not the girl, would probably have have been prosecuted.

So I’m going to ask YOU what YOU would have done if you were a senior council officer and the report prepared by sexual health worker Phil Shepherd had plopped onto YOUR desk at the end of 1991 and YOU had read;

‘The present situation within the school is described by the staff as follows:
One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school.

Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.  

'Reputedly five of the junior boys have been or are involved in 'cottaging' in and around public toilets.  Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part. 

'One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved.  The police are aware of the problem.  What action has been taken is not known. 

'One rent boy has been removed from the school.  The suggestion that he may return soon has angered the staff. 

'Some boys have been "forced" to have sex with others.

'This degree of sexual activity, if it is factual, points to fundamental problems within the school.’  (my emphasis, because the first action which was taken was to commission a psychologist to visit the school to ascertain whether the claims were true.)

So what would you have done? 
Would you have closed the school immediately even though it served three local authorities?
Would you have insisted on prosecuting the older boys who indulged in oral sex?
Would you have insisted that the boys involved in ‘forcing’ others be prosecuted?
Do you think the term "sexual abuse" is the best way of describing what was found?

The term I have repeatedly used about what was going on at Knowl View is ‘unsavoury’.  What people do in the privacy of their bedroom is not my business.  When these things happen in an institution like a school or a prison I find it distasteful.  They should not have happened at Knowl View.  They should not have been allowed to happen.   But they did.

The reason seems to be that in terms of priority special schools like this were at the back of the queue for resources, for visits from educational advisers and for adequate staffing.   As for the ‘naughty boys’ who were at Knowl View it may have been ‘out of sight, out of mind’, an attitude we perhaps all shared.   Also Rochdale MBC was busy reorganising its secondary education provision in the years immediately prior to 1990.   At the same time the Thatcher government was encouraging schools to ‘opt out’ of the Local Education Authority and some schools were holding ballots of parents.

The substantive question is, when confronted with a serious problem at Knowl View, which may well have been in part of their own making, did the officers concerned react appropriately or did they try to ‘cover it up’?   My view is that they acted appropriately and in a timely fashion.   If you disagree, I ask again, what would YOU have done?

I’m told there are people close to the local Labour parties who are talking about ‘a crisis of sexual abuse in Rochdale’.   If they are I can only ask, What crisis? If they talking it up as a means of bringing down Farnell there are two things to say. The first is that their efforts are redundant; Farnell has no longer any credibility and won’t want to face the electorate.  The second is that they are ‘piddling in the same pot’ as Simon Danczuk.  In 2014 Danczuk talked up the problems at Knowl View which looked like an effort to discredit Colin Lambert who has just delivered Labour an astonishing electoral result.  Is this really who they feel happy to be compared with?    Just look what happened to him.

See For Yourself!

by Les May

FOR about a year after the publication of Simon Danczuk’s book in April 2014 the print and broadcast media were rarely free of stories about child sexual abuse and the need for an ‘overarching inquiry’.  The real and imagined stories about the goings on in Rochdale were rarely out of the news.

 Once the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) got going interest wained as reporting it properly involved analysing hundreds of pages of transcript.  So in general the media have ignored what the various Rochdale witnesses had to say or just given us a few of the ‘juicy bits’.

If you want to make your own mind up download and read the transcripts for yourself.  You can find them at
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents?t[38]=38&interval=&date[min]=&date[max]= 
see also:
 iicsa transcript 24 october 2017

If you find it difficult to access the website from this page move the cursor to the end of the above line, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor left along the line.  Once the whole line is marked press the right mouse button and select copy from the ‘drop down’ menu.  You can put this into your browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer etc) by pressing the right mouse button and selecting paste.

Fake News or What?

By Les May

‘EX-MP set up deal to keep sex abuse secret’ screams the half page headline on the front page of today’s Rochdale Observer. Look inside and it’s just a claim made by Martin Digan to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.   A claim for which by his own admission he has absolutely no evidence.

Digan claims that a deal was struck between Cyril Smith, the late Jim Dobbin and Colin Lambert, in which Smith would ‘keep quiet’ about ‘a serious offence against a child in a public toilet’ supposedly perpetrated by an un-named Rochdale Council leader, in return for Dobbin and Lambert keeping quiet about sexual abuse at Knowl View.  He also claims to have given a ‘dossier’ about the abuse to Dobbin.  As is all too frequent when claims are made about Smith and Knowl View we are kept in the dark about when these events are supposed to have taken place.  And ‘when’ is critical in evaluating the likelihood that any of this might be true.

We’ll return to the ‘dossier’ later, but just to clarify, Jim Dobbin was Labour MP for Heywood and Middleton from 1997 to his untimely death in 2014.  He had previously been a Rochdale councillor from 1984, Labour leader from 1994 and Leader of the Council from 1996.  Colin Lambert was a Labour councillor and worked in Jim Dobbin’s constituency office.  He later became leader of the Labour group and delivered a stunning electoral result in 2014 before finding himself displaced by the present incumbent.

Now we’ve met Mr Digan before. In the section of Simon Danczuk’s 2014 book where he claims that Smith was sexually abusing the pupils at Knowl View Special School, Digan is the prime witness. I say ‘witness’, but in fact Danczuk writes that although he had been at the school since the late 1970’s he ‘was oblivious to what was happening at the school’.  ‘Oblivious’ or not, it didn’t stop him claiming in Danczuk’s book that ‘boys were sold to paedophile gangs’.  Nor can we consider him to be the most reliable of witnesses.   The story about an event at Knowl View he told in a Radio 4 programme was subtly different from the same story which appears in Danczuk’s book.

As for the ‘dossier’, it’s a favourite term in the Cyril Smith/Knowl View saga, which seems to cover everything from a handwritten note of a short telephone conversation twenty years earlier, upwards. It consisted of copies of two reports one made by Aids worker Philip Shepherd and the other by psychologist Valerie Mellor, which Digan found in the Headmaster’s office and which had previously been submitted to Rochdale Council in 1991 and 1992.

So how likely is it that Digan’s claim about a ‘deal’ has any merit?   In cases like this it helps to ask who stood to gain? Certainly not Labour. From 1986 to 1992 Labour was running the council.  Any revelations about sexual abuse at Knowl View would have have had to be answered by them.  So why would they need any deal as an inducement to keep quiet?  I have seen the Shepherd report and can state categorically that it makes no reference to Smith.  Though I know the contents of the Mellor report I have not seen it in full, but I have been assured by someone who sees themselves as fighting for ‘justice’ for the ex-pupils of Knowl View that it makes no reference to Smith.

Digan likes to be seen as a ‘whistleblower’. Had he confined himself to trying to get the Shepherd and Mellor reports published and in the public domain so that we could see for ourselves what had been happening at Knowl View I would have felt that such a label was justified as that is what I want to see myself because these reports contain information about some very unsavoury goings on between some of the pupils at Knowl View. But, as his present claims show, he hasn’t.

In Danczuk’s book he lets himself be used as a tool for Danczuk to fashion his claims about Cyril Smith and Knowl View school. Now he’s gone freelance.   But apart from the story of ‘a deal’, the best he can come up with at the inquiry is that he had often seen Smith bouncing young boys on his knee during parties held on the premises to coincide with governors meetings.  So no ‘smoking gun‘ then?

No doubt he told the police all this when he was interviewed as part of the ‘Operation Clifton’ investigation.   The fact that the police concluded there was no evidence of a ‘cover up’ at Knowl View suggests in the absence of evidence of ‘a deal’ they did not take take the claim seriously. Claims like this just make the inquiry look like an amateurish shambles.

Petition in favour of 'Three Girls' campaigner

MORE than 120,000 people have signed a petition calling for the sexual health worker who advocated for the victims of grooming in Rochdale to be recognised for her work.
The petition asks for acknowledgment of the work of Sara Rowbotham, the sexual health worker played by Maxine Peake in the BBC drama Three Girls, which aired last week and depicted the abuse of girls in Rochdale and their struggle to be taken seriously by authorities.

Three Girls review – a brave new focus on the Rochdale child sexual abuse scandal

By concentrating on the victims rather than the abusers, this powerful drama does what the Rochdale investigation initially failed to do

Rowbotham was the coordinator of Rochdale’s crisis intervention team from 2003 to 2014 and worked with many of the girls who were victims of the Rochdale grooming scandal. She repeatedly raised concerns about vulnerable girls in the community to police and other authorities, which were dismissed.
She worked for a specialist sexual health service in the city and wrote in the Guardian earlier this month that if that service had not been available 'half the evidence that led to mass convictions would never have come to light'.  She added:  'The girls didn’t trust police or social services to help them and I quickly found out why they felt this way, as no one wanted to listen to them.'

For more:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/21/petition-calls-for-recognition-of-rochdale-sexual-health-

Official Opening of 'Simon Danczuk Toilet Block'

 

 Picture of toilet block dedicated to Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk

A charity has named a toilet block in Gambia after MP Simon Danczuk in a tongue-in-cheek swipe following a row over donations.

London-based Sohm Schools Support dubbed the facilities the 'Simon Danczuk Toilet Block' as part of their programme to improve two schools in a tiny village.

Charity founder and trustee John Walker had initially vowed to name a more prestigious school building in Sohm after the Labour MP for Rochdale.

It came after they met in 2012 to discuss background information for Mr Danczuk's book 'Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith'.

But the 69-year-old claims he never got a charity donation in response for his help - and chose to name the school's toilet after the MP following the disagreement.

Mr Walker, who lives in London, said:

'I never had any financial interest in Simon's book but I would have appreciated a charitable donation as recognition for my work.

 'I told Simon if he put a couple of grand our way I would be happy to name a building after him.

'But I never received a donation from him – so, given the way I felt about it, I thought that toilet block would be appropriate instead.

'It's great that these toilets are up and running and very much appreciated by the students and you can see it on their delighted faces - they are flushed with pride. 

 'It's a hard squeeze getting money to help these schools but Mr Danczuk's small deposit was a movement in the right direction.

'One of the students told me that when they go to the toilet they now ask if they can "go to the Danczuk".'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4245200/Charity-names-TOILET-block-Gambia-Simon-Danczuk.html#ixzz4ZMG0u8iQ
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ROCHDALE ONLINE & Operation Clifton

ASSISTANT Chief Constable Debbie Ford (Published on ROCHDALE ONLINE:  8/2/2017) said:  
“We launched Operation Clifton in July 2014 in response to a request by the Home Office to investigate allegations of a criminal cover up of non-recent sexual abuse at Knowl View School.
“GMP was asked to carry out this huge undertaking after a QC-led inquiry, on behalf of Rochdale Council, uncovered potential criminal offences.
“GMP undertook a two year investigation and committed a team of 15 staff led by a dedicated Senior Investigating Officer. Three independent advisory group members also oversaw the investigation to provide external scrutiny and challenge.
“Operation Clifton was a lengthy and detailed investigation which has been undertaken by dedicated staff who collated and examined a large volume of information to ensure that the right conclusions could be drawn. Having undertaken this work I can confirm that there will be no criminal charges brought under Operation Clifton.
“Furthermore the investigation concluded that there was no evidence of corruption or attempts to cover up the allegations to protect offenders or organisations’ reputation.
“I am grateful for the commitment and effort of the team involved.
“The documentation and findings of Operation Clifton have been submitted to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) who will now review them over the coming months.”

Knowl View: No Charges, No Case, No Cover-up

by Brian Bamford

SIMON Danczuk, the MP for Rochdale, often sounds like a gramophone record in which the needle is stuck.  When faced with the bad news that, after the expenditure of almost three-quarter's of a million pounds on Operation Clifton, there is no case to support charges against anyone for the alleged cover-up of a child sex-abuse scandal at Knowl View school up Bamford in Rochdale, Mr. Danczuk does what he always does and blames the investigators for doing a bad job.
True to form Danczuk has declared:  'I am not at all surprised at the outcome of Operation Clifton, as it has been a shambles from start to finish.' 
Then Danczuk hints at yet another cover-up, saying:  'They've wasted a lot of public money trying to protect their reputation and this doesn't help anyone.'
It seems that this whole investigation which has cost so much public money has turned out to be a castle built on the sand of the book published by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker called 'Smile for the Camera', in which the authors extrapolated in an imaginative way about claims that there had been widespread abuse at Knowl View by Cyril Smith and others, and a cover-up.
The report on Operation Clifton, which we on Northern Voices' participated, has now been written, and will eventually be incorporated into the national overarching inquiry into child sexual abuse.  This is not expected be published in full for the best part of decade.

Danczuk & '...a realistic chance of prosecution'

by Les May

UNDER the headline ‘MP slams police “failings” as abuse inquiry closes’ a week ago the Rochdale Observer reported the statement from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and Simon Danzuk’s comments regarding an investigation into allegations of abuse at Knowl View school which has resulted in just one person being charged with offences.

This is what GMP had to say ‘Between April 2014 and April 2015, 13 files with multiple allegations were submitted by GMP to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) relating to 27 suspects and 16 victims (I think they mean complainants), of both physical and sexual offences. In 2016 the CPS communicated their decision on the final one of the 13 files that was still under review. No further action will be taken in relation to this allegation.  In May 2016 a further file was submitted to the CPS and in August 2016 the CPS advised there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution.’  (my emphasis)

And this is Danczuk’s response: ‘I believe that there has been a catalogue of failings by GMP during the investigation of these crimes.  A failure to prosecute will leave child sexual abuse victims devastated that the people who changed their lives forever will not be brought to justice.  This statement from GMP announcing that they have not been able to prosecute any more abusers will, I am sure, mean that the perpetrators of these horrific and evil crimes will sleep more happily in their beds tonight.’

In other words he ‘knows’ the people accused are guilty and if the evidence cannot be found it is due to police failings.

Five days later it was the turn of the CPS to make a statement regarding an allegation that Mr. Danczuk raped his wife:
‘It has been decided that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.’  (my emphasis)

And Danczuk’s response:
‘I am grateful for the decision made by the CPS and relieved that the investigation has now come to an end.’

No suggestion here of a catalogue of police failings. No suggestion here that rapists will sleep more happily in their beds.  No suggestion here that someone has not been brought to justice.  No suggestion here that the accused ‘got away with it’.

That’s what makes Mr Danczuk such a lovable character:  his complete indifference to what a humbug he is.

I leave it to Northern Voices readers to ponder the significance, if any, of the slight difference in wording used by the CPS in their two statements.

An Unwieldy Public Inquiry

Theresa May Bounced Into Folly of Overarching Probe

by Brian Bamford

IN April 2014, I received a message on my mobile phone from the journalist Peter Hinchcliffe from ROCHDALE ONLINE tipping me of about a press conference at Rochdale Town Hall called by Colin Lambert the then Labour leader of Rochdale Council.  At that conference Councillor Lambert changed the terms of reference of an inquiry he had previously set-up to investigate historic child abuse in Rochdale at Knowl View residential school up in Bamford village.  Following the publication in March that year, of a book by the local Labour MP Simon Danczuk, entitled 'Smile For The Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith', claiming to expose child abuse in Rochdale and beyond, Councillor Lambert then felt he had to respond and at that press conference he was supported by the then Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy.

But if Colin Lambert felt under pressure at that time to act on child abuse in Rochdale, the then Home Secretary Theresa May similarly responded by setting-up a national public inquiry on historic child abuse which ultimately swallowed-up the new Rochdale investigation led by Neil Garnham QC .  So began the creation of a monstrous over-arching national inquiry with 'eyes bigger than its belly' fanned to fever-pitch by ambitious politicians like the MP, Simon Danczuk, and  an assortment of hungry journalists.

The ultimate result of this all consuming national investigation has been institutional indigestion and administrative flatulence. This is obvious to most observers, though writers on this Northern Voices' Blog have been giving warnings about this for months on end.

Last Saturday, an editorial in the Financial Times (FT) announced:

'Confidence in the inquiry is so low that some alleged victims claim it it was set up to fail.'

We on Northern Voices, together with John Walker the former editor of the 'Rochdale Alternative Paper' (which had outed Cyril Smith in May 1979), in the Autumn of 2011 supplied much of the evidence of child abuse at Cambridge House that triggered this whole issue, and was used by Simon Danczuk and his aide Matthew Baker in the production of their book*. 

The FT editor last Saturday wrote:

'For a public inquiry to merit the time and money required, it must have something concrete about which to inquire.  It must be able to obtain evidence on which it can reasonably get at the facts.  And it must have a remit that it can plausibly complete within a reasonable period of time.'

The 'Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse', set up by Theresa May, did not meet these requirements.  It is too unwieldy and extensive,  It will have to depend on remembered testimony from people with ageing memories. 

The now Prime Minister, Theresa May as Home Secretary, probably acted with the best of intentions when under pressure of the Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith revelations, she set up the inquiry two years ago.  In the end the inquiry now involves probes into 13 public bodies, and is expected to accomplish in a few years what the police couldn't do over decades.  It also aims to do a forensic study into how children can best be protected in future.

Perhaps, in the light of all this, we should not be surprised given all this that its development has been painfully slow or that the casualties and fall-out of chairs and other legal representatives have left the child abuse inquiry looking like a farce.

The first chair of the child abuse inquiry, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, resigned amid questions about the role of her brother who had served as attorney-general during the 1980s.  The second chair was driven out following a barrage of criticism about her “establishment links”.  The third resigned, and the forth, an experienced social worker, is already under attack.

Last weekend the editor of the FT points to what might be the root of the problem:

'This shows the folly of allowing those who are party to an inquiry to drive the process.  There is a difference between heeding their views and surrendering to the loudest voices...'

It seems that it is vital to get the right terms of reference for these kind of inquiries.  While the inquiry into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland took 12 years it only had to cover the events of one day, and it took 12 years to complete.  This current Historic Child Abuse Inquiry is so open-ended it is likely to surpass that, and in two-years it has already cost £20 million and it hasn't heard one hour of testimony yet. 
* Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith Hardcover – 16 Apr 2014 by Simon Danczuk  (Author) and Matthew Baker (author)› 
Neil Garnham QC

'Old News from Knowl View?'

by Les May

Operation Jaguar was launched following reports of both physical and sexual abuse that at Knowl View residential school for boys from 1969 until the school closed in 1995.

After reviewing 13 files of evidence submitted by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) relating to 27 suspects and 16 complainants the Crown Prosecution Service decided that no prosecution should take place and GMP have indicated that no further action will be taken in relation to these allegations.

Some of these allegations were made public in 1995 in an Independent on Sunday report which was based upon a 1991 report submitted to Rochdale’s education department by AIDs worker Philip Shepherd.  This is what the report actually said.

One boy who is homosexual has contact with an adult outside the school.  Several of the senior boys indulge in oral sex with one another.

Reputedly five of the junior boys have been or are involved in 'cottaging' in and around public toilets.  Men as far away as Sheffield are believed to be aware of this activity and travel to Rochdale to take part.

 
'One eight-year-old is thought to have been involved.  The police are aware of the problem.  What action has been taken is not known.

'One rent boy has been removed from the school.  The suggestion that he may return soon has angered the staff.

'Some boys have been "forced" to have sex with others.'

and this is what Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker claim it says in their book ‘Smile for the Camera’.

'In matter of fact language, the report described the extreme sexual abuse that young boys had been subjected to.  Boys were beaten and raped continually by men as far away as Sheffield who had travelled to Rochdale to take part.' page 112

A few lines later they quote their informant Mr Martin Digan as saying, 'These boys were sold to paedophile gangs.'  Of course neither they nor Mr Digan provide any evidence for this.

What Mr Shepherd’s report clearly indicated is that the major problem was sexual activities between the boys, some of it seemingly coercive.  A later report by psychologist Valerie Mellor came to substantially the same conclusion.

Last week, both Mr Danczuk and Mr Digan have appeared on television complaining about the decision of the CPS not to prosecute.  But faced with statements from Mr Danczuk about what happened at Knowl View which are so clearly at variance with what Mr Shepherd actually wrote, one must have some sympathy with the GMP which has been faced with the task sorting the fact from the fiction.  At any time in the past two and a half years Mr Digan could have dissociated himself from what Mr Danczuk claims he said but I am not aware that he has chosen to do so.

The eagerness of Mr Danczuk and Mr Baker to implicate Cyril Smith in the unsavoury activities at Knowl View has served only to confuse the issue still further.  As I show in my earlier review of their book ‘Smile for the Camera’ they provide no evidence that Smith was involved in any kind of abuse at Knowl View.  I doubt this will stop Mr Danczuk peddling his stories.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boys-in-special-school-were-at-risk-of-aids-1600318.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/nv-review-of-smile-for-camera.html

Right Honourable Member, Simon Danczuk MP

THE ROCHDALE website of the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, still proclaims the following:
'Simon has keen interests, which are shaped both by his own life experience and by the social research he has done over many years. These include alleviating poverty, getting more young people into gainful employment, tackling antisocial behaviour and supporting the development of small businesses. In addition Simon sits on the Communities and Local Government Select Committee and has a strong interest in local government and the devolution of power to local communities.
Simon has won recognition for his campaigning on the issue of child sexual abuse. He has been instrumental in changing attitudes towards child abuse by making it a mainstream topic of political debate. Simon’s has called for more Government action in the wake of the Rochdale and Rotherham grooming scandals and his campaign on the Westminster scandal has led to a major Government enquiry. Simon was named the Political Campaigner of the Year in 2014 for his work on this issue.'
LAST NIGHT, The Sun's website reported:
'SEX-mad Labour MP Simon Danczuk was urged to quit yesterday after The Sun revealed he had sex with a 22-year-old woman on his office desk.

Paul Rowen, Danczuk’s predecessor as Rochdale MP, said: “What can he do next that will bring the town into disrepute?
“The sooner he goes the better.
“Over the last two years he’s dragged Rochdale’s name through the mud.
“People are sick and tired of his escapades.”
Ex-Lib Dem councillor Liz Thirsk said Danczuk should step down.
She said: “Sometimes it is hard to imagine we are talking about an MP.
“It’s the behaviour of a sex-obsessed teenage idiot".'
The Sun told yesterday how Danczuk, 49, sent 6,000 messages, many sleazy, to the 22-year-old, who we are calling Alice.
He also spanked her and they had sex on the desk in his constituency office, paid for by taxpayers.
We had previously exposed dad-of-four Danczuk for sexting a girl of 17.
His texts to his latest conquest bizarrely interspersed details of his favourite fantasies with advice on local locksmiths and skip hire firms.
During one X-rated exchange, Alice asked: “Do you know any locksmiths in the Rochdale area?”
Danczuk replied: “Yes, Lancashire Locks on Oldham Rd.
“Use them all the time.”
She also asked the MP to recommend a skip hire company.
He replied: “Try Dicksons.
“But don’t over fill it like I did, and got charged more.”
When Alice asked him to tweet more skip information, he replied: “I’m not doing some random f****** tweet.
“About a skip.
“Supposing I tweeted it, then someone offers me one for free.
“It’ll end up in some skip ­scandal.
“Skipgate or something.
“So I get a free skip and lend it someone else?
“The Sun would be all over like a rash.”

Lesbians Lame Lad & Then Kill Him!

TODAY's Daily Mirror reports:
'A Twisted mum and her lesbian lover have been found guilty of murdering their two-year-old boy.'
Rachel Trelfa, 31, and Nyomi Fee, 29, beat Liam Fee and broke his leg, then murdered him. 
Two other lads were put into a cage and tied up in a room with snakes and rats.
The murdered toggle, Liam Fee, who lived with the two degenerates women in Glenrothes, Fife, died in March 2014 after having been hit so hard that his heart ruptured.  On examination he was found to have 30 injuries, including a broken leg and arm.
The defendant pair, originally from Tyne and Wear, had claimed another youngster had strangle Liam to death.  To support this claim they had put the lad's hand in the victim's mouth so that traces of his DNA would be found by the police.
Liam's father, Joseph Johnson was in tears yesterday after the verdict.  It seems that, according to Fee, Liam's birth had been secretly planned be Fee and Trefla while they were having an affair.  Fee said Trefla deceived Liam's father Joseph when she became pregnant by him.   When he discovered her treachery the two lesbians left Gateshead for Scotland with the young lad in August 2011.  Nyomi Fee told the Court:
'We started our affair in 2010.  It was our intention for Rachel to get pregnant with Liam and us to be a family.   Once she was pregnant we were going to move to Scotland.'
It seems Liam was only months old when the abuse began.  An expert found he eventually suffered heart injures similar to those of road-crash victims.
Among the umpteen external injuries on the lad's body there was bruising to his private parts and fractures to his upper arm and thigh.
On the day of her son's death, Trelfa spent time at a riding stables looking after her horse before going home for drinks and a meal with Fee.
The case had to be decided as a matter of joint enterprise, and it did not matter which of the two women struck the fatal blow, because they had a common criminal purpose.
They then tried to shift the blame on to a lad of only primary school age, claiming he had been acting in a sexualised way towards Liam.
In the end it was the evidence of this lad and another boy that helped to undermine the lesbian's lies.
Today, the Daily Mirror in an editorial writes:
'... the police, and health and social workers, all have questions to answer about how clues were missed, to learn lessons for the future and save other children from the inhuman clutches of another Rachel and Nyomi Fees.'
The other question that occurs to us at Northern Voices is that we are continually inundated by activists in the GLBTIQ* (etc) movement about the rights of these minorities and there is a ongoing lobby called STONEWALL, led by the distinguished northern actor, Ian McKellen, from Bolton, who I once appear alongside in a bit part in the film 'Scandal'.  Might it be that the agencies and social services in Scotland didn't follow through as they might when they were reports about Liam, because of a belief that they may have been accused of bias against lesbians?


*  GLBTIQ stands for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (Australia)