TRIGGERnometry - Police Whistleblower Shares Horrific Story - Maggie Oliver

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

Maggie Oliver is an English former Detective Constable with the Greater Manchester Police. She is known as a whistleblower for exposing the poor handling of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring case by her own force. Maggie was a consultant on Three Girls, a BBC drama based on the scandal, in which she was portrayed by Lesley Sharp. She is the author of Survivors, a book on the same topic, which is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YGQPLHZ/ SPONSORED BY: AG1. Go to https://www.drinkAG1.com/triggernometry/ to get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase! Become a Premium Member to receive exclusive benefits https://triggernometry.supercast.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See you on the room. I spent eight months interviewing those children, and they named and identified multiple men. Now, she was a child who had been 12. She had a statement of special educational needs. She was in a special school. She was being picked up at the school gates by her abusers. We had a fetus.

We had DNA that proved who had got her pregnant. He was a 40-year-old man married with three children of his own. That man was never charged with rape. Why not? Because they took the easy option and decided to charge him with sexual activity with a child. He was out of prison in less than three years. How is it possible that in modern Britain, with all of that evidence that you're talking about, DNA, fetus, statements, etc., somebody who's just there to be prosecuted, you say they took.

the easy option. Why? Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Frances Foster. I'm Constantine Kishin. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is a police whistleblower who resigned in protest at the grooming gang scandal and the author of this book, Survivors. Maggie Oliver, welcome to Trigonometry. Delighted to be here.

Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a while since we've been trying to get you on a lot of people who watched our interviews with Dr. Ella Hill, watched our interviews with some. Samantha Smith, they've been saying to us for a long time, we should get you on. You're here now. Thanks for coming. Tell everybody who are you? How are you where you are? What's been your journey through life? Well, I've had a long journey because, you know, I'm a bit of an old bugger now. But that means that I've lived a lot of chapters of my life. And I think I always say that I'm

just an ordinary woman. I've got four kids. I was married to the love of my life, who unfortunately in his 40s from bowel cancer. I went back to university at 37 because I wanted to be a teacher, actually. And then I thought, well, if I don't get into teaching, what can I do? I thought, I know, I'll join the police. Same thing, really, Maggie.

I got to see them a little earlier. The police is a lot less dangerous nowadays, mate. So it kind of fell into it. I got in, I was 41, and I went in originally to do child protection, but very quickly realized that I would have World War III every day. When I was told by another social worker that they were working with a family, I couldn't go home and forget about it.

So I reset my direction and I went into serious crime. So I became a detective. I worked in the major incident team. I did witness protection, gang-related murders. And then I was kind of head hunted for the first grooming gang job that I was taken on to in 2004. But, you know, I'd had a very full life before I joined the police. So very varied background, really.

But always driven by a sense of right and wrong, you know, really simple principles really. And I believe that when I joined the job, I really was going to do what I promised to do, which was uphold the law, protect them vulnerable. uphold fundamental human rights. And, you know, I look back now and I think, God, how naive was I?

But I'm not naive anymore. No, I don't imagine you are. No, I'm not. So let's talk about that journey from being quite naive to where you are now. So you are headhunted to investigate a grooming gang. Yeah. How do you get from that to sitting here

where you've resigned from the police, having attempted to bring light to the issue, being fobbed off, ignored, etc. Tell us about all that. Well, that job that I was first recruited for was called Operation Augusta. And it was 2004. And a little girl who was 15 called Victoria Agolia had died. Actually in Rochdale. She'd been horrendously groomed and sexually abused.

She was living in care. And one of her abuses had given her an overdose of drugs which led to her death, her death. Alongside that, at exactly the same time, a documentary team were making documentary in Keithley in South Yorkshire. And that documentary was called Edge of the City. And they had uncovered a problem in Keithley where young, vulnerable, working class white girls were being groomed, sexually abused and exploited by gangs of predominantly Pakistani men. And the powers that be within the police, I now know, feared that when that documentary went out, there would be a public outcry.

And at the same time, Victoria had died in Manchester. So with hindsight, I know that GMP, Greater Manchester Police, put together a small team of officers to kind of derail the criticism that we were doing nothing about that case. But the programme went out and there wasn't the public outcry that was expected. And so Greater Manchester Police, in their wisdom, deliberately and intentionally, shut down that job.

The official reasoning is, now, from the Independent Review in 2020, that the Chief Constable, the Assistant Chief Constables, head of crime in GMP, made the conscious and deliberate decision that they would close down that job because they would not put resources into it. Now, when they closed it down, Constantine, we had over 100 paedophiles on the database

that we knew were abusing children. We had about three dozen children, most of whom were living in care, who were being raped on a daily basis. That happened at exactly the time that my husband died of terminal bowel cancer. I went off work for a couple of months to nurse him in his last weeks. When I came back to work, that job had died of death. So, Maggie, sorry to interrupt.

And it's complicated, I know. I know. It's not that it's complicated. It's hard to believe, frankly. What you're saying is the police, the senior police officers created an investigation in order to deflect attention from. failings. Yes. And then when the failings went public and didn't generate a backlash, they shut down the investigation that they created to cover up for that. They closed it in his

trash. Even though you knew about hundreds of paedophiles who were abusing children and they abandoned all those young children to their abuse. And furthermore, they allowed those hundred paedophiles and more to continue to abuse for another 15 years. And it's really only because I began to, when I resigned, which is further down the road, that I never forgot those children. And pretty much every interview I do, I refer to Victoria and I refer to those children because that is not why I joined the police. You know, the police are there to prosecute paedophiles. You don't just suddenly decide that these kids don't matter. You don't do it. In my book, that's not why I joined the police. But I couldn't get any answers. I was told there was no evidence.

well I know that was wrong because I was on that job. I knew who those kids were. And it's just wrong. But I was pretty powerless to do anything. You know, I'd just lost my husband. I've got four children. I was a single parent. And I didn't have a single piece of paper to prove what I was saying.

And in fact, none of those rapes at that point had been recorded. So on paper, it didn't exist, but it did exist. And now, 20 years later, Andy Burnham in Manchester, heard me, like, rabbiting on on the radio. And he put together an independent review. And the review team spent three years looking at that job. And the official findings were, yes, there was a job. Yes, there were 100 paedophiles. Yes, there were three dozen children.

And GMP have now been forced to reopen that case. 20 years too late because those men, you think how many other children those men have prosecuted. So when I say I am not naive, I am not naive because they deliberately did that. So I don't trust them. There is a bigger agenda here. And those kids don't matter. And I always say, if those children have belonged to the chief constable or Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak, they would have prosecuted those. meant with every breath in their body. But those kids don't have anybody fighting their corner. You know, often they come from troubled backgrounds or they live in care.

And you know what? It is just unforgivable. And, you know, I'm 20 years on from it. And I have been through a lot of shit in those 20 years. And I have thought I would go to prison for speaking the truth because that's what GMP said to me when I said I was going public. But the truth is the truth. And police officers, this is not about individual police officers.

Because every organisation has good and bad. I was a good police officer and I did my absolute best. The people who are the bad ones are those at the top who made the decision to close that job down. It wasn't about me. It wasn't about the officers on that job. So when, like today we have them saying, we're going to deal with police officers like Carrick and Wayne Cousins.

And Wayne Cousins and that. Yeah, they're bad apples. But there's a lot of good apples in that box. And for me, the book stops at the top. So when the chief constable and assistant chief constables make a deliberate decision to close a job down like that, they should be in prison, I'm afraid. They are guilty of misconducts in a public office.

And, you know, I started my charity, the Maggie Oliver Foundation. That isn't funded by the government or by public bodies. It's ordinary, decent human beings who believe like I do that children like that deserve to have a voice, that they deserve to be protected, that the police are there to prosecute the offenders. They are the bad guys, not the kids. So I'm sorry to go on,

but it still bothers me today that that can happen and still is happening because there are grooming gangs operating today. This is not a historical problem. And in the charity, we are supporting and fighting for victims today who are still being silenced, who are still having the door slammed in the face.

We've currently got cases, in Hull, in Barrow, in Oldham, in Rochdale, in South Wales. So, you know, this is not historical. And the police will have you believe it is historical, that now things are a lot better. I think things are better in that there is now awareness. But the authorities are still failing massively. The police now are basically not fit for purpose.

You know, they're under resource, they're not trained effectively. They're a political animal in many respects. So there's still a lot of work to do. What does that mean, Maggie? They're a political animal. I don't think they're independent anymore. You know, there is no accountability. When I'm talking about, I was talking about 2005,

but I know, for instance, and this is not a, I'm not a party political person in any way. So, you know, my distaste, my distrust of the establishment goes to all political parties. Because I know in 2008, for instance, that the government at the time were Labor. And I know that the Home Office sent out to circular to all police forces, saying that they should not investigate these kinds of crimes because they feared a backlash that they didn't want to stir up Islamophobia.

Another thing that I will say, which I didn't know at the time, on Augusta, the very last entry on our database for that job was on the night of the 6th of July 2005. Now, my husband died on the 5th. On the morning of the 7th, We add the London bombings. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer?

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One carriage completely wiped out. At least nine people very seriously injured and trapped. Two confirmed casualties. We're now also hearing that there have been further incidents at Russell Square. Literally, there was just a very loud ban. The train derailed. There was smoke everywhere. There are two trains stuck in tunnels at Edgeware Road, and it's not known if they've collided or where the passengers remain on board.

Everyone thought they were going to die. People started saying prayers. prayers, praying to God, panicking, breaking the carriage windows with bare hands, anything to get oxygen into the carriage. We're now hearing reports that a bus has been ripped apart in an explosion in central London. One man has actually shown myself some footage that he recorded on his mobile phone of a bus exploding a few streets away just near to Houston Station. lying on the floor.

There was not another entry went on that database after that day. Now, you know, go figure. We had a full major investigation team working on that job on the night of the 6th of July. On the morning of the 7th, we had all the

London bombings, we had a fear of Islamophobia. They closed down Operation Augusta. I don't believe that was a coincidence. But the losers in all this are the children. And sometimes the truth hurts, but, you know, that is the truth. And until somebody tells me differently, that is what I will believe.

But I have to caveat that, really, by saying that I know that there have been racial elements to this particular kind of sexual abuse. And I don't think you can ignore that. that the vast majority of these victims in these cases are young, white, working class children and the vast majority of the offenders are Pakistani Muslim men. That is a fact. And the statistics won't show that, but that's because the statistics were never gathered by the authorities because they didn't want those statistics. But what I always say is that for me this is about child protection.

And I don't care if it's Jeffrey Epstein or a priest in the Catholic Church or Harvey Weinstein or your uncle or your next door neighbor. For me, raping a child is against the law. And in this country, the law is there to prosecute the bad guys. And there is nobody worse in my book than a child abuser because every child deserves to have a life. And when they don't have a family or somebody like me, pretend, then that is the duty of the state to step in social services, the police to make sure they're protected. And what I saw was the absolute opposite of that. And it goes against every single thing that I believe in.

So in the end, I had no choice other than to say what I believed to be the truth. And that wasn't in 2005. That was in 2012, really, when I resigned. because after Augusta, when it closed down, I went back to my normal day job, which was in major crime, went back to gang jobs and murders and shootings. And I was also a family liaison officer. And then for my sins in 2010,

I was approached and asked to join another job in Rochdale, which became known as Operation Span. And at first I said, you know, thank you, but no thanks. She can stick your job. I ain't interested. I've been there. I've got the T-shirt and I am not going down that road again. But I was given cast iron guarantees.

I was given policy documents and paperwork to say there would not be a repeat of Operation Augusta. So I went on that job and lo and behold, I saw repeat. So what happened was Operation Span? I was asked to join Opspan and the abuse had long finished on that job. This was 2010. The abuse had finished in 2008 but nothing had happened. And Greater Manchester Police decided that, well, what happened really was there was a routine property review within GMP. And in that property review, an officer discovered.

actually a fetus in the police property system and that fetus had just sat there for two years. It opened up a can of worms and it turned out that the fetus had been seized from a young girl who became known as Ruby and the drama, three girls that I worked on. There's no such thing as a child prostitute. What there is is a child who's being abused.

The nine men have been released on bail. How many victims? 47. And when they went to the police, nothing was done about it. No one bothered. What do you think that does to a kid? We treat them as human beings and we say we're sorry. What is the point if a jury is not going to believe she's telling the truth? I watched her interviews and I believed her.

Ruby had been groomed, sexually abused as a 12-year-old, then a 13-year-old. She was made pregnant when she was just 13 by one of the girls. gang of abusers. Police seized that fetus without her knowledge, without her consent, without her mum knowing, and it had been put into a police property system where it had sat for two years. Nothing had been done with it. So when the property review was done, that fetus was found and they decided that they had to do something about this. So I was brought in onto that job. We had dozens of men that we knew were abusing children in and around Rochdale, also in Oldham.

I was asked to bring that young girl on board as a victim. By this time she was 14, I think. I was asked to also bring on board her sister who had also been horrendously groomed and sexually abused by dozens of men. But two years before, she had been arrested on suspicion of being a madam at the age of 15. People will have to read my book to really understand the complexities.

I'm just trying to simplify it. But I was told at that point that she should never have been arrested, which she absolutely should not have, that I was being asked to bring those two children and their family and other children potentially on board to tell us what had happened and to prosecute this gang of paedophiles. So I told them to, I'm not interested. Because the damage to me from Augusta has never left me, really.

In fact, I was talking to one of those girls two days ago from Augusta, so I'm still in touch with some of them. But I was told that the most senior lawyer in the CPS, had scrutinised the evidence from 2008. And the young girl, Amber, in the drama, never should have been arrested. She was officially categorised as a victim. And I was given the green light to go ahead

and go and interview those two children. I spent eight months interviewing those children. And they named and identified multiple. men. Ruby gave her consent, as did her mom, for us to use the DNA, that proved who had got her pregnant. Now, she was a child who had been 12, maybe even 11, but 12, to my knowledge, when the abuse began. She had a statement of special educational needs. She was in a special school. She was being picked up at the school gates by her abusers. We had a fetus. We had a fetus. We had DNA that proved who had got her pregnant.

He was a 40-year-old man married with three children of his own. Can you believe that even that man was never charged with rape? Why not? Because they took the easy option and decided to charge him with sexual activity with a child. He was out of prison in less than three years. And she was not even made aware or consult. about his release. He was allowed to go back to Rochdale, where he still lives,

to walk around where he bumped into her, in the local Astor, walking around the end of an aisle. She went into a total meltdown, ran out of the shop and rang me in floods of panic, saying he was called Billy. That was his street name. His real name is Adil Khan. And his name is in the public arena,

because he was prosecuted and convicted. But he was out of prison in less time than you get for, you know, parking on double yellow lines sometimes. So I was fucking fuming. Sorry. Sorry, I know, no, no, no, no. I'm trying to pick the big thing about it. You're doing a great job.

I just want to, there'll be people watching this going, what the hell is you talking about? How is it possible that in modern Britain, with all of that evidence, you're talking about, DNA, fetus, statements, etc., somebody who's just there to be prosecuted. I understand sometimes these cases are complicated and you can't get the right information and all of that. But in this case, it doesn't seem to have been the case. You say they took the easy option.

Why? Why did they take the easy option? Because if she had been 12, there is absolutely no. No defence. It's statutory rape. Yeah. Yeah. Because she was just 13, because the fetus and the number of weeks pregnant she was, we knew exactly when she'd got pregnant. Because she was just 13, that would have meant that they would have had to prove

that she did not consent to her rape. In my book, a 13-year-old child with special needs cannot consent. In most people's books, I don't know. But the CPS will say, Well, it's a lot easier to prove. They don't have to prove anything then because there's a fetus. She was pregnant.

We knew who he was. So he had had sexual activity with that child. They didn't want to go to a trial where they would have to prove that she could not consent. So they took the easy option. Is that a money thing, Maggie? It's a money thing.

And it's lazy. Yeah. It's lazy. And it's not right. No. It's not right. And if that was my daughter, I would want that man prosecuting for rape

because she was not able to give consent. She was drunk every time she had sex. We had a fetus, as I keep saying. So for me, that decision was made for resources and because they couldn't be asked, basically. But that doesn't make it right, it's wrong. In relation to the other young girl, the other child, who I had been given promises

that if I brought her on board, that I would be allowed to hold her hand, both their hands, right through to trial. Eight months down the road, again, like Augusta, they made the powers that be, so chief constables, gold commanders, people in CPS sat down and they made a policy decision that they were going to build a case around one child. And whilst I accept that, because I know that we can't always bring everybody in, into one trial, it becomes too complex. I do not accept that we cherry pick which rapists we prosecute and which children we support as victims. If they have given us evidence and they

have spent months identifying their abusers and the top lawyer in the CPS has identified them as a victim, I'm sorry, you don't change your mind eight months down the road and that's exactly what GMP did again. They changed their mind. And it was, if anybody wants to watch the drama, three girls, it is a drama. It does not go nearly far enough. The police and the CPS get off very lightly. Again, I'd say read my book. But what happened about eight or nine months down the road after these kids had unburdened their souls to me, I spent every day with them, really. They couldn't have done more to help the police. And eight months down the road, Friday afternoon, I just get, you know, my boss comes up to me and says,

oh, Maggie, can have a word? Yeah, yeah, of course she can. This girl had just identified 10 of her abusers in an ID parade. She fell apart, but she'd done it because she didn't want the same thing to happen to other children. My boss said to me, just want you to know, we've made a decision. we're no longer going to use Amber.

But don't get upset. We are going to use Ruby. And I just felt, I just couldn't. You know what? I felt like murdering somebody. And I just picked my bag up. And I said, and this scene in the drama is actually pretty true. I just said, well, you know what?

I am not going to use anybody. It is not right and I was out of there. And I couldn't believe that I was seeing a repeat again of what I'd seen previously. Hey, Constantine, do you like being healthy? Of course. In my country, we judge men's health by his ability to wrestle bear. In London, I have since found out this has very different meaning. We've all had a night that's got out of hand.

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AG1 is a very good, is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash trigonometry. If you're looking for a simpler effective investment for your health, try AG1 and get five free AG1 travel packs and a free one-year supply of vitamin D with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash trigonometry. That's Drink AG1.com. dot com slash trigonometry. Check it out. Yes, check it out and become real men like me. Well, it's, I mean, so again, just let me get this clear. So you had this girl, this vulnerable

young girl who had been raped multiple times who had identified her abusers. This, I'm not a legal expert, I assume, is pretty rock-solid evidence and there was more evidence to back up her claims. and they said they're not going to use her. Did he give an explanation? They couldn't be asked. They built a case around one girl. And if you're a police officer, you know, there are,

and these Amber and the girl they built the case around had actually fallen out. So the two of them were at loggerheads. So I could accept that they would run them as two separate trials. What I would never accept is that they cherry peering. and, you know, the victim. And actually this goes to the heart of a great deal that goes on when we're talking about rape prosecutions

that a judgment is often made of the victim. You know, she was drunk, she's worn a short skirt, she was asking for it. That isn't what rape is. Rape is about consent. And here we had a child of 14 or 15 when the abuse was happening. She had come from a family where her brother, had died. She'd actually

found him dead. Her mum had had a nervous breakdown. She'd pretty much brought up her little sister on her own. Her brother had been abused in the children's home where Cyril Smith was operating. She had had a life from hell and yet even after all that she had

put her trust in me because I had been assured by my supervisors I had been head hunted to do that job with the direction of the head lawyer in the CPS, you don't get more powerful than that, do you? You know, if somebody, if the head lawyer in the CPS and the assistant chief constable gives their word that if you tell us what's happened to you, we will prosecute your rapists,

you believe that. I certainly did at that point. And yet here I was for the second time seeing the same thing happening. Now, I'm going to fill in the bits after that, but I think it's worth saying that I have been fighting for Amber and Ruby for 10 years now. And last April, after 10 years, I took those two children who were no longer children, plus another victim, to meet the new Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police. He apologised to them.

He gave all of them a letter of apology. and to Amber he gave an apology and an assurance that all her rapes have now been crimed, that she is recognised as a victim. And yet when she was dropped from that job in 2012, just before the trial, the barrister realised that without her evidence, they could not run that trial because her evidence was central to the case. So she was no longer a victim or a witness. and it was too late to bring her on board for that.

The only other way of introducing her evidence into a court of law was if she was an offender. So they secretly added her to the indictment as one of the gang of abusers. She did not know. She did not have any... She was not arrested. She was not cautioned.

She had no legal representation. She didn't know until two years later, when I resigned from the police and went and told her what had been said about her in court. And as a result of what was said about her in court, social services were trying to take her children away from her by saying she was a paedophile. Now, you're looking shocked. I am still shocked to this day that that is possible in the UK. Because if you can be accused of being a murderer or a paedophile and you are not made aware, you are not given an opportunity to defend yourself.

That, for me, goes against every single thing that I believed happened. But that, I swear on my children's life, that that is exactly what has happened in this case. And I am trying to raise awareness that this goes on in the UK today. And furthermore, the CPS still are saying that they were justified in making that decision and that they would do it again if it was convenient. What?

Yep, they will still not acknowledge that that was wrong. And I am fighting still because to me it goes against everything. Even the Yorkshire Ripper is entitled to a defence. This young girl was secretly described as a paedophile. She is not. She was a victim of a grooming gang. And so this injustice still drives me forward because these are the cases that I do know.

That's why the foundation is so important because victims and survivors come to us today telling us of current failures, of current injustices, and we fight for them within the system. So it's still a massive problem. But it shocked me and it still shocks me. and actually it makes me feel I think I was exploited as well if I'm honest

you know I joined the police to do good and yet they are the worst things that I have ever seen anybody due to a vulnerable person and that was done with the full knowledge and backing and authority of chief constables and the CPS and that's kind of what keeps me going really Maggie, we've talked about the cases which are obviously awful, and that case is so unbelievably shocking.

I couldn't even say miscarriage. I don't even have the words to describe what they did to that poor woman. I mean, it's awful. But if we take, look at the big picture, do we know roughly how many girls were abused, how many girls were raped, how many men were involved? Do we have any of those types of figures? No, because the authorities...

always refuse to gather the statistics around these kinds of cases. And I believe that's because they never wanted to gather them. You know, when you see reports, they always report that abuse in the family is far greater than this kind of abuse. And I actually wouldn't disagree with that. But for me, it's not, you know, it's not the charts. You know, it's not about the best and the worst. Every one of those victims is a child,

and they all deserve equal support and justice. But I always say that, you know, knowledge is power. And before we can ever change anything, we have to know what it is we want to change. And I am not. in any way, shape or form racist. But this problem, we need to understand why. We need to understand why and where and how

and then work out how we are going to resolve it. Because there are a lot of good Muslims. There are a lot of people in that community, a lot of women that, you know, I have dealt with in the course of my job, who have also been abused, who are also subjected to forced marriages and honour killings And, you know, it isn't about making decisions. It's about seeking the truth and then finding a solution.

So I'm talking about something that needs a solution. And unless we're prepared to talk about it and explore how we resolve it, we're never going to change it. It's interesting that you felt you had to put in the disclaimer saying how you're not racist. I think everybody would know that anyway. But I think it speaks to something that's important to say in this context, which is, and I was saying this to you in the car on the way here, which was that when we first had a survivor of one of these grooming gangs on the show,

there was a distinct feeling of like all around us. Suddenly, you know, we were two comedians back then operating in a very kind of progressive comedy industry. And suddenly there was this feeling almost like we'd done something wrong. And I imagine you encountered this as well. And the thing that I find odd about it is, I think you'd want to know if this was happening irrespective of the races of the people involved or any of that.

But yet that seems to me, based on what you're saying about 7-7 and all the rest of it, it was almost like the fact that there was a racial dimension to this made it much harder to talk about and to investigate and to prosecute. Do you think that's a fair assessment? I do think that that is one of the, the dynamics, very much so.

I think that there's a racial dynamic there. I also actually think there's a class dynamic, if I'm honest. You know, poor working class children, you know, they come from a shittest day. You know, they're out at 10, 12 o'clock at night. I'd argue they need more protection, not less. And as I said before, if it was Boris Johnson's daughter, you know, it wouldn't happen. The police would be down like a ton of bricks. You know, we find that the media absolutely focuses the minds of the authorities.

on taking action. And the recent case in Manchester, where three women have been horrendously treated in police custody and strip searched, you know, we went to the media after time for two years to get the police to take it seriously. We've now got an independent review looking at it. So, yes, the racial dynamics are part of it.

I think it's important to say, though, that when I walked off Opspan, that was in the summer of 2011. and I thought I was losing my marbles, if I'm honest. You know, I still can't believe, I still can't believe that it was left to me to highlight this subject because it was going on all through the north of England. You know, Yorkshire, Rochdale, Oldham, Huddersfield. You know, you look at a northern town and this was.

was happening. And there were all those police officers and social workers and yet we weren't talking about it. So I sat at home for about probably about two months actually thinking, I can't believe what I'm seeing. You know, am I wrong? Am I missing something here? And then, you know, what happened? It was a ticket. exactly the time that the Hillsborough families were fighting for justice for their families. And I sat at home on my own watching the telly and seeing these, you know, moms and dads who had grown old fighting for the truth, really. And then I had a conversation with my boss on the phone and I kind of unburdened my heart.

and I didn't think that she was a bad person. I just felt that she was being twirled and she wasn't strong enough to stand a corner. But when she admitted to me that she agreed with what I was saying, that I was right, but that I should remember that senior officers made decisions. I was just the detective, and my job was to do as I was told.

And if I couldn't do that, maybe I was in the wrong job. And that's what she said. And my love... Loyalty then to her and to any colleagues really went on a back burner. Because my duty was to those children. But as well as that, with Hillsborough going on, you know, I've got four kids. And I truly believe that this would come out at some point. And it actually still upsets me to think of what I've lost to tell the truth

because I was just telling the truth. but I didn't want my kids turning the TV on in 30 years' time when I'm pushing up daisers and suddenly Rochdale and Augusta is all over the news and all these children that have been failed for decades I wanted my kids to know that I had tried my best so on that day I just decided that I was going to tell the truth and at that point I was really naive

because I thought it was down to one level lazy colleague. That is the gods on his truth. We had a guy running that job. He was a traffic man. He'd never work with kids. He's a man who said to me, I will never name him, I never have.

When I was fighting for these kids and I had a conversation with him getting upset that they weren't going to prosecute these men for raping another child, he said to me, Maggie, Maggie, calm down. He said,

what are these kids ever going to contribute to society? They should have been drowned at birth. And I swear that is what you said to me. So when I had the conversation with the boss and I'm watching Hillsborough, I thought, you know what? I am going to tell the truth. But at that point, I didn't believe

that the chief constable even knew what was going on. I thought this was just that job. So I went back to work and the first person I went to see was the head of the public protection unit and she listened to me seemed to be shocked, said she would do something about it and then I left it with her and a few weeks later, a couple of weeks later. I'm every day, I'm not sleeping, I can't eat, I can't sleep. It's just constantly in my mind. A couple of weeks later, I get an email from her saying, no, hi, Maggie.

Really sorry, I've not done anything about this, but I'm going on holiday in a couple of days, but I'm going to delegate it to such and such a body. Well, that was the first person that I'd spoken to about this when I was first concerned, and I thought, no, no, I am going to deal with this. So I wrote to the chief constable. I wrote my long email. I put everything on paper. His response was to send me a four-line email back saying,

Thank you for your interest. If lessons have to be learned, we will learn them. But thank you for your time. And I thought, you know what? You can fuck off because I am not leaving it here. So I went to the Federation and I said, no, I tell a lie. He put me in touch with another person because I refused to speak to the first person that he suggested. So I spoke to the head of serious crime.

he condescended to allow me 15 minutes of his time. He didn't want to hear a word I said. And he finished off by saying to me with a finger, listen, Maggie, because I told him that I am not leaving this here. I am going to take this further. I want something doing about it, and I am not walking away again. And before I left the room, he said to me, you know, some of the things you've said to me today cause me,

serious concern, but you'd be very careful what you do. You've signed a kind of a secrecy agreement when you join the police. Anything you know, you only know because of your role as a police officer. And you said a few other things. And the fear that left me with was that I would possibly go to prison if I spoke out. So I thought, I need legal, I need some legal advice. I went to my Federation who introduced me to a lawyer. I saw the lawyer, explained what had gone on, and they said, we need all your evidence. And I did have evidence this time. I didn't on Augusta, but this time I did. So I went back to the Federation, told them what the lawyer had said. And at that point, they said, really sorry, but we can't pay for you to go back to that lawyer.

But tell you what, give us all your information. We'll give it to the four solicitors. And I said, you are having a fucking laugh. I have already tried to get something done about this. I've been right to the top of GMP. No, I'm going somewhere independent. They wouldn't pay for me. So what actually happened was I was in a mess and I ended up unconscious on the floor at work.

My colleagues took me to my doctor who signed me off and with severe work-related stress. I was really ill. but I decided that I was going to go public. Wherever that led, I was going to speak out. So I resigned. I went back to see the kids that I felt I'd failed, told them what had happened.

Do you know that Amber didn't even know at that point that she had been added onto that indictment in the trial a year before? She wasn't even aware. But when I told her, she said, oh my God, because I was forbidden from speaking to these kids. Now I know why they tried to take my kids because it all makes sense. So those kids are like my own kids now. But I fought for her to keep her kids and she did.

But I decided I was going to go public. So I actually approached Panorama. They put me in touch with File on 4 because the Jimmy Saville's thing. was just all blowing up. And I worked for three months on telling the basics of the story to file on four, which is on the website for the foundation. It was about Rochdale, but the girls themselves also told a bit of their story. And then the drama team behind three girls approached me.

And with the consent of the girls, I worked on that program for four years. and that's what educated the country. And once I started to speak out, I think that's probably, well, when I first went public, the chief constable went on all the programs, you know, Woman's Hour and he was given to write a reply, the Today program. And I went on all those programs. He went on there.

And what he basically said was that I was a woman who would become too emotionally involved. that I was bereaved. Basically, I've lost the fucking plot. And yeah, I had because of what they'd done, but I didn't. I was driven by what was right. And really now the ordinary people have been my salvation.

Because I'm saying nothing different than ordinary people believe. The problem is at the top of these organisations. They are corrupt. Hey KK, do you like trigonometry? Of course I do. Incredible interviews, fascinating guests, phenomenal live shows and hilarious raw streams. In that case, you need to join our locals so you can have access to even more brilliant content. That's right, you get the chance to win incredible prizes.

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and for just $7 a month you have access to all of this brilliant content. $7 a month even for someone of my persuasion that That's a bargain. See you all on locals. So we talked about the racial concern, which is understandable. People are very sensitive about that issue. But it sounds like it was, in addition to that, there was just a lot of incompetence or lack of interest or they didn't care or it was just a job to them. Is that it?

Or when you say corrupt, what do you mean? I don't think it's the individual police officers. I think it's the powers that be at the top. These crimes... Sorry, Maggie, what do you mean by the powers that be? I mean the chief constable. I mean... And why don't they care about this?

And just also as well, when you say chief constable, it'll probably help people to understand who the chief constable is, what they're in charge of, etc. Do you see what I mean? So we can paint this big to... Every police force has a big boss. Right. And the big boss is the chief constable.

Got you. So the Met, it's... What's his name? Rowley. The commissioner. Yeah. In the Met, they call him the commissioner. But every other police force in the country, they don't have a commissioner.

They have a chief constable. Okay. And they are in charge. And around them, they have what is called a gold command group. And they are assistant chief constables, head of crime. And they are called a gold command group. And they choose where the resources for that police force go. So they have to prioritize.

how they spend their money. And this kind of crime was not a priority. So, for instance, if you go back to Augusta in 2004 and 5, the reason I say they're all connected, because in 2004 and 5, the Home Office were paying police forces additional money for good responses and outcomes in what is called acquisitive crime. So a burglary, a robbery, a theft from a motor vehicle.

If you rang up and your car was being broken into, because I was in the cops then, you would go like blues and twos and you'd be there in 30 seconds. If you reported a rape, you never got, you were the back of the queue. Because it was not a priority. So they were called performance indicators. And that's what you were measuring. So in a police force like GMP, if your performance indicator showed

that you were solving all the burglaries or the robberies, then your funding from the home office would be far higher. But if you dealt with these child rapes instead of the burglaries, then you wouldn't be meeting your targets. And actually today or this week, the Suella Braverman has announced that police forces have been directed, that they must attend every burglary, every robbery, hasn't it?

That's just been in the news this week. That will drive what police forces on the ground do. So all these, so chief constables now are not independent. They are political pawns and the government, they're not operating independent of politics anymore. So the priorities are set. by the top, by the home office. And that reflects on how a child who is raped

is treated by the system. So what you're saying is because of the... Does that make sense? Yeah, it's just trying to convert it into an easy to understand way of saying it. So the fact that the police respond to politically driven incentives and that political message

creates perverse incentives on the ground, and there, therefore a chief constable who's trying to meet the political needs of the day, they're going to direct resources at things that are being prioritized by the government. And let's say, I mean, it's obviously the case that burglaries affect more people than child sexual exploitation. So from an electoral point of view, a government would be like, well, you know, people care about burglaries. Let's focus our resources on this. And then the resources don't get allocated to these.

cases. But that still doesn't explain why you had the situation, as you did with Augusta, where the investigation started, but it's not started to actually get to the bottom what's going on. It started as a way of deflecting attention from failings and is then immediately shut down. So that sounds to me like people covering their asses. I think it's a PR exercise. Right. It's public relations. But that's what I mean. That's what covering your asses is, Right? Yeah. Yes, it is. Right. So you're trying to protect yourself from bad publicity. Yeah. Which is interesting to me because, look, I understand all organisations have concerns about how they appear because it reflects badly on the people who run them. But policing is different for the very reason that you said, which is it's about protecting people.

But that's where I was naive. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm people might think I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist now. but I'm really not. And, you know, if you think of the Lucillez case, right? This is a nurse who killed children. A nurse who killed lots of children where the organisation, the trustees in the NHS were more interested in protecting the reputation of their institution than they were in saving children's lives

from a potentially murdering nurse. and this inquiry will show that. What I'm saying is that from the journey of my last 10 years, that is exactly what I see in the police, that there is no independent complaints procedure. It's not independent. Because there's the IPCC, isn't there? The independent police complaints.

They are not, you know, they are not independent. I mean, on Augusta, right, they're about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. On Augusta, that job was deliberate. The official inquiry reported that that job closed down because GMP were not prepared to put resources in. That is the official finding. Five senior officers were then referred to the IOPC for investigation. All five of those officers refused to be interviewed.

The IOPC has got no power to force them to be interviewed. Those officers have all retired with a big fat pension, but they are responsible for allowing 100 paedophiles to walk the streets for 15 years. For me, they should be held accountable. They are guilty of misconduct in a public office and yet there will not be accountability because they have walked into the sunset free of any kind of consequences. So I see these, that the internal police complaints department, the IOPC, they are delaying tactics. They are all there to actually protect the organisation. What I would say is that what's happened this week in relation to police forces being told they must investigate burglaries,

that is another public relations exercise because we have got a general election coming up. the public in this country are disillusioned with the police. Agreed. Everybody knows that if you report a burglary or a car crime or a robbery, you will get a crime number. That's all you get. So this direction from the government is telling police forces what to do. They're not getting any more resources.

So once again, we're in the land of PIs, maybe not called PIs, but it's the same land. They're not putting any more police officers in. So if police officers now who are under, there are not enough, they are not trained effectively, they are too young, they're inexperienced, experienced ones are running away in their droves. If you are not going to address those problems, the government can tell them to do it. And okay, they might do it because the chief constables will be directed by the home office to do that. But the consequences of doing all the burglaries and the thefts and the robberies are that the child rapes and the, you know, perhaps the gun crime. won't get dealt with.

You know, it's about prioritising where you want your resources to go. And presenting the policing to the public is very much a PR exercise. They have very powerful public relations departments. Local TV stations and local newspapers will only report what they are

given permission to report because otherwise they're excluded from press conferences where they're going to get a scoop. I know all this because I have lived it for 10 years. So I don't waste my breath fighting for things that are outside of my control. What I waste my breath doing is trying to raise awareness and educate the country because I am a big believer in people power.

Progress is far too slow. You know, I would change it today. But from where I started 10 years ago, nobody knew about grooming gouged. You know, if there's one thing that I have done, it's definitely raise awareness. The drama, we won six BAFTAs and I've not watched it since I showed the girls because it triggers me. I can't look at certain things because it doesn't go far enough, but what it did, it educated the whole country that this problem existed.

I'm too close into my story and their story, but what I can see now is the bigger picture. and the foundation, you know, I started my own charity because I was falling apart because there are so many desperate people. So the Maggie Oliver Foundation, we don't get any public funding. I don't want it because I want to be an independent voice. I don't want principles and truth to be mixed up with people who are paying our bills. And the bills are actually staff. We've now I've got seven members of staff, I've got 25 volunteers. We offer ongoing support for emotional support to people who need someone to talk to. But we also fight for victims who are trapped in a system now, which is doing nothing.

So I'm disillusioned with the system. It needs to change. I'm trying to change it by sharing current information of what I've learnt. The changes will come from other people, though. people in power. And the way things have been, I have very little faith that they will do it willingly.

It's public pressure that will lead to change. We have moved forward a little bit. In the recent cases, abusers like the man who got Ruby pregnant are being charged with rape. That's progress. The sentences are quite often longer.

I mean, the way I look at it, if I hadn't started speaking out, would we be in this place? I don't know, but that kind of makes me feel I've done something worthwhile. But the consequences for me personally were horrific. You know, I loved my job, my career. I gave up my career. I lost my home that I'd been for 30 years. I lost my income. I lost my mental health.

I spent, you know, probably five years in a place where I could think of nothing else. And I look back over the past 10 years and a lot of the good things, the fun things in my life have been squeezed into a tiny corner of it. I've got my kids and my family and I want my life back. But I can't allow these victims and survivors to go on alone, which is why I started my charity. to build an army of people like me who will carry on my work and we're growing it in the spirit in which I started it and I have got an amazing team. So anybody listening who wants to look at the website

or do a fundraiser or donate, we are funded entirely from public funding. And that's, you know, we've helped over, I think it's nearly 4,000 people now since I started in 2019. That's a lot of victims. and a lot of survivors, but the authorities are not there.

There isn't enough mental health services or support services. You know, as a country, we are in a mess. We are in a mess. And I've picked my corner because I've got knowledge there that's taken me a long time to gain. And if I walk away,

that learning goes with me. So I'm trying to make sure that it will carry on long after I'm. here, there's a lot of battles to be fought, I think, in this country. This is mine because I'm an expert now. I know this subject inside out and I still care and it still matters and there's still not enough being done but, you know, we're not going anywhere and I'm not going to give the authorities an easy ride and I think I said to you before I always say I have pissed a lot of people off. But the people I've pissed off deserved it. You know, if they were

doing the job, I wouldn't be able to say this about them. So if they pull the fingers out and do the job they are meant to do, they are public servants. The police are there to serve the public and they are not doing that. They are failing monumentally. We don't really have a criminal justice system that is fit for purpose. In these cases alone, there's less than 2% of reported rapes that ever reach a trial, reported rapes. That's not the ones that are not reported because many, many victims will never report it because they know what they'll face. So rape and child abuse has become virtually decriminalised.

And for me, that is not something to be proud of. We are meant to be a civilised country. We are not a third world country. And while we're, you know, calling other countries for, you know, lack of human rights and inhumane treatment of prison, We need to be putting the things right in our own backyard and there's a long way to go. So I know I go on, but it matters to me. It's worth going on about.

Maggie, let's move on to locals maybe because we're running out of time. So we're going to continue the conversation with questions from our supporters. And there's a couple of questions I want to ask you about, particularly about, you know, one of the things we've seen, you talked about disillusionment with the police. One of the things people see is people now being arrested for saying things. and not being arrested for doing things, which is quite odd. But we'll talk about that. Before we do, though, we always end this part of the interview with the same question,

which is what's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be? You looked at your book there, and I agree, your book and the subject of everything you're talking about. But if you want to raise something else as well, please do. God, where do you start that we're not talking about? I don't know. For me, I think the big, the biggie is accountability at the top. I think if we had that, we would see a lot of changes. I think people at the top of society are often protected.

I mean, I don't want to just narrow it down to my subject, but I do believe if one chief constable was charged with misconduct in a public office, that would revolutionise the way that policing works because they would look at their own, everybody would, every one of them would look at their own pension, their own future, and they wouldn't want to be sitting in a court of law. That has never happened. I would like to see that happen.

So I think accountability is probably the word. Maggie, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me on. If people want to buy the book, may we hardly recommend it. It's Magli Oliver fighting for justice, survivors. And check out the foundation as well. Head on over to locals where we continue the conversation. Would you agree with the reinstatement of the death penalty for prolific offenders

where there's absolutely no doubt the crime has been committed, i.E. DNA.