Why some want a new Oldham grooming gang inquiry

When the world's richest man called for a UK government minister to be jailed for refusing a public inquiry into grooming gangs, it was the north of England town of Oldham that found itself at the centre of the heated and toxic debate.

Elon Musk's incendiary comments came after Jess Phillips denied the town's request for the Home Office to lead an investigation into historical cases of child abuse.

Authorities were found to have failed to protect children from grooming and sexual exploitation from predominately Asian men in a local review published in 2022.

But abuse survivors have said that investigation was too limited and have called for another inquiry to help them get "the justice that we want".

Some of the earliest investigations into the abuse mentioned in the 2022 review include two operations started in 2006 by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and Oldham Council.

These came after new sexual offences laws, introduced in 2004, defined grooming as any form of communication with a child for the purpose of sexually abusing them.

Operation Helena 2 was launched after concerns about the potential exploitation at a school, as was Operation Messenger, a police project dedicated to preventing child sex abuse in the area.

Under Operation Helena 2, three men had been charged with rape and two with child abduction in 2006, while in 2007, Operation Messenger discovered more than 30 children aged between 12 and 16 were being sexually exploited.

A year later, Messenger's investigations led to five court cases and six convictions, but later cuts to the service saw concerns the project's preventative work had "fizzled out".

Then in 2012, nine men were jailed for running a grooming gang in nearby Rochdale, abusing children in takeaways, with some of the offenders from Oldham.

In some cases their victims, aged in their early teens, had been raped and forced into sex with men who had paid the gang in Rochdale and Oldham.

In 2017, the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham commissioned an independent review into child sex abuse in both Manchester and Rochdale.

Two years later, Oldham Council asked the review team to look into how agencies dealt with reports of abuse between 2011 and 2014.

It came after allegations on social media that town authorities were covering up what they knew about abuse in children's care homes, shisha bars and by taxi drivers.

The review, published in 2022, found they had failed to protect some children from grooming and sexual exploitation, but found no evidence of "widespread abuse" or a cover-up.

Survivors of the abuse in Oldham have called for a new investigation into historical child sex abuse cases in the town because they felt the local review was "too limited" and many of their voices had not been heard.

Some had called for a new review as early as 2023, when protesters disrupted a council meeting to make their demands.

After Labour lost control of the council in May 2024, a majority of councillors voted to write to the home office for a new probe.

Jess Phillips refused that request last October, despite some victims wanting the state to call a pubic inquiry, which has more powers than a local review.

The refusal was criticised by Musk, sparking a wave of interest in grooming gangs in Oldham, which eventually gave way to calls for a UK-wide child sex abuse inquiry.

Oldham council has opted instead to set up its own investigation, with a terms of reference set to be agreed in the coming months.

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