Police and council failed child victims of Manchester grooming gangs, says report

Today’s report into grooming gangs in Manchester concludes that police and social services failed to protect dozens of children and didn’t pursue prosecutions, despite victims giving them names and addresses of abusers.

Tonight, Dave Thomson, who is the current chief constable of West Midlands Police, has confirmed to this programme that he is one of the officers identified in the report but he strongly denies being the officer who shut down the investigation.

He says the decision to stop the operation was not made by him and that he would “not have closed an investigation like this”.