​​A small group of senior police officers were in key positions at the time of the decision to drop an investigation into a Manchester sex grooming gang of up to a hundred men who abused dozens of children, many of whom were in care.

The officers were referred to, but not identified by name in an official report into the scandal published on Tuesday.

Today, the Manchester Evening News reveals who they are.

Operation Augusta was launched in 2004 following the death of Victoria Agoglia, 15, from Rochdale, who the report says had been abused 'in plain sight' of officials.

She died of a suspected overdose, months after telling social workers she had been forcibly injected with heroin and raped.

Abusers were able to pick up girls from care homes in and around the city's Curry Mile and abuse them, the damning report reveals.

But Op Augusta, the police investigation into the network which exploited Victoria and other children, was shelved in 2005.

Eight of the suspects went on to assault or rape other girls in the years after.

(Image: GMP)

This week, the official review of the episode, commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham, said the investigation was closed down because of a decision to pull resources from it.

"We believe, from the evidence that we have seen, that the decision to close down Operation Augusta was driven by the decision by senior officers to remove the resources from the investigation rather than a sound understanding that all lines of enquiry had been successfully completed or exhausted", the authors said.

The report refers to senior officers in key roles at the time by rank and title.

An M.E.N. investigation has learned the men are: the retired chief constable of North Yorkshire Police - Dave Jones - who was the head of GMP's CID at the time; the current chief constable of West Midlands Police, Dave Thompson, who was then commander of GMP's city centre division; a senior figure at the National Crime Agency Tony Cook, who was the detective superintendent and senior investigating officer on Op Augusta; retired officer Steve Heywood, who was the head of GMP's public protection unit back then.

All except Dave Jones responded to requests for information from the inquiry.

The 146-page report that followed states that, at a meeting in April 2005, an officer named only as 'Chief Superintendent A' said he was 'unable to put permanent staff into Operation Augusta and that the operation would finish on 1 July 2005'.

Dave Thompson has now confirmed he was 'Chief Superintendent A' but has insisted: "I would not have closed an investigation like this."

(Image: Darren Quinton/Birmingham Live)

The review praises aspects of the early investigation - but reveals it didn't have enough resource from the beginning.

Also, there were concerns amongst some at GMP that Op Augusta was focusing on a gang of largely Asian men, the report reveals.

At one of its early meetings in July 2004 the force's 'communications lead' was asked what effect a Channel 4 documentary on child sexual exploitation in Keighley, 'Edge Of The City', may have and concern was expressed about 'the risk of proactive tactics or the incitement of racial hatred', the report says.

The report that concluded the independent review says there was 'much to be commended' about the initial GMP investigation, including that it had allocated one of its major incident teams to it and an embedded social worker.

But the 'fundamental flaws in how Operation Augusta was resourced' damaged the investigation, while there were other problems: there was 'no central responsibility' for child sexual exploitation, and the crimes which had been uncovered spanned three police divisions, resulting in 'conflict' about which division should provide the necessary officers.

The force stressed to the inquiry that, at that time, the focus was on one racially-motivated murder and the murder of a child in the city centre. These long-running investigations were running at the same time as Augusta.

The end of the child sex ring operation was signalled at a meeting of senior officers on April 22, 2005, which concluded it would finish on July 1, 2005.

A note found in the 'policy log' of the senior investigating officer, Tony Cook, reported that 'Chief Superintendent A stated he was unable to put permanent staff into Operation Augusta and that the operation would finish on 1 July 2005'.

The official inquiry into the scandal requested a copy of the notes of the meeting but GMP said they could not be found.

Later the same day there was a 'gold group meeting' of senior police and council figures.

The inquiry requested the minutes of this meeting as well, but neither GMP nor the council could provide them.

It was again the 'policy log' of senior investigating officer Cook which confirmed an update had been given and the end date of the op made clear.

Dave Thompson - now chief constable of West Midlands Police - admitted being Chief Superintendent A to the M.E.N.

But he says he has 'no recollection' of discussion about resources, despite Mr Cook's log.

He said in a statement: "At this time, I was the local police commander for one district of the City of Manchester. I was not in charge of criminal investigations.

“I have never been involved in the Operation Augusta investigation. I have no recollection of the investigation which was led by the Greater Manchester Police’s Serious Crime Division. The report references from another officer’s notes that I was at a meeting where resources were discussed.

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"Whilst I have no recollection of this discussion and no other documents are held by GMP in this case I do not believe an investigation of this type initiated at a force level would have been terminated by a local commander.

“It is clear Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council should have done a better job. As a member of the force at that time, I am very sorry we did not do a better job. However I am very clear I would not have closed an investigation like this."

The M.E.N. understands Augusta's senior investigating officer Tony Cook, now head of operations for child sexual exploitation at the National Crime Agency, wanted to focus on 25 victims to prevent the operation getting out of control.

He told the inquiry: "In agreement with the gold strategic multi-agency group, the terms of reference were kept deliberately tight and focused on a precise number of victims due to the scale of the task and resources available.

"I had concerns not only from our small team getting quickly swamped by a rising number of potential number of victims and offenders, but also that subsequent new reports could feasibly get allocated to the Augusta team.

"In which case we would have had not only to investigate these but also manage associated safeguarding risks with a very small number of staff.”

No minutes of the April 22 'gold' meeting at the town hall, attended by senior council and police figures with their respective communications officers, could be found, although senior investigating officer Cook's policy log indicates an update had been given, 'press strategies discussed' and the operation's end date confirmed, the report reveals.

The report says: "Finally, the investigation strategy placed too heavy a reliance on victims’ willingness to make complaints. As resources and time ran out, activity became reduced to closing down the majority of the cases because the child declined to make a formal complaint. Critically, the problem that Operation Augusta had been set up to tackle, namely the sexual exploitation throughout a wide area of a significant number of children in the care system by predominantly Asian men, had not been addressed."

Even though it went nowhere, Op Augusta was considered by force top brass to be a beacon of good practice because, for the first time, a social worker was embedded with the detectives, the report reveals. A commendation was handed to the team.

When the M.E.N. contacted him, Tony Cook, who is referred to in the report as 'Detective Superintendent A', said: "I have co-operated fully with the review team."

(Image: North Yorkshire Police)



Dave Jones, who retired as chief constable of North Yorkshire Police in April 2018, is understood to be the officer identified in the report as Detective Chief Superintendent A, head of V CID command. He did not provide any material to the inquiry. The official report says it had received no response from him. Documents were taken to him to refresh his memory as well as a list of questions but he 'could not recall the detail and would not be able to assist', according to the report.

He did not respond when the M.E.N. asked for a statement.

Steve Heywood, who was allowed to retire from GMP despite being accused of lying to a public inquiry into the fatal police shooting of Anthony Grainger, is referred to only as Detective Superintendent B, the head of public protection at GMP, in the report.

He did not respond to a call from the M.E.N.

The retired cop, accused of lying to the Anthony Grainger public inquiry, earned £250k while he was off sick for 18 months.

(Image: GMP)



He declined to be interviewed but told the inquiry in a written statement about his responsibilities at that time and that he could not recall details of Op Augusta. He said he was in charge of the sexual offences management unit and the abusive images unit.

The detective inspector in charge of the original scoping exercise, believed to Mark Willdigg, was absolved of any blame by Maggie Oliver, the detective constable who was also part of the investigation and who turned whistleblower years later. He co-operated with the inquiry.

Chief Constable Mike Todd, the charismatic leader of the force at the time, was found dead near the summit of Snowdon in north Wales in 2008 from where he had sent distressing text messages.

An inquest returned an open verdict and an investigation by West Midland Police concluded he had not put GMP at risk despite his reputation as a lothario. The inquiry interviewed 39 women he knew.

(Image: GMWN)

It is unclear what role, if any, he played in shelving Op Augusta.

His successor Peter Fahy, in an ITV interview in 2014, said he was 'quite happy' to look at Victoria Agoglia's death again after her grandmother Joan Agloglia, in the wake of the Rochdale sex grooming scandal, had said: "These men are still walking about. She needs to be put to rest and I hope if anyone is watching and they do know something, even if it's the smallest thing, to come forward so that social services will know there's a lot of people that still know they never helped these young girls."

When the M.E.N. contacted Sir Peter, he repeated what he had told the authors of the inquiry report - that he could not recall the ITV interview.

He said he believed the Agoglia case would fall under one of the reviews which were instated following the jailing of the Rochdale sex grooming gang in 2012.

"It clearly wasn't," he said.

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He added: "I gave my recollection to the enquiry and fully co-operated and along with everyone connected with GMP hugely regret that more was not done in this case. Major improvements in the way GMP protracted vulnerable children were made during my time but we cannot be complacent.

"As well as examining the past we need to look at what is happening now - nationally there are huge difficulties in the care system, there has been a huge drop in convictions for sexual offences and there have been limited improvements in the way courts deal with victims. We are now seeing even more serious exploitation of children in county lines gang activity."

The Op Augusta investigation remained dormant during Sir Peter's tenure and for a few years after Ian Hopkins replaced him in 2016.

It was only in the summer of 2018, after the 'early findings' of the Mayor-commissioned report highlighted failure by police and social services, that Chief Constable Hopkins authorised another look at Op Augusta.

Mr Hopkins denies any suggestion he tried to stop the damning report being made public and stresses that he defied legal advice suggesting the force wasn't obliged to co-operate with the inquiry.

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He said: "There have been claims that Greater Manchester Police has tried to stop the review of Operation Augusta being published. Nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to these reports, we have cooperated fully with the review team and acted with transparency and integrity throughout.

"At no time has there been any effort from us to prevent the publication of the report and any suggestion that states otherwise is categorically untrue."

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The investigation he authorised, Operation Green Jacket which has identified 38 victims with viable lines of enquiry. All but one has been visited.

GMP bosses say they are confident that charges will follow.