Prolific grooming gangs whistleblower and campaigner Maggie Oliver has torn apart Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's U-turn on a national inquiry, labelling the call as an "empty promise".Speaking to GB News, Oliver was joined by grooming gang survivors Jade and Chantelle, as they criticised the Labour Government's decision.FULL STORY HERE.
00:00Are you confident this is going to happen, Chantelle?
00:02No, I feel like we'll get so far into it, things will get covered up.
00:08They're not going to be truthfully honest in any of it.
00:11There's no reason for this National Inquiry to put the recommendations in place,
00:15what we've already spent a lot of money on.
00:17You know, I just feel like we're going around in the same circle.
00:21And Jade, a lot of people think that the previous inquiry didn't look into this issue properly,
00:26just a couple of weeks looking at grooming gangs.
00:28There's never been an inquiry where you're from, in High Wycombe, for example.
00:33No, never.
00:33Are you hoping that people might now be forced to give evidence and get justice when they haven't previously?
00:40I'm hoping so. I'm hoping it does do something.
00:43But I hope there's no faith there. There's literally no faith at all with them.
00:48Because you've both been let down so many times. Isn't that right, Chantelle?
00:53Yeah.
00:53Just to give our audience an understanding, I think even though it's been many years of this channel
00:57and many others talking about this issue, people still don't understand truly how horrific this is.
01:03Could you share your story with us, please, Chantelle?
01:05So I was 11 years old in the care of the local authority, Manchester Social Services.
01:10I was in numerous children's homes.
01:14I was abused from the age of 11 up until the age of 15.
01:18And I've been fighting for our army adult life for justice, you know.
01:24I feel like I'm never going to see justice.
01:26And even now with this inquiry, you're not confident because the authorities have just failed to help you so many times.
01:32Yeah. Just feel a huge let down.
01:34I'm so sorry.
01:34And Jase, could you share your story with us, please?
01:37Because what you endured is quite unique insofar as you were criminalised yourself.
01:42Yes. It started when I was 14.
01:45They'll get you drunk, take you to hotels, take you to taxi bases and just pass you on through their whole family.
01:53And then I got put on police protection, untold times, for high-risk sexual exploitation.
02:02And then 18 days after, the last time I got put on it, I got arrested for actually being a perpetrator.
02:09So it's like a victim, 18 days later, perpetrator.
02:12And I think it's important to say, Charlie, that what happened in those 18 days was she turned from 15 to 16.
02:19So suddenly she goes from a victim to a perpetrator.
02:23Nobody took action when she was a victim, a little girl who was being raped on a daily basis.
02:28Suddenly at 16, she's an easy target.
02:30She went to prison.
02:32You know, she can't go on school trips with her kids.
02:34She has to sign on the sexual offenders register.
02:37She was a child.
02:40Sorry, I just had to clarify that point.
02:42And Maggie, you've been working with survivors for decades now.
02:45First, as a police officer, as a detective constable, when your senior officers at gold-level meetings were ripping up reports and ignoring this issue.
02:53And now, after doing your whistleblowing, as a campaigner who supports them, Jade and Chantel, their stories are not isolated.
03:00No.
03:01We're aware of hundreds, thousands who've had this experience.
03:05Yeah.
03:05In our charity, the Maggie Oliver Foundation, we've helped nearly 5,000 in the past six years.
03:11Jade and Chantel are examples of hundreds of children that I have spoken to, which was why I resigned.
03:19So, and I've been banging this drum for years.
03:24So, we get an announcement today as though this is something brand new.
03:28It's not brand new.
03:30And Keir Starmer knew.
03:32The government knew.
03:33I've just heard the Shadow Home Secretary.
03:35He was in, you know, the Conservatives were in government for years.
03:38This is a party political football.
03:41This is not a political football.
03:44This is children's lives.
03:46Jade and Chantel, I think you're some of the bravest women that this channel's ever heard from.
03:52But today, as you bring forward your bravery and challenge the authorities on this, do you feel as though politicians are using your stories as a bit of a football to have an argument and saying,
04:03we did this, we did that, you failed, you failed, when actually they should just be bringing you guys forward?
04:09They should be working their best now to make things right and get justice, like, for us, you know.
04:15I feel like they all knew what was going on.
04:19The police, social services, people need to be held accountable.
04:23I want to see police officers charged.
04:25I want to see social workers charged.
04:27I've had my childhood ruined.
04:29I am now an adult, and I'm still going through the same.
04:33I'm hurting.
04:35Like, it's traumatising.
04:36I just want to say it to people that abuse me.
04:40What's up, you know?
04:41What is so hard about going out?
04:43You know who they are.
04:45You've arrested them.
04:46I've picked them out on ID page, you know.
04:49They should be in prison.
04:50I'm living my life.
04:53Every day struggling, it's an ongoing battle.
04:55Yet they're living their normal lives out there.
04:58Why am I suffering and they're not?
05:00It's just the most horrendous experience, and it's a life of suffering, as you say.
05:04But last night, the government said they'll give survivors the opportunity to reopen closed cases.
05:11They said they've found over 800 since January.
05:13Are you going to take on that opportunity?
05:15Do you think that more survivors...
05:17I don't recommend anyone, the pain, the lies, the trauma, everything they put you through, it's not worth doing.
05:24If I could go back six years, I would not have started working with them.
05:29If I knew this is what I was going to have to do, how much longer am I going to be working with Great Manchester Plea to get just six years?
05:37I mean, I want to clarify there, Charlie, that Chantel was a victim on Operation Augusta in 2004 and 2005.
05:44That case was closed down because the Gold Command Group, as you just said, closed that down.
05:48They just decided they wouldn't put resources in, and that's the official findings.
05:52Chantel was re-approached in 2019 by the new investigation, Operation Greenjacket, that they were forced to reopen.
05:59Six years on, Chantel is still waiting for her abusers to be charged.
06:03Another six years of her life.
06:05And she was told last week it's going to be at least another nine months before the CPS see it.
06:10It might be four years before it gets to trial, if it ever does.
06:13That's another ten years of her life that she's lost.
06:15The process is so slow, it does not put survivors at the forefront and their experiences.
06:20So what do survivors, like Chantel, like Jay, what do they need to come forward?
06:24When they're announcing the NCA, okay, empty words, a PR exercise.
06:31Those officers in the NCA, in the police, they're on their knees.
06:35There are not enough.
06:36There are no resources.
06:38The government are backed in a corner.
06:40They know that the cat is out of the bag.
06:42They're empty promises and actually promising survivors and victims.
06:45They're going to reopen 250, 500 cases.
06:49Where are they going to get the officers to do it?
06:51So they're not doing victims and survivors any favours.
06:55They're going to put them in the position that Chantel is in.
06:57So unless you put money in and resources and training and commitment, this is just, you know, hot air.
07:04And I have heard these promises so many times that I am sick and tired of it.
07:09But what I would say is that Baroness Casey came to me.
07:13I met her in February.
07:17Skeptical.
07:17I've been there.
07:18I've spoke to everybody.
07:20But she really impressed me.
07:21I spent two or three hours.
07:23She knows that I call it as it is.
07:26And yet she came back and she asked me to bring together a group of survivors.
07:30These two girls were two of those.
07:32And that's why her report has been delayed, because she listened to 10 people.
07:37She was virtually in tears when she heard these stories.
07:40That's what those at the top need to hear.
07:42So I want to see Baroness Casey leading this inquiry.
07:45I don't really have any faith in it.
07:47But with her at the helm, I think we all felt that she listened.
07:51Am I right?
07:52I feel like Louis Casey, yeah, she did listen to us.
07:55But I don't have no faith.
07:57Fine.
07:58I don't...
07:59And Jade, so many survivors we've heard, they've come forward and they've actually been worried that they'll be called racist due to the ethnicity of many of the perpetrators.
08:08You're extremely brave, because, you know, like Chantel, you're public.
08:11Is that something that's made you want to hold back in the past before?
08:14No.
08:15It's got nothing to do with race.
08:16Everyone knows that there's white people, all races out there that do horrible things to young people.
08:22Absolutely.
08:23But we're trying to say our experience, it was all...
08:26It all happened by that one race.
08:28By Pakistani men.
08:29Rich Pakistani men, yeah.
08:30I mean, what I would say there, Charlie, is that the Maggiola Foundation today is issuing judicial review proceedings against the government to implement the 20 recommendations of the last national inquiry.
08:44One of those recommendations, none of which have been put into place, is that we gather ethnicity, religion, culture, profession of every sexual offender.
08:54That is desperately needed.
08:56That's the first thing.
08:57And that's something that Baroness Casey has been capturing, and we might see that this afternoon.
09:01I really, really hope so.
09:03I've put my faith in Baroness Casey.
09:05I will be devastated if she doesn't do these girls justice.
09:08I do believe she will.
09:10I spoke to her on Saturday.
09:11I don't know everything that's in the report.
09:14But, you know, things like a Minister for Children in the Cabinet, that's not going to cost money.
09:18Absolutely, yeah.
09:18You know, no paying compliance of children.
09:22You know, that's what I'm calling for, to start with.
09:24Jay, just very quickly, what would you like to say to the Prime Minister on this announcement today?
09:30I haven't actually got any nice words to say, because he should have done it in January, instead of saying it was far right.
09:37Why now?
09:38Why now?
09:38Just because Baroness Casey has been reporting, you feel like you have to.
09:41Why didn't he come to us and say, I've watched a documentary, what would you like?
09:46He hasn't.
09:47Yeah.
09:47Why, do you know, it's like we're nothing to him, do you know?
09:49Yeah.
09:50We're here, we're trying to make it known, we're trying to make awareness, we're trying to get justice, yeah.
09:56What's he doing?
09:57Another enquirer, when he's not going to put nothing in play, do you know?
10:01Come and speak to us, see what we want to do.
10:02It's like it normally is.
10:03Well, there are many more survivors to hear from, and your voices, I think, will be central as we go forward and really hold feet to fire on this,
10:10because as this enquiry is launched, I know that GB News will be absolutely on top of it,
10:14making sure that what you guys want to see and what the many women and girls around the country want to see in this enquiry is at the centre of it.
10:22Maggie, Chantel, Jade, thank you so much for joining us on GB News.
10:25Thank you, Carla.
10:27Right, well, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has released this statement.
10:31She said that the vulnerable young girls who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of groups of adult men
10:36have now grown into brave women, isn't that right, they're with us today,
10:39who are rightly demanding justice for what they went through when they were just children.
