The Northern Agenda: Towns 'in denial' about historic abuse

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By DAN O'DONOGHUE - August 12 2022

Towns across the North are in "denial" about the extent and impact of historic child sexual abuse, a former chief crown prosecutor has told the Northern Agenda.

Nazir Afzal, who worked tirelessly to bring grooming gangs in Rochdale to justice, said a number of local authorities had point blank refused to launch reviews into child sexual exploitation in their areas - with council bosses saying "we've moved on".

Mr Afzal, who is now Chancellor at the University of Manchester , said the culture of denial at many town halls needed to be tackled.

He said: "I do have a sense of denial around the country. I've approached some towns for example, and said 'why aren't you carrying out a look into what's going on or had gone on in your areas?' and they said, 'we've moved on'.

"I'm afraid they may have moved on, but the children who were victims have never moved on and can't move on. So we've got to tackle that issue of denial."

During his tenure as North West Chief Crown Prosecutor, Mr Afzal saw a number of grooming gang members jailed - something which led the far right to target him.

"I damaged their narrative, the narrative being that all brown people are sex abusers and so I had thugs outside my front door", he said.

Mr Afzal is due to publish a book on the issue of race in modern Britain in September and told how many people from ethnic minority backgrounds were still "scared" to speak up about the abuse directed at them.

He added: "We're