Rochdale Sunrise Team explain how child sexual exploitation and related harm is being tackled

Sunrise Team - keeping young people safe

With Rochdale about to be in the spotlight again as the BBC airs another documentary, Betrayed Girls, about the sexual abuse and grooming scandal that emerged in Rochdale five years ago, Rochdale Online met with members of the Sunrise Team to discover how child safeguarding in the borough has evolved.

https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/110888

Speaking to Rochdale Online were Detective Superintendent Jane Higham, head of crime and safeguarding for Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside, Julie Daniels, Head of Complex Safeguarding, Detective Constable Ben Harris and Martin Murphy, temporary practice manager.

The Sunrise Team, set up in 2013, is a specialist multi-agency team made up of social workers, police, health workers and PACE workers tackling child sexual exploitation (CSE) and related harm in the borough of Rochdale.

PACE (Parents Against Child Exploitation) work closely to support the parents, or any other family member or guardian, in a care role.

Whilst the partnership team has dedicated staff trained to investigate CSE, prevention and education work is also carried out.

Similar multi-agency teams have been set up in other local authorities across Greater Manchester following the Sunrise Team’s successful approach in tackling CSE crimes.

Needs are assessed before a comprehensive package to support the child and family is created by the team, utilising services from across all elements. A risk level is assigned based on core indicators: episodes of missing from home/care, current education or work situation, misuse of substances, relationship with parent/carer, accommodation, ability to identify abusive/exploitative behaviour, engagement with appropriate services, sexual health, association with risky peers/adults and internet and social media use.

A risk level of low, medium or high means each person receives an appropriate service.

Mr Murphy explained: “Low doesn’t mean you won’t get a service, it means you’ll receive a different one to someone who is high risk.”

Care and support continues for as long as the child, their families and Sunrise deem appropriate - there is no timeframe.

Trust is an integral part of the Sunrise Team’s aim of establishing a relationship with the child and ties in closely with the public confidence section of the strategy.

Ms Daniels said: “We have to develop that relationship of trust with the child. If there’s a potential crime, it is vital we work together so the child can disclose this before we bring in the police. It takes time to gain that confidence, to build that trust where they are in a place where they are ready to talk. Children often deny something is wrong until they feel safe. Without public confidence, it does make it difficult to get trust.”

The team holds action weeks throughout the year dedicated to raising awareness of CSE in a sporting environment. Ms Daniels explained how a previous event involved Rochdale AFC to help reach people whom the message may not have necessarily reached otherwise.

The location of the service within Rochdale Police Station also ensures a rapid response and turnaround, as all services are located together. This ensures a problem can be solved almost immediately due to the setup.

‘Four Ps' form part of the Sunrise Team’s strategy:

• Prevention
• Protection
• Prosecution
• Public confidence

Prevention

As part of their prevention strategy, the team highlights CSE issues by conducting presentations in schools and colleges across the borough. The message is adapted specifically to engage with young people in a way that’s meaningful to them and to help keep them safe. The team work to nip potential CSE in the bud.

Ms Daniels commented: “We have been at the forefront of the education policy for CSE since our conception. All 89 schools in the borough have received CSE awareness training.”

Mr Murphy noted: “A lot of children have smart phones these days. Whilst they are media savvy with these apps, they aren’t emotionally equipped.”

Det Supt Higham added: “Unlike what we saw in Three Girls, a lot of CSE happens online and remotely. It’s much broader than street grooming.”

Whilst there is still the ‘boyfriend model’ predators may take on numerous identities and target more than one potential victim, perhaps as a group. This can take a long period of time due to tracking the victims down and often results in big court cases.

The boyfriend model is just one example of how a child may be groomed. Perpetrators target children posing as ‘boyfriends’, showering the child with attention and gifts to cause infatuation. They initiate a sexual relationship with the child, which the child is expected to return as ‘proof’ of her/his love or as a way of returning the initial attention and gifts. The child is effectively told that they owe the perpetrators money for cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, car rides, etc and that sexual activities are one way of paying it back.

Other models of grooming include parties, exploitation through befriending, or peer on peer exploitation.

Protection

Following the recent broadcast of the BBC ‘Three Girls’ programmes, there was an increase in crime reports. However, this was not an increase in CSE reports, but of hate crime, something the team says it expected.

Det Supt Higham and Ms Daniels feel it important to point out that ‘grooming is not limited to a single community’ and things have changed since grooming scandal.

Det Supt Higham said: “People need to be open minded that it doesn’t happen to one type of person in one community. It happens in virtually every culture, it is indiscriminate. Every child is vulnerable.

“It can be very confusing because they often masquerade online. Victims get sucked into it because they don’t know how dangerous they can be. They have this technology they have grown up with but they aren’t emotionally secure and it gets out of hand.

"They [the groomers] pick up on how vulnerable someone is.”

Ms Daniels added: “We feel it important to highlight there has been a big scene change since the events of Three Girls. People think it has happened recently and they don’t understand that things have changed. They ask, ‘what’s being done’ but nationally, things have changed with the way people are treated."

Mr Murphy commented: “Take Snapchat’s new location feature. With the wrong people, it’s terrifying, and it’s opt out, not opt in.

“Parents need to be checking their children’s phones and advise how to keep safe.”

Prosecution

Part of the Sunrise Team’s prosecution ‘branch’ of their strategy it to work alongside businesses to ensure they are adhering to their licensing terms and investigating criminal activity that may be occurring, which, as Ms Daniels explained, often links to CSE.

She said: “We have had a very good response from the community. Businesses are happy to work with us because they understand why we are doing it  - 99 percent of the time, there no issues.”

Disruption

Civil powers may be used where criminal powers cannot be enforced. Abduction notices can be served if a parent is unhappy with an adult making contact with their child under the age of 16.

Ms Daniels pointed out: “It acts as a marker to keep them away from children."

Domestic violence orders may also be served.

She added: “We have had to be creative in how to disrupt relationships on social media platforms, texting and phones.”

Detective Higham said: “The law has made it easier to convict people. Stronger sentences are being handed out now.”

Over the last 12 months, The Partnership Enforcement Team has paid 370 visits to commercial and residential properties, made 50 immigration arrests, 77 trading standards visits and 40 CSE disruptions.

Since 2012, over 200 years of jail time has been sentenced to those involved in exploiting children - around 80 have come since the conception of the Sunrise Team.

Other local authorities such as in Devon and Northern Ireland have taken on similar assessment frameworks used here in Rochdale as a result of the activity to combat this crime.

DC Harris noted one case where a man had been making contact with a large group of girls on Facebook. He received eight years’ imprisonment.

He said: “A lot of work was involved in that as we were looking at over 28,000 messages and finding all the victims. It was a large trial.”

The team recognises trials can result in retraumatising the victims, and also recognises it takes ‘a lot of courage’ to speak out at court.

Public confidence

Mr Murphy said: “It’s not just an issue with girls, we work alongside young men too. Alarm bells might ring if a girl displays certain behaviours. We need these same alarm bells with boys too. Not ‘boys will be boys’.” 

Around one-fifth of the team deal with male victims, who are more likely to be groomed online potentially because of online video games.

DS Higham noted one online incident involving over 100 boys - the perpetrator received 21 years.

Information and reporting

There has been a significant increase in reports of sexual abuse and grooming online. In 2014, partners across Greater Manchester launched Project Phoenix, a groundbreaking new campaign to raise awareness about CSE.

The ‘It’s Not Okay’ website was launched as part of the campaign with information for children, young people, parents, carers and professionals on how to spot the signs of child sexual exploitation and what to do about it.

For more information on child sexual exploitation, and who to contact if you have any concerns that a young person you know may be a victim of child sexual exploitation, visit:

www.itsnotokay.co.uk

To contact the Sunrise Team:

Email: sunrise.rochdale@gmp.police.uk

Phone: 0161 856 1734 (8.30am and 4.45pm Monday to Friday).

Website: http://www.thesunriseteam.co.uk/

CSE can also be reported to Greater Manchester Police by calling 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

If someone is in immediate danger dial 999.

Betrayed Girls is on Monday 3 July at 8:30pm on BBC1.