The north-west head of the Crown Prosecution Service talks about bringing the Rochdale child sex ring before the courts.
Fay Wertheimer
Nazir Afzal readily acknowledges that his cultural heritage played a part in getting nine men convicted of running a child exploitation ring in Rochdale earlier this year. He famously reopened the case against the gang of Asian men that groomed young girls for sex, shortly after his appointment as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the north-west of England. And he suggests that being an Asian himself made it easier to take that step.
"My Pakistani heritage helped cut through barriers within the black and minority ethnic communities," he says. "And white professionals' oversensitivity to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled."
Fresh evidence had been uncovered linking sexually abused minors to the accused, and Afzal felt that only by re-examining the original evidence could the jigsaw be completed and justice be done. His action, taken against a backdrop of far-right propaganda, reversed a CPS decision taken two years earlier not to prosecute the men.
Much of the local night-time economy across the north-west - the all-night takeaways, taxi-ranks and minicab firms - is run by south Asians. Among them a group of men was grooming young teenage girls for sex. They were found guilty of offences including rape and conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with girls under the age of 16.
Nationwide problem
Afzal has always been clear, however, that child sexual abuse is a problem in all communities, pointing out that 95% of the UK's sex offenders are white males. A hard-hitting investigation by the children's commissioner for England into child sexual exploitation, published todayWednesday, demonstrates that far from being a one-off case, grooming such as that uncovered in Rochdale could be perpetrated by people in every town and city in the UK, regardless of race.
Afzal says: "The issues centre not upon race but upon crime, upon predators and their prey and the difficulties of eking out evidence for these 'hidden' crimes, which until recently wouldn't have even reached court."
In Rochdale, when some of the teenage girls eventually spoke out against the abusers they had mistaken for friends and lovers, their chaotic lives resulted in them being branded unreliable. Few listened. The children's team at Rochdale council's social services was found to have missed numerous chances to stop the abuse.
Afzal outlined society's dismal failure to protect vulnerable young women and girls from sexual exploitation to a home affairs select committee last week. He pinpointed the dismissal of victims at every stage by those expected to safeguard them - from the school nurse, social worker and teacher unwilling to act on information, to the investigator or family member refusing to believe. Moreover, as children's testimony is subject to the same standards as that of adults, he said it was unsurprising that the vast majority of child sexual abuse victims required professional help to gather courage for giving evidence.
"One of the young ladies in Rochdale said: 'I'm a tramp, why should anybody believe me?' So we had to build her self-esteem and her confidence, never mind provide her with the bespoke witness care that we do," he told the committee.
Following Afzal's role in bringing the perpetrators to justice in Rochdale, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, appointed him to head his newly formed national network of specialist prosecutors for child abuse and sexual exploitation.
Afzal told the select committee that another 28 men had already been charged in the north-west in relation to this type of activity.
He is determined to see many more abusers convicted. "I'm aware of dozens more child victims and dozens more perpetrators in the north-west who'll be brought to justice if I have my way," he says.
"Our efficiency and accuracy will be improved by challenging the mindset that believes proving sexual assault is difficult," he told the committee. "We must remove cynicism from our minds and look for the strengths, not just the weakness, of a case. If you begin your decision-making with cynicism then the truthful will struggle to convince you; the untruthful can always be investigated thoroughly. Every single victim requires care and support. Whether we're actively helping or not, they're still suffering. There's no room for prejudice and making assumptions."
Despite the high profile of recent child sexual abuse cases, they constitute less than 1% of Afzal's caseload.
When we meet he is jetlagged, just back from the US where he has been advising the US state department on how to tackle honour-based violence. Ten years ago, traumatic accounts of women's suffering within his own Pakistani community in the UK inspired him to give "a voice to the voiceless" and champion the vulnerable.
As the CPS lead on violence against women and forced marriage, he is the person that television producers consult for advice on honour-based violence, and he has worked on EastEnders, Spooks and Law & Order UK. Moreover, he was instrumental in getting the Home Office to work with honour-based violence charity Karma Nirvana to set up the first Asian women's national hotline. Since 2008, up to 6,000 Asian women a year have contacted it for immediate, informed guidance.
"That first phone contact is crucial for signposting a woman towards help, as risks can escalate unimaginably," Afzal explains passionately. "She must be prepared to give up family, home, friendships, city - even her country - as parents and bounty hunters rarely stop tracking down their errant child."
The US recognises the success of the hotline and intends to adopt a version with Afzal's help. While our knowledge of tackling honour-based crimes is being exported across the Atlantic, we have just imported the US idea of politically elected crime commissioners.
Afzal says he will work with the three police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in the north-west elected last week to ensure police priorities are agreed with the CPS. And, informed by them, he envisages that the PCCs will commission services appropriate to each victim's needs. In hindsight, having a PCC in post might have helped the girls in Rochdale, he suggests, because they might have received better support, which would have made a stronger case for the CPS, but it would not necessarily have speeded up the judicial process because the timing of trials is outside the control of the PCCs.
Motivation
One of seven children, Afzal was born in the UK to a patriotic Pashtun ex-British Army tea wallah. He was the first to attend school. The childhood he experienced in Birmingham's close-knit Pakistani community developed his thirst for justice. Countering racist taunts with words; unobtrusively sewing together clothes torn by bullies; and realising that jealousy, greed, intolerance and insecurity could motivate anyone, of any background, to commit crime, Afzal saw the law as his route to effecting change.
Now he fills his spare time talking to schools, interfaith groups, agencies and businesses, to instil greater trust in the CPS. As a result, he says, the Asian community - which has faced criticism for being in denial about men of Pakistani origin grooming white girls for sex - is keen to work with the police and the CPS to root out miscreants.
But, as he sees it, this is just a part of the jigsaw. "Key to dealing with these hidden crimes is looking for them, believing the victims and then for agencies to join the dots, to consider what that information they have might mean if it's added to something somebody else holds," he says.
Curriculum vitae
Age 50.
Lives Greater Manchester.
Family Married for third time, four children.
Education Waverley school, Birmingham; University of Birmingham, law degree.
Career May 2012-present: director of public prosecutions' national lead on child abuse and sexual exploitation, and stalking; May 2011-present: north-west chief crown prosecutor covering Greater Manchester, Cumbria and Lancashire; 2009-present: CPS national lead on race and religious hate crimes; 2004-present: CPS lead on violence against women and forced marriage; 2001-11: assistant chief crown prosecutor, London; 1991-2001: crown prosecutor, CPS London; 1988-91: Glaisyers Solicitors, Birmingham.
Public life Made OBE in 2005; recipient of many awards including lifetime achievement award British Pakistani Foundation (2012) and CPS public servant of the year (2007).
Interests Sport and reading.
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