Northern towns 'in denial' about historic child sexual abuse, Nazir Afzal claims

Towns across the north are in 'denial' about the extent and impact of historic child sexual abuse, a former chief crown prosecutor has claimed. 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 allegedly saying 'we've moved on'.

Mr Afzal, who is now Chancellor at the University of Manchester, said a perceived culture of denial at many town halls needs to be tackled. Speaking to the Northern Agenda podcast, 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."

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Mr Afzal added: "I reach out to local authorities and ask 'what's your problem?. Why are you not doing what you need to do? Do you not see the impact it's having on public confidence and that people just don't trust you anymore because you aren't looking back at what you may have done wrong?'.

"You can only fix it if you admit you got things wrong and I think people need to grow up, treat the public as adults and actually remember that victims don't move on until you have a response that they can have confidence in."

The former North West Chief Crown Prosecutor praised the recent review into abuse in Oldham, saying: "I'm hopeful that having carried out this review, the council