Police re-investigating south Manchester grooming gang 20 years on arrest two more suspects

Greater Manchester Police have arrested two more suspects as part of a new investigation into discredited probe by the force into child sexual exploitation gang nearly 20 years ago.

Operation Green Jacket was launched by the force in the wake of a damning report published in 2020 which highlighted the failings of Operation Augusta which was looking into allegations of sexual grooming in south Manchester in 2004/05.

Augusta was launched in response to the death of Victoria Agoglia, who had been subjected to severe abuse and exploitation for two years before she died. She died in 2003 but prior to her death she had disclosed to social workers that she was being forcibly injected with drugs, and raped, but no effective action was taken to protect her.

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It identified up to 97 suspected offenders and at least 57 potential victims. But a review commissioned by Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, in 2017 discovered it was discontinued in July 2005 due to resources.

While at her inquest in 2007, coroner Simon Nelson concluded that the authorities could not have foreseen her death, the review later commissioned by Mr Burnham in 2017 and published in 2020, found that social services ‘failed to protect her’.

The damning 2020 report said the coroner's narrative verdict recorded at her inquest 'significantly underplays the coercion and control she was subject to' in terms of child sexual exploitation.

Today (Tuesday) GMP announced that detectives on Operation Green Jacket have arrested two more suspects, the 41st and 42nd so far.

The arrests were made during the execution of