How Andy Burnham Handed Control to the Rape Gang Protectors

Dispatch Two: Voluntary Cooperation

After commissioning Pakistani Rape Gang Assurance Reviews knowing he had no statutory powers to compel witnesses or documents. Andy Burnham proceeded knowing his team of 'experts' could not force participation. This was not an accident.

The King of the North made participation of the accused optional from the start.

Burnham made participation optional. Police forces decided whether to take part. Councils decided whether to engage. Senior officials decided whether to attend interviews. Retired officers decided whether to respond at all. Refusal carried no consequence. Silence did not interrupt the work.

Burnham designed those conditions. He launched reviews that could not compel witnesses, could not force disclosure, could not reach evidence held by those most exposed by it.

Burnham knew who he was asking to cooperate. The allegations concerned police inaction, council failure, intelligence ignored, and senior decisions that left children exposed to sustained abuse. These were the institutions whose conduct was under question.

Those Under Allegation Decided Who Spoke

The accused decided what to share, what to withhold, and who would speak. The Oldham Assurance Review records how this operated. In the methodology section, the report states:

"In total, the review team identified 72 individuals they wished to interview."It then records:"A small number of former Oldham Council employees were either not contactable or declined to respond."

And adds:

"Several current and former officers of Greater Manchester Police elected to provide written evidence."

(Oldham Assurance Review, June 2022, pages 41–42, Section 2.16)

Refusal Was Recorded, Not Confronted

No one was compelled to attend. The authors recorded these outcomes and continued the review without escalation.Missing from the report:

• How many of the 72 individuals declined to engage
• Which council roles refused to participate
• Whether refusals clustered around senior decision-makers
• Whether any refusal prevented a particular line of inquiry
• Whether Burnham was informed that participation had fallen away

The same silence applies to the police. How many GMP officers were approached? How many agreed to interviews versus written evidence? Why interviews did not take place and what could not be tested? No record exists.

The authors recorded non-engagement and proceeded without it.

Refusal happened, and Burnham accepted it. Disclosure fell short. Evidence was missing, and he accepted it anyway. Each time, the reviews continued on the same terms. What began as a design choice hardened into a pattern of acceptance, repeated whenever cooperation failed.

Engagement was partial. Interviews did not happen. Documents were shared selectively. Records that might have contradicted official accounts did not appear. No one was required to explain why.

Police Controlled Access to Their Own Records

Burnham did not intervene. When key figures declined interviews, he allowed the reviews to continue. When disclosure was incomplete, he did not halt the work. When cooperation fell away, he did not escalate. He accepted the limits imposed by those under scrutiny.

The Oldham Assurance Review records that it was unable to secure access to Greater Manchester Police source data. The report states:

"Despite considerable legal discussions… it had not been possible to agree with Greater Manchester Police a data processing agreement that gave the review team access to police data."

It continues:

"We were not able to review the source information held by Greater Manchester Police, and this impacted on some of the conclusions the review team were able to reach in respect of the work of Greater Manchester Police over this period and the assurance the review team could offer the mayor."

The report then records that the decision was taken to proceed with drafting the final report "in the absence of a data processing agreement with Greater Manchester Police."

(Oldham Assurance Review, June 2022, pages 41–42, Sections 2.17–2.18)

The Review Proceeded Without Police Source Data

The authors acknowledged that police source material was not accessed and that this affected the conclusions. They delivered conclusions anyway.

Missing:

• Who at Greater Manchester Police refused access
• The correspondence that blocked disclosure
• Which police source material remained inaccessible
• Whether Burnham was informed that access had been denied.

Burnham had spent years campaigning around institutional failure. He knew what would happen when scrutiny depended on the goodwill of those under investigation.

He proceeded anyway.

Burnham had spent years inside the Hillsborough campaign, watching institutions hide behind limited reviews, voluntary cooperation, and managed disclosure. He launched reviews on the same terms.

Retired officers refused to engage. Former senior officials declined interviews. Decision-makers whose actions mattered most walked away. Burnham allowed this. He did not require refusals to be recorded. He did not require explanations for absence. He did not require the reviews to account for what they were denied.

Burnham Treated Partial Records as Complete

Burnham accepted the record institutions chose to provide. In its findings on shisha bars, the Oldham Assurance Review states:

"We have been provided with no evidence, from either our interviews or our review of documents and emails, to suggest that senior managers or councillors sought to cover up…"

(Oldham Assurance Review, June 2022, page 70, Section 4.2)

At the front of the same report, under the disclaimer, the authors state:

"The contents represent the opinion, views and conclusions of the authors based on the information provided to them by the interviewees and the documents provided to them by GMCA, Greater Manchester Police, Rochdale Borough Council and Oldham Council."

(Oldham Assurance Review, June 2022, page 2)

Withheld Evidence Left No Trace

The record could not address decisions never examined because the people responsible declined to engage. It could not test official narratives against withheld material. It could not account for failures shielded by silence.

Burnham did not correct this imbalance. He did not require disclosure of non-cooperation. He did not impose consequences for refusal. He did not move to a statutory process when voluntary engagement failed. Instead, he allowed the public to rely on reviews he knew were incomplete.

He allowed institutions under allegation to shape the scope of scrutiny. They controlled their exposure, participated on their terms, withheld what they chose not to disclose.

Refusals and withheld material were clear. Statutory inquiries compel attendance, force disclosure, and remove discretion from those under scrutiny. Burnham did not move to that mechanism. He chose to defend the record produced instead.

Burnham later defended the Assurance Reviews as thorough and comprehensive. He actively promoted them as definitive responses to allegations of institutional failure. He had commissioned reviews without power to compel and chosen to present whatever cooperation institutions provided as complete accountability.

Burnham Left Discretion With the Accused

Victims were entitled to a process that removed discretion from those accused of failure. Burnham chose a process that left discretion exactly where it was.

The next dispatch examines what Burnham formally ruled out before the reviews began.

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