Most Have Never Heard of Warren Bates. He Is Why There Is a National Inquiry.

This is my friend Warren Bates.

I sat at his deathbed. I held his hand as he was dying. If not for Warren, there would be no national inquiry. He fought for it with everything he had. He died before we secured it. He never got to see what he built.

Warren was censored by the very council he tried to hold to account. Oldham Council, aided by Andy Burnham's proven rape gang protecting Greater Manchester Police, sent him an ASBO letter banning him from attending council meetings. A grandfather. Banned from the public gallery of his own town hall for asking questions about raped children. He was just one of many that OPERATION HEXAGON went after.

So we outmanoeuvred them. If they would not let Warren into the council chamber as a member of the public, we would put him on the ballot paper. Warren stood as an independent candidate for councillor. We crowdfunded his leaflets. We put them through doors across the town in the run up to the local elections.

No matter what they did to us, we found a way of telling the truth about the rape gang cover up. An army of volunteers walked the streets delivering Warren's leaflets. They did the same for every other candidate we put forward. Ordinary people, giving up their evenings and weekends, because nobody else would say what needed to be said.

The police tried to stop that too. They claimed my involvement in campaigning breached my bail conditions and threatened me with prison if I continued. I told them to come and arrest me for delivering election leaflets if they dared. They never did. They knew exactly what it would look like. It was never about the law. It was about silencing us.

Warren would phone me almost every morning. Even weekends. There were Sunday mornings when the phone rang at 6.30am and I would sigh before answering. I would give anything to hear that phone ring now.

Warren never asked for recognition. He never got any. He was harassed, banned, and smeared by the institutions that should have protected the children of this town. And still he got up every morning and carried on.

Remember Warren Bates. Remember all of them who sacrificed so much because they refused to look away from what was done to our nation's children. The inquiry they fought for exists because of people like him. He paid for it. He deserves to be remembered for it.

My name is Raja Miah. For eight years I have exposed how politicians, police and public bodies failed working class White girls who were systematically raped by Pakistani grooming gangs. Together, with the support of the people of Oldham, we forced the Government to concede a National Statutory Inquiry after years of resistance.

Now the harder fight begins.

Andy Burnham is no longer the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He is the Prime Minister. That does not place him beyond scrutiny. If anything, it makes scrutiny more important than ever.

As Mayor, Burnham commissioned a series of Assurance Reviews across Greater Manchester, including one in my hometown of Oldham. They were presented as a search for the truth. They were nothing of the sort. They were cover ups of cover ups that allowed those responsible to escape proper accountability.

Don't take my word for it. Even former Greater Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver has described what happened in Oldham as 'nothing short of a cover up'.

Despite every effort to stop us, we forced a National Inquiry. Now Burnham and others are attempting to bury the truth of OPERATION HEXAGON and rewrite the history of what happened under their watch.

At present, the inquiry has made no commitment to examine Burnham's own role or the decisions taken during his time as Mayor. That must change before the Oldham investigations begin.

The pressure to protect a serving Prime Minister will be immense. The institutions that failed these girls will have every incentive to avoid putting the country's most powerful politician under oath. Much of the media will once again find reasons to look the other way.

That is why this campaign cannot slow down now.

For too long this has been a one man operation. It needs to become something much bigger. We need the resources to build a genuinely independent investigative organisation with:

• A professional website capable of reaching far larger audiences.
• Video production that takes our investigations to millions more people.
• Research support so no lead is left unexplored.
• Live events to educate, organise and train others.
• The resources to investigate, travel and expose institutional failure wherever it is found.

Over the last six weeks we have secured over 800 paid supporters towards our target of 2,000. We are nearly half way there. That is an incredible achievement. Every new supporter strengthens this campaign, increases our voice and makes it harder for those in power to ignore the evidence.

If you believe the truth should be followed wherever it leads, please stand with us.

Should we succeed, politicians will go to prison. Even if there is only the smallest chance of this happening, isn't it worth your support?

Raja Miah MBE