The notorious ringleader of a grooming gang portrayed in the BBC‘s Three Girls series was employed as a welfare rights officer by Oldham Council, a major report has revealed.
Shabir Ahmed, who led the sexual abuse ring in Rochdale and was nicknamed ‘Daddy’, was seconded to the Oldham Pakistani Community Centre during his time at the local authority.
Ahmed, identified only as ‘Offender A’ in the report, is now serving a 22-year jail sentence.
He was a sex predator and former taxi driver, and was described as the ‘ringleader’ of the nine-strong group found guilty of exploiting girls as young as 13 at Tasty Bites and another takeaway in Heywood from 2007.
Despite multiple concerns being raised about him and his arrest for the sexual assault of children, police failed to tell his employers.
‘If this had happened, it may have potentially avoided the tragic abuse of other children…’ the report states, citing ‘serious multiple failures’ by both GMP and the local authority.
Welfare rights officers are responsible for helping people with what benefits and allowances they are able to get.
The report looked into the alleged grooming of children in council homes, shisha bars and by taxi drivers in the town and concluded there was no evidence of a cover up or ‘widespread’ child sex abuse in those settings.
