Grooming gang suspect who escaped investigation after police destroyed evidence 'later attempted to MURDER wife'

The convicted ringleader of the abuse, Shakil Chowdhury, had named Offender J as an accomplice in 2007, yet Greater Manchester Police took no action and shut down the case.

Ms Walker-Roberts stated she was subjected to hours of rape by five men at Chowdhury's residence.

Following her ordeal, she is said to have been trafficked across the town and abused by multiple groups of men after being abducted from a police station where she had attempted to report an earlier incident.

Officers destroyed dozens of items recovered from Chowdhury's home or handed them back to him, despite their potential relevance to other suspects, The Guardian reports.

In 2007, police returned 22 pieces of evidence to Chowdhury through his solicitor, including bedding and a towel from the property where Ms Walker-Roberts says she was assaulted.

The following year, a further 24 items were allegedly destroyed by the force, among them material taken from Chowdhury's vehicle and the contents of his rubbish bin.

When Ms Walker-Roberts challenged the force about these decisions eight years later, officers could not produce any forensic strategy for her case.

Chowdhury received a six-year prison sentence in 2007 and remains the sole person convicted in connection with Ms Walker-Roberts's abuse.

An internal police investigation completed in 2014 determined Offender J's wife might have been spared his violent attack had forensic inquiries been properly conducted during the case involving Ms Walker-Roberts.

Further damning evidence emerged in 2011 when Offender J's wife informed police that he had confessed to raping a 12-year-old girl.

She also revealed he had retained newspaper cuttings about Chowdhury's trial and conviction.

This information was forwarded to Operation Messenger, a multi-agency taskforce established to tackle child sexual exploitation in Oldham, but no action was taken.

A safeguarding review commissioned by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham described this inaction as a "serious failure" in 2022.

The same review noted it had been unable to evaluate the quality of inquiries following the original forensic submissions.

Ms Walker-Roberts commented: "All my life, I've been told I need to move on, but how can I, when I don't have the answers? Most people get closure when they get a sentence, but I'll never be at that stage, so for me the answers are closure."

She added she "gave up hope a long time ago" all perpetrators would face justice, but feared they had attacked other victims.

Offender J is now unlikely to be charged, as surviving forensic evidence does not connect him to the abuse.

Police continue pursuing two outstanding suspects: Sarwar Ali, who absconded after being charged with rape and has never been located, and a third man forensically linked to the case whose identity officers are attempting to establish.

The failings in Oldham have been instrumental in establishing a national grooming gangs inquiry, set to begin in March under former children's commissioner and former Labour peer Anne Longfield.

A spokesman for GMP said Ms Walker-Roberts had “suffered horrific abuse which was compounded by appalling failures by the authorities that should’ve protected her at that time”, adding she had received an apology in 2022.

It said in a statement: “The way Samantha was treated by police was far from the standard survivors can expect from the GMP of today. Since one man was convicted of abusing Samantha we have two further suspects we are determined to bring to court to face charges. One remains charged and remains outstanding – efforts to locate him will not stop until he is found. There is a further suspect forensically linked to the investigation whose identity we are trying to establish.”

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