‘They thought we were problem children’: how grooming victims were failed in Oldham

National inquiry on grooming gangs will look at how police ignored girls while officials feared fuelling the far rightIn 2003, long before the term “grooming gang” entered the lexicon, social workers in Oldham noticed a disturbing pattern: girls from local children’s homes were repeatedly going missing. Often, they were found in the same locations, being harboured by the same men. Each time the authorities thought they had got a grip on the problem, it reared its head again. By