The House of Commons is hosting a debate on Operation Augusta, a police and social services investigation into child sexual exploitation in South Manchester, which was launched in response to the death of a 15 year old girl, Victoria Agoglia.
The debate, which was raised by Graham Stringer MP, takes place today in the House of Commons from 9.30am – 11am.
Victoria had been in the care of Manchester City Council when she died in 2003, after being injected with heroin by a 50 year old man, in his home.
Police and social services were aware that Victoria was being targeted by sexual predators. Victoria had also told social workers and police that she was being injected with heroin.
After calls for a review into how the police and social services handled the case, a report into her death was published on January 14, 2020.
The damning report found that the coroner at her inquest had, “significantly” underplayed the coercive control Victoria had been subjected to in relation to the sexual exploitation she had suffered. It also confirmed that while authorities knew Victoria was being sexually exploited, the child protection procedures available were not implemented to protect her.
The report also noted that detectives working on Operation Augusta had “built up a compelling picture of the systematic exploitation of looked after children in the care system in the city of Manchester”.
The debate can now be read in the Hansard, which you can access here.
Links:
- Parliament Page on today’s Operation Augusta Debate (very good summary and resources)
- Politics Home: Graham Stringer MP – The failure of Operation Augusta gives us reason to doubt improvements on child protection
- January 2020 Report Into Victoria’s Death
- Manchester Evening News: Coroner ‘significantly underplayed’ child sexual exploitation in Victoria Agoglia’s death – report says
Researching Reform 
soon hardly a town will be left without sexual exploitation in care system, where else?all rotten till core, but we all only able to critisise on FB instead of go and sweep all dirt,
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The usual pages of meaningless jargon set up so that noone official is blamed and nobody is held to account by losing their job or being punished !
If children complain they are not believed.If parents complain they are not believed especially as usually it is strictly forbidden for children in care to report to parents at contact that they are being abused while in care !
If children were encouraged to complain about abuse in care instead of being forbidden to do so the situation would soon become very different !
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‘Contact’ between parents and their child(ren) – I hate that word – is monitored so neither is able to tell the truth about what is happening to the other. This is wrong. It is not Nazi Germany or the USSR. Who do Social Services think they are that they can be so controlling where these families are concerned and rule the roost. It is disgusting in this day and age. You flout these rules at your peril, that parents can be stopped from seeing their children and the children feel isolated, that if they have any worries or problems they have no one to turn to. It makes parents feel so helpless, that they are completely unable to protect their children. No wonder they end up screwed up in their heads with mental health issues. When is it all going to end? There must be a lot of money in it for someone or why else would they do it, as it is certainly not in the best interest of the children.
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Whitewash pretending justice. Which will never, ever, ever happen.
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