There was a "shocking" inability to protect six vulnerable young girls from sexual exploitation, a report into the Rochdale grooming case says.
A serious case review by the Rochdale Safeguarding Children Board highlighted failures by 17 agencies who were meant to protect them.
Police and social workers failed the girls who were "passed around for sex" by a gang of men, it said.
The review recommended "speedy resolution" to leadership failures.
'Failure of protection'"The report paints a shocking picture of the inability of these agencies to protect these young people successfully," said Jane Booth, chair of the safeguarding board.
The serious case review looked at six girls who suffered child sexual exploitation, which took place in Heywood, Rochdale between 2007 and 2010.
A second serious case review looked at a separate case involving a seventh girl that began earlier this year.
Nine men from Rochdale and Oldham were sentenced for up to 19 years in prison in May 2012 after being convicted of offences including rape.
Speaking to BBC Five Live, Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester, denied his officers had failed to investigate allegations of rape made by underage girls before a decision was taken not to prosecute in 2008.
"We have to remember that in most of those cases, the girls themselves did not regard themselves has victims and were not willing to make complaints and that is still the situation now," he said.
"We have got a number of girls in Rochdale that we believe are being abused and many of them will not talk to us, and even if they did, will not tell us about what is happening and certainly don't want to make a complaint because that means they go into the criminal justice system."
Five of the girls "clearly" needed help and intervention by safeguarding agencies before the abuse had begun, to protect them from highly damaging experiences, the report said.
'Actively ignored abuse'Failures highlighted include:
- Greater Manchester Police (GMP) - Failure to recognise child sexual exploitation in the early stages
- Rochdale Social Services - Lack of organisational priority over child sexual exploitation, an unstable duty and assessment team and a "chaotic" duty system
- Health services - GPs had explicit information that some of the girls were at risk "that could have helped them identify the possibility of sexual exploitation at earlier points"
- Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) - Recognition of child sexual exploitation in the early years "was very poor", resulting in missed prosecution opportunities in 2008
Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk (Labour) said agencies had actively ignored the abuse and that "social services believed these girls were making lifestyle choices", he said.
"The biggest issue to come out of this report is that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) were effectively discriminating against poor white working class girls, so that's not about a failure to spot abuse, that is about actively ignoring abuse that was going on when it was brought to their attention," he said.
"Senior police officers keep talking about deploying more resources, but they're sending out untrained officers who cannot win the trust of victims. We need better leadership on this issue."
However, Sir Peter said the report failed to confront a "fundamental" problem faced by police officers, who are repeatedly asked to track down and return young people missing from children's homes, only for them to run away again.
"It creates a culture of hopelessness, where the police officers think 'what's the point?'," he said.
"We haven't sorted out a solution to these really complex issues about young people."
'Did not listen'Nazir Afzal, chief prosecutor in the North West, whose office dropped the grooming case initially in 2009, said: "I absolutely accept that things didn't go well for us and other agencies, but people can feel some sense of reassurance that we are now bringing more cases to court."
Social workers were criticised for focussing on young people's high-risk behaviour and "not their vulnerability", the review found.
Numerous opportunities to intervene were missed and only two girls received child protection planning. Parents felt agencies "failed to work together", did not listen or keep them informed.
One father called Children's Social Care (CSC) up to 50 times, reporting his daughter's "uncontrollable drinking, running away and difficult behaviour".
Social workers told him she was "a child prostitute", and he accepted this "because he did not know that it was wrong", the review said.
A June 2008 report to Rochdale safeguarding children board had identified 50 children at risk of sexual exploitation.
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