Police chief defends paying child rapist to inform on fellow paedophiles

Seventeen men and one woman were convicted of abusing dozens of vulnerable young girls at Newcastle Crown Court last month

Left to right, row by row: Abdul Sabe, Habibur Rahim, Badrul Hussain, Abdul Hamid, Jahanger Zaman, Monjur Choudhury, Taherul Alam, Mohammed Ali, Nadeem Aslam, Mohammed Azram, Yassar Hussain, Saiful Islam, Eisa Mousavi, Prabhat Nelli, Mohibur Rahman, Nashir Uddin, Redwan Siddquee, Carolann Gallon (PA)

A police chief criticised for using a convicted child rapist as a paid informant in Newcastle has defended the decision, saying he has received hundreds of messages of support from the public.

Northumbria Chief Constable Steve Ashman said it had always been a moral question, rather than a legal one, about whether it is justifiable to pay the man – known only as XY – almost £10,000 to provide information about his fellow paedophiles.

Chief Constable Ashman was speaking after all at the end of a week where all but one member of a grooming gang was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court for their roles in recruiting vulnerable young girls, giving them drugs and then persuading or forcing them into sex with them or other, older men.

The decision to use XY in Operation Shelter, despite him being convicted of drugging and raping a girl, was controversial when the details emerged last month, following a series of trials.

Chief Constable Ashman said: “When reflecting upon the morality of the decision, I think it’s important to take account of public opinion.

“If the moral compass was spinning when it was first made public a few weeks ago, when the verdicts were handed out, it’s absolutely fixed now and it’s fixed in our favour.

“Never in all of my time of policing have I witnessed such an outpouring of public support for what we have done.

“We have been flooded with hundreds and hundreds of messages of support for the decisions that we took.

“If I had any doubt, and I didn’t personally, but if I had any doubt whether it was the right thing to do, then I’m absolutely determined now that it was.”

The 17 men and one woman were convicted of abusing the young girls after a two year investigation by the force known as Operation Shelter.

It lead to the arrest of a total of 461 people, while 782 potential complainants have been spoken to and 278 victims have been found.

Chief Constable Ashman has previously denied reports that XY was told to go to sex parties or engage in any illegal activity while being paid by the police.

When XY’s involvement came to light following the conclusion of the trial last month, Chief Constable Ashman told the BBC the information he provided was largely ”about finding out who might be involved, the cars they were using, the addresses they were living at”.

“This was a starting point, it never resulted in XY being exposed to offending”, he added.

He insisted using XY – who was not tasked to go to parties – had let police to catch dangerous men, and stopped some girls from being raped.

Chief Constable Ashman said: “Some of it was absolutely pivotal in putting some very, very dangerous people behind bars, and more importantly, some of it was directly responsible for our finding vulnerable girls.

“If he hadn’t told us the information we would’ve found them and it doesn’t take too much of an imagination to work out what might have happened to them.”

Additional reporting by PA