GMP pay out £2,800 in damages for 'failed probe' into homeless woman who was sexually assaulted in tent as she slept

11.02.2022 - 20:43 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

A homeless woman sexually assaulted by a stranger as she slept in a tent has been awarded damages after police failed to investigate, her lawyers said.

The victim was sleeping on the streets of Manchester city centre when she woke to find the man in her tent with his hand inside her clothes.

She immediately reported the incident to police and officers arrived at the scene.

However, she maintains they spoke to her only briefly in the back of a patrol car.

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CCTV footage was reviewed by police and the sexual assault case was closed.

No formal statements were taken from the woman, or her partner who was a witness, and no other potential witnesses were interviewed, lawyers for the victim said.

But after discussing the assault with other homeless women in the days after, four other women said they had experienced a similar assault.

Nicola Bailey-Gibbs at Hudgell Solicitors, who represented the woman, said: “These sexual assaults on vulnerable homeless women in Manchester city centre were not minor offences and these officers should not have treated them as minor offences.

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“They were a series of disturbing sexual assaults that should have prompted concern amongst officers whose job it is to protect the public, whoever they may be, and whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

“This may well have been a serial sex attacker and Greater Manchester Police officers appear not to have been open to that possibility.

“Sexual assaults cannot be ignored,