Greater Manchester Police is pursuing 1,099 suspected members of grooming gangs in 59 active investigations involving 714 victims, according to a watchdog assessment released this week by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. The 76-page report says the force has substantially strengthened its specialist unit and data systems since a 2019 internal review of historic child-sexual-exploitation cases, but adds that decades of earlier failings have eroded public confidence. The inspectorate credits the revamped unit with 42 convictions and jail terms exceeding 430 years since 2021, yet warns that delays in obtaining child-protection records from local authorities continue to hinder inquiries. Survivors interviewed by the watchdog and by media outlets say they were not consulted during the exercise and remain sceptical that officers will treat new complaints differently. Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said GMP would pursue child rapists and traffickers "relentlessly" and called the scale of current investigations the largest in the force’s history. The findings come as a YouGov survey shows 90 percent of Britons support the national statutory inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation announced last month, although fewer than half trust police or the wider justice system to manage the crisis.