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.
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.
“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, by doing so the consequences could be catastrophic.
“We know that Sarah Everard’s killer was exposing himself in public before going on to commit a murder, these offences simply cannot be taken lightly.”
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have agreed to pay the victim £2,800 damages following the incident in August 2020, her solicitors said.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics Crime Survey for England and Wales, published in March 2021, nearly a quarter of women have experienced sexual assault or attempted sexual assault since the age of 16, while one in 14 has experienced rape or attempted rape.
GMP has been asked for a comment.
