of Liberal Democrat Paul Rowen, who took over from Coun Farnell in May of that year.

“Mr Rowen bore considerable responsibility for the school as council leader from 1992 to 1996,” it concludes.

“As with Richard Farnell, he was prepared to blame others without acknowledging his own failures of leadership.

“At best, he was insufficiently inquisitive about Knowl View school, despite having knowledge of the serious problems that persisted at the school; at worst, as council leader, he turned a blind eye to these problems and chose to give them low priority.”

It does not make a judgement on whether the former MPs Jim Dobbin and Liz Lynne failed to act on this issue once allegations were raised by the school’s former head of care, Martin Digan, due to conflicting testimonies bywhich says that not only were they abused in residential care homes such as Cambridge House and Knowl View themselves, but also ‘targeted on the streets of Rochdale’, which it says was a ‘compelling’ reason to investigate abuse in the town.

Many came forward and gave evidence to the inquiry under anonymity.

The report describes the backgrounds of the teenagers and young men who were offered places at Cambridge House in the mid-1960s, often in unhappy foster placements and wanting an escape, or in one case, having moved down from Glasgow to work in a factory in the town.

One victim describes how Smith simply turned up one day at his home and offered him a place at the hostel - and says he was initially ‘happy’ there, but that things