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A religious group in Cheshire has been raided by police investigating allegations of sexual abuse, forced marriage and people trafficking.<\/p>\n
Ten people were arrested when officers stormed three locations linked to the Crewe-based Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, including the headquarters on Victoria Avenue.<\/p>\n
The Ahmadi religious community, which is said to be linked to a branch of Islam, are based at a former orphanage, Webb House, with around 150 people living at the property.<\/p>\n
Cheshire Police said the alleged offences involved one victim, a woman, who was a member of the group at the time the offences occurred.<\/p>\n
Chief Superintendent Gareth Wrigley said: “Our policing activity and ongoing, complex investigation relates to allegations of serious sexual offences, forced marriage and modern slavery. <\/p>\n
“I must stress at this point, we are investigating those offences, and we are not investigating the religious group.”<\/p>\n
More than 500 officers from Cheshire Police and neighbouring forces were involved in the operation and the six arrested are four males and two females of American, Mexican, Italian, Spanish and British nationalities.<\/p>\n
The ten suspects remain in custody as searches of the premises continue. A further 13 people have been arrested on suspicion of public order offences, which do not relate to the investigation.<\/p>\n
Cheshire Police said 500 officers took part in the raids. Credit: Cheshire Police<\/p>\n
Chief Superintendent Wrigley, added: \u201cToday’s operation is the outcome of a detailed and robust investigation into reports of serious sexual offences, forced marriage and modern slavery involving members of a religious group called Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light in Crewe. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile those arrested are members of the group, I want to make clear that this is not an investigation into the religion, this is an investigation into the serious allegations which have been reported to us. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe treat all reports of sexual assault seriously and are committed to doing all we can to achieve justice. <\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the arrests we are working closely with our partners to provide the appropriate advice and safeguarding to other members of the group. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to reassure residents that there is no risk to the wider community, and patrols have been stepped up to provide reassurance to local residents. I would urge anyone with any concerns to speak to an officer.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Thursday 30 April, Cheshire Police charged 25 other people, who were arrested yesterday during the raids, with public order offences. <\/p>\n
Want more on the issues affecting the North? Our podcast, From the North answers the questions that matter to our region.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Play Brightcove video A religious group in Cheshire has been raided by police investigating allegations of sexual abuse,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-559275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}