By Hannah Richardson, local democracy reporter, and Rob Parsons

Andy Burnham "100 per cent" stands by his handling of the grooming gang scandal since becoming mayor – and has accused critics of "trying to pull everyone apart".

The Greater Manchester mayor launched an impassioned defence of the area's response to the child exploitation scandal since he became mayor in 2017 at a Q&A session on Thursday 8 January.

An audience member at the Ask Andy event, chaired by ex-Northern Agenda Editor Rob Parsons, put it to Mr Burnham that "several inquiries across the UK have found the fear of being labeled as racist and other titles have led to failures to act on predominantly Pakistani Muslim gangs targeting predominantly white girls".

The man went on to ask: "Can you promise us all now that you will put the safety of our young women and girls before the fear of upsetting people, because the Labour government that you were a part of up until 2010 appeared to put our girls last in areas such as Rochdale, Oldham and even Tameside."

In a 10-minute response, Mr Burnham said he "100 per cent" stood by his actions in response to the grooming gang scandal, saying nothing was "more important" to him "than the safety of kids" living in Greater Manchester. The mayor went on to accuse online critics who claim local leaders were part of a cover-up of "creating hate". 

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham (Image - LDRS)

Setting out local reviews and police investigations into grooming gangs in recent years, he said: "Greater Manchester did not look in the other direction. We looked directly at this issue, we held a complete mirror up to ourselves […] I see the stuff online and it's actually designed to create hate, and they're trying to pull everyone apart."

He added: "I 100 per cent will stand by what I've done. I would never turn away in the way some of these people describe.

"Nothing is more important than the safety of kids to me living in Greater Manchester and any allegation that I don't take that totally seriously as my top priority is a complete affront as far as I'm concerned. The way people just throw that around on social media, well, I don't do that. 

"I've never done that. I never would do that, and I'm confident now I have a police force here that's absolutely with me at my side, operating in entirely the same way."

The steps taken across Greater Manchester to tackle the scandal have resulted in arrests, charges and convictions, the mayor continued. As a result, he said, local communities have been "made safer". 

However, Mr Burnham recognised local action did come with some limitations. Local level inquiries such as those which took place in Rochdale and in Oldham do not have statutory power and, as such, cannot compel people to give evidence. 

He added: "I said, this time last year, against what was then my National Party's position 'no, we need a national inquiry'. Because that accountability part of this whole story, we could not achieve it through our review, and hence we felt there needed to be that further accountability process."