“We weren’t prepared”: Grooming ring prosecutor Nazir Afzal on grief and state failings

The lawyer behind some of Britain’s most high-profile cases reflects on his most personal brush with government incompetence: the loss of his brother to Covid-19.

By Anoosh Chakelian

Nazir Afzal OBE, former Chief Crown Prosecutor for NW England. Most recently, he was Chief Executive of the country’s Police & Crime Commissioners. During a 24 year career, has prosecuted some of the most high profile cases in the country and advised on many other and led nationally on several legal topics including Violence against Women & Girls, child sexual abuse, and honour based violence. Photographed during Covid-19 lockdown, in his home in Birmingham, via FaceTime. Assisted by Joel X Martin.

Nazir Afzal, the lawyer famed for prosecuting the Rochdale grooming gang in 2012, was supposed to be touring Britain’s literary festivals to promote his new book, The Prosecutor.

Instead, he is locked down at home in Manchester, grieving. His eldest brother Umar, a former interpreter for the Home Office, died aged 71 on 8 April – the peak of the Covid-19 epidemic in the UK – having tested positive for the virus. Afzal’s mother, who is 91, saw Umar’s face for the last time through the window of his Birmingham home as her son lay in a body bag.