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1,400 children 'sexually exploited over 16-year period' in ONE TOWN

About 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham over a 16-year period, according to a report that concluded "it is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered".

The uncompromising report on events in the South Yorkshire townbetween 1997 and 2013 said in more than a third of these cases the youngsters were already known to child protection agencies.
Warning also of "blatant" collective failures by the council's leadership, the report by Professor Alexis Jay prompted the resignation of the council's Labour leader.
Roger Stone, the leader, said: "Having considered the report, I believe it is only right that I, as leader, take responsibility on behalf of the council for the historic failings that are described so clearly in the report and it is my intention to do so.
"For this reason, I have today agreed with my Labour group colleagues that I will be stepping down as leader with immediate effect."
Despite Stone's resignation, chief executive Martin Kimber said no council officers will face disciplinary action.
Jay said she found examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone".
Jay said: "They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated." She said she found girls as young as 11 had been raped by large numbers of men.
The report said failures of the political and officer leadership of Rotherham council over the first 12 years she looked at were blatant, as the seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers and was not seen as a priority by South Yorkshire police. Jay said police "regarded many child victims with contempt".
These failures occured despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".
She said the first of these reports was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data. The other two were ignored, she added.
The report said: "By far the majority of perpetrators were described as Asian by victims." But, she said, councillors seemed to think is was a one-off problem they hoped would go away and "several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist".
She added: "Others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."
The spotlight first fell on Rotherham in 2010 when five men, described by a judge as sexual predators, were given lengthy jail terms after they were found guilty of grooming teenage girls for sex. The prosecution was the first of a series of high-profile cases in the past four years that have revealed the exploitation of young girls in towns and cities including Rochdale, Derby and Oxford.
Following the 2010 case, the Times claimed that details from 200 restricted-access documents showed how police and child protection agencies in the South Yorkshire town had extensive knowledge of these activities for a decade, yet a string of offences went unprosecuted.
The allegations led to a range of official investigations, including one by the home affairs select committee.
Last year, the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, said there had been "a failure of management" at South Yorkshire police as he responded to a report into the force on this issue by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).
The report concluded: "No one knows the true scale of the child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over the full inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013."
In response, Rotherham council, which commissioned the report, said it accepted the findings, including the statement that failures "almost without exception" were attributed to senior managers in child protection services, elected councillors and senior police officers.
It accepted that failures were not down to "frontline social or youth workers who are acknowledged in the report as repeatedly raising serious concerns about the nature and extent of this kind of child abuse".
The council's chief executive, Kimber, said: "The report does not make comfortable reading in its account of the horrific experiences of some young people in the past and I would like to reiterate our sincere apology to those who were let down when they needed help."
"The report confirms that our services have improved significantly over the last five years and are stronger today than ever before.
"This is important because it allows me to reassure young people and families that, should anyone raise concerns, we will take them seriously and provide them with the support they need.
"However, that must not overshadow – and certainly does not excuse – the finding that for a significant amount of time the council and its partners could and should have done more to protect young people from what must be one of the most horrific forms of abuse imaginable."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/26/rotherham-children-sexually-abused-report

****ing hell, this is appalling

(edited 9 years ago)

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Reply 1

Skip_Snip

The report said: "By far the majority of perpetrators were described as Asian by victims."

No ****, Sherlock...

Reply 2

Mackay

One of the most horrible and harrowing stories I've read. How it can happen for so long is appalling.

Town of peace.

Let's say there was a problem with endemic sexual abuse of children at a respected western institution like – to choose a random example – the Catholic Church.

Do you think the police would go so far out of their way to avoid naming the religious and cultural origin of the perpetrators, when it is so clearly linked to one community and an unavoidable part of the situation? Do you think we would be subjected in every news report to some PC tosser telling us that by focusing on abuse by Catholics we risk ignoring other examples of abuse? Or do you think the allegations would be treated with the seriousness they deserve?

No one is saying the guilt is borne by the whole Pakistani community, but there are clearly issues therein which cannot be brushed under the carpet because of cultural sympathies.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 5

Ggmu!

Asian or Pakistani?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 6

mellie220

This is just awful. I hate that a lot of this has been overlooked because people didn't want to 'offend' certain cultures. Unfortunately, many men (before anyone jumps on my back, I didn't say all men) originally from the Middle East disrespect women and children, and this isn't something that people should be afraid to call them out on when it happens.

Another thing that bothers me is that this is not being treated as an issue of racism. The perpetrators are from a certain cultural background and they are selectively abusing and grooming white children - imagine if this were white men abusing a certain ethnic minority.
It's no secret that some men from these cultures think of white women as trash - I've had some of the most disgusting degrees of sexual harassment directed towards me in broad daylight by 'Asian' men... and funnily enough, these instances were mostly in a place rather close to Rotherham.

Also, the people in the council/other public services who helped cover this up must be held accountable for this disgusting breach of trust. They could have saved hundreds from being abused if they weren't so incompetent and started punishing people as soon as this started happening.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 7

Mackay

Some shocking replies in here. Equally as shocking as the story itself.

Reply 8

Joinedup

Original post by Ggmu!

Asian or Pakistani?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Well this is strange - on the BBC radio 4 news at 6pm I was sure they said Pakistani but but now when I look at the website it says Asian.

Sky doesn't seem afraid to pinpoint the background of the rapists...

"Almost all" the abusers were described by victims as being of Pakistani origin, but authorities "wanted to play down ethnic dimensions... for fear of being thought racist."

http://news.sky.com/story/1324952/horrific-cases-of-child-abuse-in-rotherham

Reply 9

Ggmu!

Original post by Joinedup

Lol so they have to hold onto their political correctness, which isn't great for the rest of us Asians... BBC are a joke anyway to be honest, got no trust/faith in them.

But this is disgusting news. How can this go on for so long, unchecked?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 10

tehforum

In Rotherham, the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage including the five men convicted in 2010.

page 98 of the official report

Reply 11

tehforum

Several councillors interviewed believed that by opening up these issues they could be 'giving oxygen' to racist perspectives that might in turn attract extremist political groups and threaten community cohesion. To some extent this concern was valid, with the apparent targeting of the town by groups such as the English Defence League. The Deputy Council Leader (2011-2014) from the Pakistani-heritage community was clear that he had not understood the scale of the CSE problem in Rotherham until 2013. He then disagreed with colleague elected members on the way to approach it. He had advocated taking the issue 'head on' but had been overruled. He was one of the elected members who said they thought the criminal convictions in 2010 were 'a one-off, isolated case', and not an example of a more deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. This was at best naïve, and at worst ignoring a politically inconvenient truth.

page 99 of the report

The physical abuse included oral, anal and vaginal rape; role play; insertion of objects into the vagina; severe beatings; burning with cigarettes; tying down; enacting rape that included ripping clothes off and sexual activity over the webcam.'

page 100

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 12

tillytots

Sick how protecting child abusers has become the new norm.

Reply 13

meenu89

Radio 4 the world tonight says 'Most men were of Pakistani heritage'. I would suggest that more heads will roll. Downing Street will ensure this.

Reply 14

29Bilal96

Original post by meenu89

Radio 4 the world tonight says 'Most men were of Pakistani heritage'. I would suggest that more heads will roll. Downing Street will ensure this.

yeah but unfortunately it's true. i feel sick because of people like this, they should burn

Disgracefull!

Another Pakistani sex gang. Repulsive. Lock them up and throw away the key.

Reply 17

Time Tourist

Hang these disgusting animals. No one will miss them.

Reply 18

Sanctimonious

The entire council should be forced to resign. They've failed their electorate and are quite frankly, an embarrassment. You cant defend the indefensible. This is a council that stopped two good people fostering children because they were UKIP members and yet at the same time all of this was going on and they, according to the report, knew about it. Its truly vulgar, sickening and heartbreaking in fact.

Written by Prof Alexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work, the investigation concluded that the council knew as far back as 2005 of sexual exploitation being committed on a wide scale by mostly Asian men, yet failed to act.

Reply 19

tehforum