{"id":138741,"date":"2014-09-03T11:34:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T11:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=138741"},"modified":"2014-09-03T11:52:54","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T11:52:54","slug":"rotherham-councillors-told-keep-mouth-shut-abuse-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/rotherham-councillors-told-keep-mouth-shut-abuse-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotherham councillors told to keep mouth shut about abuse in 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">RINF EDITOR&#8217;S NOTE:<\/span><br \/>\nYet again we see the police turning a blind eye to child abuse and in this instance actually instructing councillors to do the same, the question must be asked; <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">WHY?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Last week one victim who reported the abuse to police was met with the response &#8216;Well, what do you expect?&#8217;.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>How widespread is this sick mentality in\u00a0the British Police force that somehow,\u00a0the abuse of our children is acceptable? From Jimmy Savile&#8217;s &#8216;Friday Morning Club&#8217; to the gangs in Rotherham, how deep does this rabbit hole go, why are politicians being given a free pass, and who exactly in the British establishment yields so much power that they can command protection over a decades old nationwide\u00a0paedophile ring?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #666666;\">Councillor Ken Wyatt says he knew grooming was taking place but was told discussing it could disrupt police inquiries<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Councillors in\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" title=\"More from the Guardian on Rotherham\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/rotherham\">Rotherham<\/a>\u00a0were told at a seminar in 2005 not to publicly discuss information about the town&#8217;s child sexual exploitation problem because it was &#8220;confidential&#8221; and could jeopardise police investigations, according to one councillor present at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Prof Alexis Jay&#8217;s report on the 1,400\u00a0<a style=\"color: #005689;\" title=\"More from the Guardian on Children\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/children\">children<\/a>\u00a0failed by the council and agencies said that such &#8220;explicit content&#8221; about the issue was given to 30 councillors at the seminar that &#8220;few members or senior officers could say &#8216;we didn&#8217;t know&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday one councillor, Ken Wyatt, was asked by a member of the public at an emotional council meeting why he and colleagues did not act following the seminar.<\/p>\n<p>Wyatt acknowledged that he knew then that grooming was happening, both locally and nationally, and councillors were told that &#8220;steps were being taken to deal with it&#8221;. But he insisted: &#8220;It was not at the scale we have subsequently found out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;We were told to treat it as very confidential&#8221; and that talking about it publicly &#8220;could disrupt inquiries&#8221; then being made by the police.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;We were told it was an incredibly difficult area to work in, incredibly difficult to get convictions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His response did not go down well with his questioner, who said: &#8220;Our children were at risk. Our children were being raped. Our children were being abused. And you are telling me as a borough councillor, bare faced telling me that you weren&#8217;t allowed to say anything?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2014\/sep\/03\/rotherham-councillors-abuse-information-confidential?\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RINF EDITOR&#8217;S NOTE: Yet again we see the police turning a blind eye to child abuse and in this instance actually instructing councillors to do the same, the question must be asked; WHY? Last week one victim who reported the abuse to police was met with the response &#8216;Well, what do you expect?&#8217;.\u00a0 How widespread [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-138741","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}