Most media coverage of the Rotherham child abuse scandal has focused on \u201cAsian gangs\u201d. Yet a new report is another damning indictment of the local council and South Yorkshire Police (SYP).<\/p>\n
Government official Louise Casey\u2019s report into Rotherham Council was published last week. It was commissioned in the wake of Professor Alexis Jay\u2019s 2014 report into child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the town. Jay\u2019s report estimated that 1,400 children had been exploited between 1997 and 2013.<\/p>\n
Children were raped, assaulted and threatened with extreme violence. Casey said authorities had \u201cno understanding of the level of intimidation victims were experiencing\u201d.<\/p>\n
One key partner described a victim who \u201cgot a text saying that if she didn\u2019t come out they\u2019d shoot her. We called the police. They said, \u2018well why doesn\u2019t she just switch her phone off?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no understanding of the danger they were in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report looked at Rotherham council but could not avoid examining South Yorkshire Police (SYP). It said SYP \u201cperpetuates the cycle of abuse and psychological distortion suffered by the victims, by reinforcing the message that no crime has been committed, and that they are to blame for their own treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attitude<\/span><\/p>\n Inspectors were \u201cconcerned that this attitude continues in the police to this day, with treatment of current victims remaining at an unacceptably low standard\u201d.<\/p>\n The report questioned the \u201cphenomenally low conviction rate\u201d for abuse despite regular references to \u201congoing police operations\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cInspectors were left wondering what these ongoing investigations amounted to,\u201d it said. \u201cPerpetrators seemed to face no consequences. Nor were their activities disrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n Police Operation Central led to the conviction of five men in 2010. The operation identified around 80 abusers – but the rest were not investigated. One police officer told inspectors, \u201cI said, \u2018what about everyone else on that chart?\u2019 I was told, \u2018we\u2019ve got to cut it off somewhere\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n One former cop told inspectors that police saw victims as \u201csecond class citizens\u201d and \u201cblamed\u201d girls for abuse. Such attitudes weren’t restricted to police.<\/p>\n One councillor who was serving at the time of the inspection said abusers were \u201cfooled\u201d into thinking child victims were older than they were. A social worker said victims \u201cwere seen as prostitutes\u201d.<\/p>\n A former council officer said attitudes contained \u201can element of they are choosing to do this, getting into cars in the evening\u201d.<\/p>\n One child\u2019s case file describes the child as having \u201cwillingly gone\u201d with her abusers to a flat and \u201cconsented to sexual activity.\u201d The child was 13 at the time.<\/p>\n The council failed to protect abused and vulnerable children. The report noted recurring complaints about links between taxi firms and CSE. It said the council \u201chas not taken, and does not take, sufficient steps to ensure only fit and proper persons are permitted to hold a taxi licence\u201d.<\/p>\n David Cameron claimed the abuse wasn\u2019t a problem of \u201cresources\u201d. Casey too stressed \u201cpolitical failings\u201d at Rotherham council.<\/p>\n Yet references to resources crop up again and again in her report.<\/p>\n Lacking<\/span><\/p>\n The CSE team \u201csuffers from excessive case loads\u201d. Staff are \u201coften exhausted, over-loaded and overwhelmed\u201d. Support for victims is \u201csadly lacking\u201d.<\/p>\n There is \u201cnot enough capacity\u201d to properly undertake preventative work. Outreach work to identify victims at risk is \u201cinsufficiently resourced\u201d.<\/p>\n One council officer said, \u201cResources were an issue. The girls weren\u2019t easy to deal with. They were resource intensive. They were expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n Social workers said victims wouldn\u2019t be placed out of the area to keep them safe \u201cdue to costs\u201d. And from 2010 \u201ceach annual report notes pressure on the Children\u2019s Services budget\u201d.<\/p>\n Bizarrely Casey\u2019s report commends the council for making budget cuts \u201cin a timely manner\u201d. It goes on to point out that the cuts have meant \u201csome services no longer have the capacity to function effectively\u201d.<\/p>\n From 1 November 2013 to 31 October 2014 there were 273 CSE crimes recorded in South Yorkshire. Some 75, 27 percent, were in Rotherham. Real figures will be higher as many victims are too scared to come forward and some CSE crime is wrongly defined or dismissed.<\/p>\n The council has already missed several of its own targets for tackling CSE.<\/p>\n The council had \u201cavailable uncommitted reserves of \u00a310.222 million\u201d at the end of March last year.<\/p>\n In September last year the council announced that \u00a3120,000 would be made available to support victims in the short term. Inspectors said the package \u201cfalls short of what is required\u201d.<\/p>\n It added, \u201cPotential demand could well outstrip supply, and victims who may need urgent help should not be made to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n And there are \u201cserious concerns\u201d about how victims are supported when they become adults.<\/p>\n Some of those interviewed said \u201cservices were just turned off\u201d when child victims became adults. As one CSE victim put it, \u201cThey\u2019ve got a poster with my birthday on it when I turn 18 and then they don’t need to bother with me\u201d.<\/p>\n Casey criticised one councillor for referring to Jay\u2019s \u201climited source base\u201d.<\/p>\n This shouldn\u2019t diminish the fact that children have suffered serious abuse. Yet it is true that Jay did not identify 1,400 victims and sampled 66 cases (see below).<\/p>\n The report complained of a councillor who was concerned about focusing on CSE because, \u201cMost abuse happens within the home.\u201d But this is true – and all abused children should be supported.<\/p>\n The real problem is that very few seemed to get the support they needed.<\/p>\n Casey says the council has \u201cstruggled with the issue of race\u201d. This seems to amount to evidence that councillors didn\u2019t want to focus predominantly on Asian men as abusers and didn\u2019t want to be racist.<\/p>\n Casey\u2019s report said that Professor Jay found evidence that at least 1,400 children suffered CSE and that \u201cthe majority of the perpetrators were described as \u2018Asian\u2019 by victims\u201d.<\/p>\n This gives the misleading impression that hundreds of victims identified their abuser as Asian in Jay\u2019s report.<\/p>\n Jay\u2019s figure was an estimate based on a list of 988 children \u201cknown to children\u2019s social care or the police\u201d. The Jay report looked at 66 case files in total, the vast majority of which showed \u201cclear evidence\u201d that children had suffered abuse.<\/p>\n Jay added, \u201cIn a large number of the historic cases in particular, most of the victims in the cases we sampled were white British children, and the majority of the perpetrators were from minority ethnic communities.\u201d<\/p>\n So it is saying that in “a large number”\u00a0not “a majority”\u00a0of this 66 cases, most perpetrators were from ethnic minorities. This is not the same as saying that Asian men abused 1,400 children – but it hasn\u2019t stopped the right wing press.<\/p>\n Casey\u2019s own report points out that abuse isn\u2019t confined to grooming or exploitation by strangers. The victims were \u201cmost frequently those with difficult family backgrounds. Many had suffered neglect and abuse within the home.\u201d<\/p>\n A focus on Asian men as abusers leaves children at risk of abuse from those who don’t fit the profile.<\/p>\n The Casey report is based on over 200 meetings with council groups, voluntary groups, councillors, police, victims and others.<\/p>\n It also reviewed documents and sampled cases of vulnerable children.<\/p>\n Inspectors used “three different lists of children’s names which had been linked to CSE and where it was reasonable to assume the children had been harmed”.<\/p>\n A police officer and two councillors in Rotherham have been accused of having sex with abuse victims.<\/p>\n The police officer is also accused of passing information about victims to abusers. Another officer is accused of failing to take any action despite being aware of the allegations.<\/p>\n The two officers have been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.<\/p>\n The National Crime Agency is investigating the allegations against the two councillors, one of whom was reportedly still serving until last week.<\/p>\n Just days before the Casey report was published, police officer Hassan Ali was hit by a car inSheffield. He died nine days later.<\/p>\n South Yorkshire Police described his death as a \u201ctragic accident\u201d.<\/p>\n Two victims of child sexual abuse had complained about Ali to lawyer David Greenwood.<\/p>\n Unwilling<\/span><\/p>\n Greenwood said the complaints were about his \u201cunwillingness to pursue complaints of exploitation\u201d.<\/p>\n One victim said Ali had asked her on a date when she was 17 and again when she was 21. She said Ali was aware she had suffered abuse between the ages of 14 and 17 and described his behaviour as \u201cinappropriate and totally unprofessional\u201d.<\/p>\n Greenwood said the allegations must be investigated. \u201cIf this has in the past caused girls to be exploited then we need to know about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile a former Home Office researcher has said police officers threatened to pass her details to abusers after she produced a damning report.<\/p>\n Adele Gladman\u2019s 2002 report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which criticised the police and council, was never published.<\/p>\n She said a police officer approached her outside her office. \u201cHe and a colleague said words along the lines of \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be a shame if these perpetrators found out where you and your family lived\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I took that as a direct threat to my personal safety. The message was very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n South Yorkshire Police said they can\u2019t comment on the allegation.<\/p>\n This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most media coverage of the Rotherham child abuse scandal has focused on \u201cAsian gangs\u201d. Yet a new report is another damning indictment of the local council and South Yorkshire Police (SYP). Government official Louise Casey\u2019s report into Rotherham Council was published last week. It was commissioned in the wake of Professor Alexis Jay\u2019s 2014 report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-143474","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143474","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=143474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFew get support they need<\/h2>\n
\nThe real figures behind the headlines<\/h2>\n
<\/h2>\n
\nBackstory<\/h2>\n
\nPolice officers accused<\/h2>\n