Rotherham, UK Child Sex Abuse Update: Police, Social Workers Failed To Protect 1,400 Youth From Harm

Last edited Sun Jan 19, 2020, 05:15 PM - Edit history (2)

- BBC News, "Rotherham sex abuse: Failure to identify police officer questioned by MP," Jan. 20, 2020.

Rotherham's MP Sarah Champion has said she finds it "difficult to believe" that a police officer mentioned in a report into the treatment of a sex abuse survivor cannot be identified. Ms Champion said South Yorkshire Police needed to make "dramatic changes" in the wake of the police watchdog report. It said police failed to protect the complainant, exposing her to abuse. It also found an officer - whose identity is a mystery - said "racial tensions" meant nothing could be done.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) looked at several complaints made by a Rotherham woman, who was abused as a child for several years. In its report, initially leaked to the Times newspaper, the watchdog upheld the woman's complaints, saying that "police took insufficient action to protect you from harm" and that "police failed to adequately deal with offenders".
(Links)
◾Rotherham child sex abuse victim 'vindicated'
◾Exploited children 'were not protected from abuse'
◾Rapist 'offered role in child's life'

The IOPC also upheld a complaint that the victim's father was told by a senior - but unidentifiable - officer that the force was aware abuse "had been going on 30 years and the police could do nothing because of racial tensions". South Yorkshire Police said on Saturday it accepted the findings of the IOPC.

A report in 2014 by Prof Alexis Jay found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, predominantly by men of Pakistani heritage.

Ms Champion told BBC Radio 5 live that the IOPC inquiry was the latest in a series of investigations that showed "victims and survivors were let down by paid professionals". "Apparently now South Yorkshire Police don't actually know who the officers were that repeatedly let down this survivor, which I find incredibly difficult to believe," the MP said. "I think what we as a town need to see, and definitely for the survivors to get closure, they need to see cases of misconduct. They need to see people held to account."



- Abuse survivor Sammy Woodhouse said victims were "failed, ignored, blamed."

Her views were echoed by Sammy Woodhouse, who was abused as a teenager in the South Yorkshire town. She said she was not shocked by the report's findings. "I think for the last six years we've more than proved what happened to us," said Ms Woodhouse. "How we were viewed how we were treated, failed, ignored, blamed... unfortunately that's not a thing of the past, it's still happening today. "We've started to now see perpetrators that have committed the rapes and the abuse being held to the account, but yet whenever when it comes to professionals I feel that we constantly hit a brick wall and I don't think anybody will be ever held to account."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-51168522

- 'Rotherham child sex abuse victim 'vindicated,' BBC, Jan. 18, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-51160707
"For 18 years I have being trying to prove that I'm not a liar, that I didn't make it up," said the woman, who was abused over several years from about 2003. "I'm really, really disgusted in what were in that [the report] - basically, that victims and their families were sacrificed. Their lives ruined, living with a life sentence because of fear of racial tension."
The watchdog's report, seen by the BBC, upheld the victim's complaints that "police took insufficient action to protect you from harm" and that "police failed to adequately deal with offenders and this failure led you to be exposed to abuse"...



- A report in 2014 found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual abuse in Rotherham, England.

- BBC, "Rotherham child abuse: The background to the scandal," Feb. 5, 2015.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28934963



- Five men were convicted for sexual offences against girls in 2010.

The issue of child sex abuse in Rotherham first came to light in November 2010 when five men from the town's Asian community were jailed for sexual offences against underage girls. But suspicions were already growing that the scale of the town's problem was far more widespread.
Almost two years later, in September 2012, Andrew Norfolk, a journalist on The Times newspaper, published an investigation which revealed a confidential 2010 police report had warned thousands of such crimes were being committed in South Yorkshire each year by networks of Asian men. The town's former Labour MP, Denis MacShane, claimed police had kept the abuse secret from politicians...
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- BBC, Manchester sex abuse: Exploited children 'were not protected,' Jan. 14, 2020.

Police and social workers investigating child sex exploitation in Manchester knew children were suffering "the most profound abuse... but did not protect them", a report has found. After a child's death in 2003, police identified at least 97 suspects, but "very few" faced justice, the independent review found. The police operation was "prematurely closed down" after officers decided to "remove resources", the report said. Police said "authorities fell short".

Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) Operation Augusta was set up to tackle "the sexual exploitation throughout a wide area of a significant number of children in the care system by predominantly Asian men", the report said.



- The report focused on the death of Victoria Agoglia and Operation Augusta.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who commissioned the report as a result of the 2017 BBC documentary The Betrayed Girls, focussed on the death in 2003 of 15-year-old Victoria Agoglia and GMP's subsequent investigation. He said Victoria's death had "exposed a network of paedophiles brazenly abusing young people in care... [who] should have been brought to justice but, appallingly, most escaped and some were left to reoffend". He added there was now "a zero tolerance approach to child sexual exploitation of any kind". Victoria's grandmother Joan Agoglia said the publication of the report made her feel "wonderful as I've been fighting for this all my life, it seems".

GMP Chief Constable Ian Hopkins apologised for the police failures which allowed the abuse of children in care to continue. "On behalf of Greater Manchester Police, I want to apologise to all those vulnerable children who were let down in 2004 by police not thoroughly investigating the offences that had been committed against them. "I want to say that I am personally disgusted that these children were not cared for and by the awful abuse that they suffered."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-51093159