The horrific events surrounding the revelation that around 1,400 children who have been abused over a 16 year period in the Rotherham area is all over the news. An independent report has been commissioned by Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council which has identified systematic and continual failures by the police and agencies between 1997 and 2013.
The extent of the failures and depravity of the crimes committed is harrowing.
According to the report “it is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered.” The report confirms that in more than a third of the cases the children involved were already known to services for child protection and neglect. But despite at least three previous reports were data indicated what was going on, and despite staff raising concerns for years, the situation was never taken seriously which only underlines the extent of the failures by the authorities.
According to the report, children as young as 11 are said to have been groomed, trafficked, abducted, beaten, intimidated, and raped by large numbers of predators. Victims were also said to have been subjected to witnessing assaults and gang rapes, and many would be violently threatened that they would be next. The report found cases of children being held at gunpoint and even some of being doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight.
The facts surrounding some of the repeated failures of the authorities have been identified as follows:
- Senior managers “underplaying” the situation
- Police not taking allegations and reports of abuse seriously
- Many child victims “regarded with contempt” by authorities
- At least three reports “which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham” – with one report suppressed because senior managers allegedly didn’t believe the data, and the other two blatantly ignored
- Councillors ignoring the severity of the situation as a “one off problem” which they “hoped would go away”
- Managers blatantly directing staff to keep quiet with many staff concerned about being labelled a racist as the report indentifies that large numbers of assailants were described as “Asian”
- Child protection agencies having “extensive knowledge” of offences which remained unprosecuted
Rotherham Council has accepted the findings and failures and accepted that the failures were not down to frontline staff who repeatedly raised concerns for years. The number of the victims is a tragedy enough, but it could take years to truly understand the scale and numbers of victims involved. The report confirms:
No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the full Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013.
This abuse is not confined to the past but continues to this day.