Rotherham Council NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

[Nijinsky]

This was briefly mentioned on 5 live today, but had to trawl through the "regions" to find it on the BBC news website.

Obviously not as important as a "sexist jibe" made 6 months ago by a UKIP candidate.

 

Fresh evidence has emerged that authorities in Rotherham were warned about child sexual exploitation in 2003 and again in 2006.

Police and council officials took no action despite being told organised gangs were grooming and abusing girls.

Ex-South Yorkshire Police drugs analyst Angie Heal said she "cannot fathom" why her reports did not lead to action.

Last year, an inquiry found 1,400 children were abused by gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani origin.

The abuse happened between 1997 and 2013.

In the first report, released under a Freedom of Information request by The Sheffield Star, Dr Heal warned in 2003 there was no room for complacency over the issue.

However, in a follow-up report three years later, she again detailed the problem saying the situation in Rotherham was established and very serious.

'No holds barred'

The reports, which also highlighted child sexual exploitation in Sheffield, said girls in Rotherham were being abused by gangs also involved in drug dealing and violence.

The findings came about after Dr Heal was appointed in her capacity as a strategic drugs analyst to carry out research on drug use, drug dealing and related problems in the county from 2002 to 2006.

The 2014 Jay report, which uncovered the scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, makes reference to Dr Heal's 2003 report being contained in an information pack, which was presented to Rotherham Council in November 2004.

It also states both the 2003 and 2006 reports were sent to high ranking offices and other agencies including South Yorkshire Police's district commander and chief superintendents.

Rotherham Council, which is now run by government appointed commissioners, said it had been "unable to find any reference to the documents being formally considered" by the authority.

"I just cannot fathom why no action, no concerted action, was taken," said Dr Heal, who has since left the South Yorkshire force.

"There didn't seem to be a co-ordinated response from senior police officers to this really, really serious crime."

Speaking to the Victoria Derbyshire programme, one abuse victim said the lack of intervention was "sickening".

"They knew what was happening yet they still let myself and many others suffer and be raped on a daily basis."

"Even 13 years on, I've been fighting constantly just for answers."

Findings 'widely known'

South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings said agencies knew about Dr Heal's reports at the time but were focusing on other issues.

"The reports are utterly shocking. When you read them there's no holds barred," he said.

"They went not only to police and local government but to safeguarding boards and the national government. It was widely known what she said.

"I think there are more people that have questions to answer than the police. The only sense I can make of it is that at that time, police were prioritising other things like burglary and car theft. I don't think anyone understood what grooming was."

In a statement, South Yorkshire Police admitted to past failings and pointed to an ongoing investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into misconduct issues.

It said it had made "significant progress" in tackling child sexual exploitation but understood more "needs to be done".

"Anyone that understood the issues of child sexual exploitation and abuse would have thought there was a moral duty to act, let alone a legal duty," Dr Heal added.

"It meant that a significant number, over 1,400, continued to be abused, exploited, raped, their families devastated by what happened.

"It makes me really angry and very upset that it was allowed to continue."

[Jeffrey Shaw]

So it's always someone else's fault.

[Nijinsky]

Have you actually read the above post?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Have you actually read the above post?

Yes. That's why the blinkered PC-fixated attitude, paying no heed to the abused children's plight, is so depressing; and also why Labour in Rotherham might soon be out on its ear.

[Nijinsky]

South Yorkshire Police has covered up abuse on a “massive” scale in the former industrial city turned multicultural melting-pot, a retired veteran police officer has claimed, remarking in an interview the abuse was “bigger than Rotherham”.

 

The revelation by the former officer, who served for thirty years, could be yet another in a long line of emerging child sex scandals in predominantly northern English cities with sizeable Pakistani populations. It is not the first such revelation for South Yorkshire Police, who also failed to detect and prosecute criminal abuse in the city of Rotherham, where 1,400 known girls were trafficked and raped by a network of criminals using take-away shops and minicab firms to enable their activities.

 

A Sheffield city council employee tasked with tracking child sex abuse has claimed almost 700 children were referred to the police in just two years, but not a single prosecution was made on the back of the information passed to the police.

 

Retired constable Tony Brooks has come forward with the allegations, and has said South Yorkshire Police have long known that girls as young as twelve – putting them into the most serious category of sex abuse – were being raped, but chose not to act on the information they had, effectively creating a cover-up. Claiming 200 girls were reported to have been abused in just a three year period in the city, he told the BBC “The size of the exploitation was massive in Sheffield.

 

“We offered to form a unit to continue the work – we offered to advertise our work so girls would come forward. We were told, ‘it’s not going to happen, return to your districts.”

 

“He said to me, ‘go and spend an hour or two with each girl and find out what’s happened to them and tell them there’s not enough evidence to go on”. The officer refused to follow the order.

 

Police analyst Gary Birchall, who also spoke to the BBC, expressed his disbelief after he learnt of the extent of the cover-up. He was asked as part of his work to look into a special operation run by the South Yorkshire Police, and paid for by Sheffield city council which was tasked with looking into child sex abuse. He found that despite it having been specifically requested and funded to the tune of £50,000, the operation had been shelved almost immediately with officers reassigned to other work.

 

He requested a “full investigation” into the failure, but his call went unheeded. Speaking on the matter, he said: “I got a call telling me the operation’s been shelved. I said it can’t be shelved, there’s evidence here that children are being trafficked, being sexually abused. There isn’t a superlative that describes how I felt then or how I feel now. Utter, utter, disbelief.”

 

---------- Post added 06-05-2015 at 18:58 ----------

 

Labour are a shoe in again I`m afraid

[RickyM]

It's been run by Labour for god knows how long, what does anyone expect?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

[/color]Labour are a shoe in again I`m afraid

...unless Rotherham's voters see sense, that is.

 

BBC website says this:

 

Labour-held since 1933, this urban constituency includes the old coal and steel town of Rotherham and its suburbs, Greasbrough and Thorpe Hesley. The decline of heavy industry led to high unemployment and a rise in call centre jobs. But manufacturing is important - Tata steel has two sites here while the Rolls Royce plant manufactures turbine blades. Lots of workers commute to Sheffield. The Labour council was taken over by government commissioners after a child sex abuse scandal in the borough.

 

Unemployment is high and a lot of residents are long-term sick or disabled, according to the 2011 Census. Nearly a third of the workforce have no qualifications. There is a large percentage of council homes.

 

Labour's Denis MacShane won here with a 10,462 majority over the Conservatives in 2010. In the 2012 by-election, Labour's Sarah Champion was elected following the resignation of Mr MacShane, subsequently jailed for six months for expenses fraud. UKIP moved from sixth to second place, while the Conservatives were pushed into fifth, after the BNP and Respect.

And see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-england-32247051 re latest wobble of Labour support.

[Nijinsky]

Obviously, but they won`t. Why is that?

 

---------- Post added 06-05-2015 at 19:08 ----------

 

If I say something you don`t like, please don`t just delete my posts and take away my posting platform as happened for no reason the last time I came on here.

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Obviously, but they won`t. Why is that?

Neither you nor I knows whether Labour will hold the seat and RMBC- so it's not 'obvious', obviously!

[Nijinsky]

You mis-understand