(At least) 1400 children sexually abused in Rotherham

[Algeroth]

Blatant failures of political and police leadership contributed to the sexual exploitation of 1,400 children in Rotherham over a 16-year period, according to an uncompromising report published in the aftermath of allegations of gang rape and trafficking in the South Yorkshire town.

Written by ProfAlexis Jay, a former chief inspector of social work, the investigation concluded that the council knew as far back as 2005 of sexual exploitation being committed on a wide scale by mostly Asian men, yet failed to act.

Council and other officials sometimes thought youth workers were exaggerating the exploitation problem. Sometimes they were afraid of being accused of racism if they talked openly about the perpetrators in the town mostly being Pakistani taxi drivers.

Jahangir Akhtar, the former deputy leader of the council, is accused in the report of naivety and potentially "ignoring a politically inconvenient truth" by insisting there was not a deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. Police told the inquiry that some influential Pakistani councillors in Rotherham acted as barriers to communication on grooming issues.

On a number of occasions, victims of sexual abuse were criminalised – arrested for being drunk – while their abusers continued to act with impunity. Vital evidence was ignored, Jay said, with police apparently trying to manipulate their figures for child sexual exploitation by removing from their monitoring process girls who were pregnant or had given birth, plus all looked after children in care.

Jay concluded that from 1997-2013, Rotherham's most vulnerable girls, some as young as 11, were raped by large numbers of men. Others were trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated, with some children doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight if they told anyone what had happened.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/26/rotherham-sexual-abuse-children

WTF, Britain?

 

[bhavv]

The only WTF is FFS STOP USING 'ASIAN' TO MEAN MUSLIMS / PAKISTANIS.

Also because if you even try to do anything about this, those people countersue for racism / racial profiling and might even win. The UK nanny state is completely terrified about doing anything to insult them, to the point of using the term Asian all the time when its most usually an issue among people of a Muslim and / or Pakistani descent.

 

[Cheetah]

(I'm just merging my own thread)

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089

Rotherham child abuse scandal: 1,400 children exploited, report finds

At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, a report has found.

Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated, it said.

The report, commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council, revealed there had been three previous inquiries.

Mr Stone, who has been the leader since 2003, said: "I believe it is only right that as leader I take responsibility for the historic failings described so clearly."

The inquiry team noted fears among council staff of being labelled "racist" if they focused on victims' descriptions of the majority of abusers as "Asian" men.

'Doused in petrol'
Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote the latest report, said there had been "blatant" collective failures by the council's leadership, senior managers had "underplayed" the scale of the problem and South Yorkshire Police had failed to prioritise the issue.

Prof Jay said: "No-one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1,400 children were sexually exploited over the full inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013."

Revealing details of the inquiry's findings, Prof Jay said: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered."

The inquiry team found examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone".

Five men from the town were jailed for sexual offences against girls in 2010, but the report said police "regarded many child victims with contempt".

District Commander for Rotherham, Ch Supt Jason Harwin said: "Firstly I'd like to start by offering an unreserved apology to the victims of child sexual exploitation who did not receive the level of service they should be able to expect from their local police force.

"We fully acknowledge our previous failings."

Ch Supt Harwin said the force had "overhauled" the way it dealt with such cases and had successfully prosecuted a number of abusers.

But he admitted: "I accept that our recent successes... will not heal the pain of those victims who have been let down."

'Racism' fear
The report found: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."

Failures by those charged with protecting children happened despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 which both the council and police were aware of, and "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".

Prof Jay said the first of these reports was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data. The other two were ignored, she said.

The inquiry team found that in the early-2000s when a group of professionals attempted to monitor a number of children believed to be at risk, "managers gave little help or support to their efforts".

The report revealed some people at a senior level in the police and children's social care thought the extent of the problem was being "exaggerated".

Prof Jay said: "The authorities involved have a great deal to answer for."

A victim of abuse in Rotherham, who has been called "Isabel" to protect her identity, told BBC Panorama: "I was a child and they should have stepped in.

"No matter what's done now... it's not going to change that it was too late, it should have been stopped and prevented."

Analysis
James Vincent, BBC Look North

The scale of this report is simply staggering and some of the detail extremely hard to read.

It lays out how Rotherham Council and the police knew about the level of child sexual exploitation in the town, but didn't do anything about it.

They either didn't believe what they were being told, played it down, or were too nervous to act. The failures, the report says, are blatant.

The report estimates 1,400 children were sexually exploited over 16 years, with one young person telling the report's author that gang rape was a usual part of growing up in Rotherham.

The processes for dealing with these crimes have got better in the last four years, but still improvements need to be made.

There were more apologies from the council today but the report's author says they are too late.

Speaking about her abuser, Isabel said: "I think because the police were aware and social services were aware and he knew that and they still didn't stop him it I think it encouraged him.

"It almost became like a game to him. He was untouchable."

Speaking after the publication of the report, Victims' Commissioner Baroness Newlove said: "I'm appalled by the extent of the horrific abuse endured by these vulnerable victims.

"It's deeply distressing how the authorities failed to protect these young people and their voices were not heard.

"Everyone involved needs to take responsibility for the shocking failings that this report has exposed. This must not happen again.

"I want to see every one of these victims getting the right support now and for as long as it takes them to help them on the path to recovery."

Maggie Atkinson, children's commissioner for England, said the number of identified child victims was "largely consistent" with the findings of their own national inquiry into "child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups".

[...]

Except for a small factoid from Wikipedia, I don't think I have anything the forum rules permits me to add to this.

Rotherham is a large town in South Yorkshire, England, which together with its surrounding settlements form the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, with an estimated population of 257,800 in 2011.

 

[Cheetah]

The only WTF is [...]

No, it's not. That's an important, but in this case, minor WTF. The real WTF is the blatant incompetence and failure of the police and authorities, regardless of the perpetrators race.

 

[Quackers]

What needs to be noted is that these crimes were played down and ignored because of a politically correct culture which found such things extremely uncomfortable to deal with.

In the minds of authority figures in Rotheham it was preferable to allow girls to be raped as long as the story doesn't come to attention. Everybody involved and those in power who failed to react appropriately should be destroyed.

What can you say? The whole sage is incredibly sad.

 

[bhavv]

It is a huge WTF because all over the UK, anyone with brown skin becomes compared and likened to these monsters.

I've experienced this personally 'OMG you look like a child molester'. Yea, thanks British media.

Asian is not a race, it never has been. How about every time a white person commits such a crime we were to write 'European / American rapists alert!!!1111'.

AND its also this very reason, stemming from the UKs overly politically correct nature as pointed out above that things like this are ignored.

How about we actually go after the people responsible for crimes like this asap, and stop referencing anything to do with their race or continental origin?

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Multiculturalism FTW? People so worried of appearing racist and intolerant that they ignore real crimes.

 

[bhavv]

Except that they wouldn't appear racist at all if they didn't make reference of their race, or now continental origin.

 

[Tigranes]

A disturbing extract from the report.

In two of the cases we read, fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested themselves when police were called to the scene. In a small number of cases (which have already received media attention) the victims were arrested for offences such as breach of the peace or being drunk and disorderly, with no action taken against the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault against children.

-------
I am not sure how police works in medium size English cities. Do they have to be bribed to arrest fathers and not perpetrators? Or they will do it out of stupidity?

 

[bhavv]

Breach of the peace and being drunk and disorderly are crimes in the UK.

Maybe in those cases, the police officers involved were not aware of the abuse that was happening.

 

[Azale]

Multiculturalism FTW? People so worried of appearing racist and intolerant that they ignore real crimes.

The article said they were afraid of being pointed out as racists if they pointed out the perpetrators race. It feels a bit shoe-horned in. Who was afraid of seeming racist? Was it people who were covering it up and now are looking for a convenient excuse to win them sympathy? Maybe I misread.

I don't know how that carries over into them not reporting it at all though? This story is confusing me.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The only WTF is FFS STOP USING 'ASIAN' TO MEAN MUSLIMS / PAKISTANIS.

Only if North America agrees to stop doing the same thing with East Asians.

Anyway, this seems to be fodder for the usual anti-immigration types. Don't know why the police wouldn't perform arrests on such information. Maybe they were being bribed or blackmailed?

 

[luiz]

Only if North America agrees to stop doing the same thing with East Asians.

Anyway, this seems to be fodder for the usual anti-immigration types. Don't know why the police wouldn't perform arrests on such information. Maybe they were being bribed or blackmailed?

Apparently part of the problem is that they were too concerned about giving fodder to anti-immigration types.

Truth should never be hidden, no matter how "incovenient". Truth, in this case, is that there is a gigantic ring of Pakistani men grooming and raping English girls.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The only WTF is FFS STOP USING 'ASIAN' TO MEAN MUSLIMS / PAKISTANIS.

Also because if you even try to do anything about this, those people countersue for racism / racial profiling and might even win. The UK nanny state is completely terrified about doing anything to insult them, to the point of using the term Asian all the time when its most usually an issue among people of a Muslim and / or Pakistani descent.

Asian has been the preferred collective noun of choice for Subcontinentals by Brits for the last few hundred years, it has nothing to do with your tyrannical-PC-nanny-state-gone-mad-yet-still-afraid-of-upsetting-anyone-despite-its-tyrannical-nature, although I suppose a tyranically-mild-mannered state would be the acme of Britishness...

 

[jackelgull]

pardon me if the ethnic dimensions of the case don't bother me as much as the sexual abuse of 1400 children.

I know people will try to stress the fact that ethnicity helped protect these people. IN response to that I say that the antidote to dancing around racial/ethnic issues is not racism, but the acknowledgement that people are humans first and race/nationality second, which sadly doesn't seem to be the case anywhere.

I want to see not only a trial and investigation but charges and prosecution. I want those children freed and sent to the nearest psychiatrist.

 

[bhavv]

No, using the term Asian has become more of a recent trend instead of using the word 'Muslim' in most of these cases. And also vise versa for racists, 'We hate demn Muslims' = anyone that looks Asian / middle eastern.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Well, in the case of Middle Eastern peoples, the majority of them are Muslim.

 

[Tee Kay]

pardon me if the ethnic dimensions of the case don't bother me as much as the sexual abuse of 1400 children.

I know people will try to stress the fact that ethnicity helped protect these people. IN response to that I say that the antidote to dancing around racial/ethnic issues is not racism, but the acknowledgement that people are humans first and race/nationality second, which sadly doesn't seem to be the case anywhere.

I want to see not only a trial and investigation but charges and prosecution. I want those children freed and sent to the nearest psychiatrist.

I see you're new here.

Another six months and you'll be as stripped of your sanity and humanity as the rest of us.

(but in the meantime, go you beautiful person)

 

[astrallite]

The only WTF is FFS STOP USING 'ASIAN' TO MEAN MUSLIMS / PAKISTANIS.

Also because if you even try to do anything about this, those people countersue for racism / racial profiling and might even win. The UK nanny state is completely terrified about doing anything to insult them, to the point of using the term Asian all the time when its most usually an issue among people of a Muslim and / or Pakistani descent.

Seems like a trend in Britain to name all Muslims as Asians. Maybe North East Asians need to reclaim the oriental title, eventually being labelled Asian is going to be so toxic in Europe that North East Asians will need turn back to an old category that they disposed of in the past .

 

[Tahuti]

Seems like a trend in Britain to name all Muslims as Asians. Maybe North East Asians need to reclaim the oriental title, eventually being labelled Asian is going to be so toxic in Europe that North East Asians will need turn back to an old category that they disposed of in the past .

Yeah, I find this pretty confusing myself. But hey, as long as we can call Chinese Chinese, Japanese Japanese and Koreans Korean, what's the problem?