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Rotherham child abuse report finds 1,400 children subjected to ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation within 16-year period Rotherham child abuse report finds 1,400 children subjected to ‘appalling’ sexual exploitation within 16-year period
(about 7 hours later)
At least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in one town over a 16-year period, a report published today has found. The horrifying cost of official failure to confront widespread child sexual exploitation was revealed today in a damning report detailing how abusers exploited 1,400 children from a single town over 16 years.
A report commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council in 2013 on the events in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, between 1997 and 2013 concluded: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered." Gangs of Asian men groomed, abused and trafficked vulnerable children while police were contemptuous of the victims and the council ignored what was going on, in spite of years of warnings and reports about what was happening.
Roger Stone, the leader of Rotherham council from 2003, stepped down with "immediate effect" after accepting responsibility on behalf of the council for failings detailed in the report. Despite what the inquiry head called a “blatant” failure of leadership at the Labour-run council, nobody will be sacked or face inquiries into their inaction. The leader of the council, Roger Stone, quit today because of what he called “historic failings”. He apologised in 2013 for the failure to protect children in the town – and the inquiry said the act of contrition should have been made years earlier.
Its author, Professor Alexis Jay, said she 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". The report commissioned by the council, covering 1997 to 2013, detailed cases where children as young as 11 had been raped by a number of different men, abducted, beaten and trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England to continue the abuse.
Prof Jay said: "They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated." Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote the report, said she found “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”.
She said she found that girls as young as 11 had been raped by large numbers of men. It said that three reports from 2002 to 2006 highlighted the extent of child exploitation and links to wider criminality but nothing was done, with the findings either suppressed or simply ignored. Police failed to act on the crimes and treated the victims with contempt and deemed that they were “undesirables” not worthy of protection, the inquiry team was told.
The report said failures of the political and officer leadership of Rotherham Council over the first 12 years she looked at were "blatant" as the seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers and was not seen as a priority by South Yorkshire Police. One young person told the inquiry that “gang rape” was a usual part of growing up in the area of Rotherham where she lived. In most of the cases that the inquiry team examined, the victims were white children under the age of 16 and the perpetrators named in the files as “Asian males”.
She said police "regarded many child victims with contempt". The report said council staff were scared of being accused of racism by flagging up the issue in a town of nearly 260,000, where 8 per cent were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
The figure of 1,400 is a “conservative estimate”, according to the report, which concluded: "No one knows the true scale of the child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years.” However, schools raised the alert over the years about children as young as 11 being picked up by taxis, given presents and phones and taken to Rotherham and other towns and cities.
Rotherham first came under the spotlight in 2010 when five men, described by a judge as "sexual predators", were given lengthy jail terms after they were found guilty of grooming teenage girls for sex. One researcher for the Home Office who raised concerns with senior police officers about the level of abuse in 2002 was told not to do so again, then suspended and sidelined, the inquiry found. Youth workers who worked with the victims and had already repeatedly told police and officials about the problems were criticised by full-time council staff and their roles downgraded.
The prosecution was the first of a series of high-profile cases in the last four years that have revealed the exploitation of young girls in towns and cities including Rochdale, Derby and Oxford. The focus on Rotherham followed the jailing of five Asian men in 2010 after they were found guilty of grooming teenage girls for sex. The five men, described as sexual predators by the judge, groomed teenage girls and had sex with them in cars and parks in Rotherham.
In response, Rotherham Council said it accepted its findings, including the statement that failures "almost without exception" were attributed to senior managers in child protection services, elected councillors and senior police officers. After the five were jailed, police said the case showed how seriously the force and the council treat the issue of child sexual exploitation.
It accepted that failures were not down to "frontline social or youth workers who are acknowledged in the report as repeatedly raising serious concerns about the nature and extent of this kind of child abuse". Following the case, The Times revealed details showing that police and agencies had extensive knowledge of these activities for a decade, yet had failed to prosecute.
Martin Kimber, the chief executive of Rotherham Council said at a press conference after the publication of the report today: “We the Council and other agencies failed in our duty for a significant period of time, and for this I am deeply sorry and I offer my sincere apologies to the young people who have suffered such horrific abuse and also to their families for the devastation this will have caused. John Cameron, head of the NSPCC helpline, said: “This report is truly damning and highlights consistent failures to protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of predatory groups of men. It is quite astonishing that even when frontline staff raised concerns, these were not acted upon so allowing devastating child sexual exploitation to go unchallenged.”
“We could and we should have done more to protect children  and risk. That is why the report will be widely published and referred to national agencies to ensure the learning from it is not just confined to Rotherham.” Council chief executive Martin Kimber said that all the key officers concerned with child protection during the time of the review had left the council. 
He said the report would also be referred to the chief constable of police for consideration.