A damning report from the United Kingdom condemns local police for turning a blind eye to an epidemic of child exploitation in the northern town of Rotherham. From 1997 to 2013, a staggering 1,400 minors in a community of 250,000 were beaten, raped, and trafficked.

The collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant," said author Alexis Jay, former chief social work adviser for the Scottish government. "From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham." 

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The report came after the local town council launched a formal inquiry after series of high-profile investigations by the Times of London occurred in lockstep with a number of sex convictions. In 2010, five men of Pakistani origin received lengthy jail terms after convictions of grooming girls as young as 12 for sex. Ramifications of that trial led to an inquest as to why Rotherham law enforcement stood idle even after alerts from social workers. 

Rotherham council leader Roger Stone said he would step down at once, announcing in a statement, "I believe it is only right that as leader I take responsibility for the historic failings described so clearly."

The report found police "regarded many child victims with contempt," and found that that the first report describing the situation in Rotherham was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data.

Because the allegations of sexual abuse were coming from Rotherham's sizable Pakistani population, fears of being considered racist played a large part in why local officials were unwilling to pursue formal investigations, even after several victims identified perpetrators as "Asian" (an English reference to south Asians, as opposed to Chinese or Japanese). English-Pakistani relations are often ragged, race riots swept the country in 2001 when Pakistani youths, decrying job and racial discrimination in the town of Oldham, confronted police. However, the Rotherham report found that police did not even approach local Pakistani community leaders with suspicions. 

Several victims charge that although the abuse was common knowledge, police indifference led to a brazen proliferation of more assaults.

"Some councilors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away" Jay said. "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."

Before reporters, Jay said  "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered." 

She cited examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness violent rapes and threatened they "would be next."

Martin Kimber, the Rotherham council's chief executive,  accepted the report and the recommendations made. He apologised to the victims of abuse. 

"The report does not make comfortable reading in its account of the horrific experiences of some young people in the past," he said, "and I would like to reiterate our sincere apology to those who were let down when they needed help."

While the report did say that child protect had improved in the last five year, Kimber said that it does not excuse the conditions that led to so many young people abused and traumatized.  

TagsChild abuse, rotherham