Bells
Staff member
I had considered posting this in the Misogyny and Rape thread, but this.. This deserves its own thread as it needs to stand on its own.
For 16 years, 1400 children, mostly girls, were raped, beaten, tortured, molested, abused, and used in sex trafficking in a town.
No, this did not happen in some backward 3rd world country. But in the United Kingdom.
If that wasn't enough, if this horror show was not enough to turn the stomach, it was found that the police and child protection knew and simply dismissed it, in many cases, abused and blamed the victims and sometimes even arrested them and their family members who tried to rescue them from the houses where they were being held and abused. The perpetrators were never even questioned, even when they admitted to having raped these children to the police, they would be told to carry on with the victim being left with them.
16 years and 1400 children raped, gang raped, beaten, tortured, molested and abused and passed around. Some were forced to watch brutal gang rapes of their friends, others were doused in petrol and threatened to be set alight.
Reading through the report (available for download here) is a harrowing experience. By the time I got to page 69, I was finding myself considering how appropriate the death penalty might be for some of these people, not just the gangs who perpetrated these abuses, but the authorities who allowed it to continue, unhindered. And why? Because the police either did not believe these girls and boys, and because as far as they were concerned, these young girls especially were "undesirable", and "not worthy of police protection or care". So much so that they wrote off an 11 year old's rape as being consensual, instead of the obviously brutal rape that it was.
The authorities knew, from the outset. The victims were contacting the police and child protection services and filing reports. They were dismissed, and treated like rubbish. The report also deals with the fact that the police were at times, instructed to ignore and dismiss these reports of child sex abuse, child sex trafficking, reports of rapes, molestation, torture, abuse because the perpetrators were of Pakistani descent and they did not want the police to appear to be bigoted. The victims were in what appeared to be the majority of cases, white (page 35 of the report) and many were supposedly in care. Many of these children were groomed at school, some by other children (also victims and part of the sex trafficking trade and who had been prostituted to other boroughs) and some children were used to access their friends who were in care.
The scale of it is breathtaking as it is revolting. And it may be just as bad in other areas of the UK.
Professor Jay's report also found how the police and the authorities suppressed and openly and deliberately ignored previous reports, detailing (and some in explicit terms) the scale of abuse in Rotherham. From the report's summary:
And the litany of failures continue.
Sadly, the abuse continues to this day. Some victims reported and detailed how they still see their rapists and abusers walking the streets to this day. Of the 29 that were arrested, there is no word on how many were prosecuted.
From page 36 makes for harrowing reading. As it begins to detail the extent and what these children and their families suffered. In some cases, the fathers of the victims who had managed to track down where their daughter's were being held abused and attempted to rescue them, were arrested by the police, no charge or investigations against the rapists and kidnappers of these girls. The rapists and kidnappers were never arrested or even charged. In some instances, the victims were arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Some parents, desperate to save and protected their children, deliberately placed them into State care, in the hope that their daughters would be protected after having been raped and ignored by the police. What they then found was that these children were at even more risk as these gangs were finding easy pickings in vulnerable children in State care and protection.
The report details how these gangs preyed on and groomed children in vulnerable areas and homes, many went after children in State care. Many of these children were in abusive households. Schools had noticed that these children were being groomed and filed reports highlighting the risk to these children. They were ignored and dismissed. Why? Because these girls were apparently not worthy of protection, police in some instances believed that they were asking for it, that it happened because of how they dressed (remember, some of these victims were groomed and some were raped by the time they were 11 - rapes that were deemed consensual sex by the police), that they wanted it to happen, that they consented and a whole litany of excuses misogynists make to excuse rape. All of it can be found in how the police responded to these girls reporting being raped, abused, gang raped, tortured and all the rest of it.
The grooming process was repeated over and over again (and all ignored by the police and child protection).. These girls were courted by a young man, sometimes even their own friends who were also victims, they were given expensive gifts, mobile phones, then alcohol and drugs, told how they were loved, by which point they were introduced to other men, who also showered them with gifts, took them on drives, and more often than not, were appearing outside the school gates, picking them up in taxis (taxis were often used in the kidnapping and sexual exploitation of these children) and expensive cars.. And made these girls believe that their rapists loved them. That they were special. By the time the girls were 11-12, many of them were hooked and had been completely groomed. Then the rapes, beatings, torture, gang rapes, being prostituted and held and sold to other boroughs would commence. The police ignored, disregarded them and treated them with absolute contempt. The rapes and abuse would usually end by the time they hit their mid teens.
In many instances the police and child protection services fought against other agencies attempting to protect these children and placing them on the child protection lists, because they believed that these children were consenting to sex. For example (page 38):
Worse still, the police and child protection services blamed many victims who did come forward and accused them of wanting it to have happened and of thus, making false allegations because they (the child) had not done enough to protect themselves from the multitudes of rapes and abuse they had suffered. The police and local government also attempted to manipulate the date and reports and indicators of the abuse of these girls, in their attempts to hide it. As the Guardian notes:
The report details one paedophile being caught with one child in his car, with explicit photos of the girl on his phone and he was merely cautioned and allowed to carry on. And there are hundreds of such stories. Hundreds. The report only touched on a small portion. And the 1400 figure is an estimate. They suspect it could be much worse than that.
This report makes for hard reading.
And the absolute misogyny and hatred the authorities held towards these victims is vomit inducing. Page 83 of the report details the reaction to previous reports that were critical of the handling of the explosion of sexual exploitation and abuse of children in the Rotherham area. In one case, one researcher was unable to finalise her critical report after she was harassed and was shown such extreme hostility from the local police and council, who wished to dismiss it and regarded it as over-exaggerated. The content of her very explicit and descriptive report of what these children were being subjected to were found to have been accurate.
While many members of the local council attempt to deny knowledge, and the police and child services attempt to cover their tracks, deny knowledge and pass the blame onto others and some are falling on their swords, the greater majority of these victims are still without support and their abusers and rapists are still free and have not been prosecuted or even questioned by the police. In many instances, the victims were blamed by the police, even when found with their rapists and their rapists had recordings and pictures of the rapes they had committed. The rapists were never questioned and allowed to carry on.
As noted above, the report can be downloaded here: "Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013)"
This could be just the tip of the ice-berg. They suspect that it could be the same in other areas.
For 16 years, 1400 children, mostly girls, were raped, beaten, tortured, molested, abused, and used in sex trafficking in a town.
No, this did not happen in some backward 3rd world country. But in the United Kingdom.
If that wasn't enough, if this horror show was not enough to turn the stomach, it was found that the police and child protection knew and simply dismissed it, in many cases, abused and blamed the victims and sometimes even arrested them and their family members who tried to rescue them from the houses where they were being held and abused. The perpetrators were never even questioned, even when they admitted to having raped these children to the police, they would be told to carry on with the victim being left with them.
16 years and 1400 children raped, gang raped, beaten, tortured, molested and abused and passed around. Some were forced to watch brutal gang rapes of their friends, others were doused in petrol and threatened to be set alight.
Reading through the report (available for download here) is a harrowing experience. By the time I got to page 69, I was finding myself considering how appropriate the death penalty might be for some of these people, not just the gangs who perpetrated these abuses, but the authorities who allowed it to continue, unhindered. And why? Because the police either did not believe these girls and boys, and because as far as they were concerned, these young girls especially were "undesirable", and "not worthy of police protection or care". So much so that they wrote off an 11 year old's rape as being consensual, instead of the obviously brutal rape that it was.
The authorities knew, from the outset. The victims were contacting the police and child protection services and filing reports. They were dismissed, and treated like rubbish. The report also deals with the fact that the police were at times, instructed to ignore and dismiss these reports of child sex abuse, child sex trafficking, reports of rapes, molestation, torture, abuse because the perpetrators were of Pakistani descent and they did not want the police to appear to be bigoted. The victims were in what appeared to be the majority of cases, white (page 35 of the report) and many were supposedly in care. Many of these children were groomed at school, some by other children (also victims and part of the sex trafficking trade and who had been prostituted to other boroughs) and some children were used to access their friends who were in care.
The scale of it is breathtaking as it is revolting. And it may be just as bad in other areas of the UK.
Professor Jay agrees, citing a “macho, sexist and bullying culture” within the local authorities which prevented it from acting.
She later told the BBC that she fears such systematic abuse may also be prevalent in other English towns.
The town’s former Labour MP, Denis MacShane, agrees. “It is clear the internal trafficking of barely pubescent girls is much more widespread,” he said.
Police say some 29 arrests have been made in relation with child sexual exploitation offences in Rotherham. There have also been arrests in 11 other Northern and Midlands communities.
Almost all arrests have been of men of Pakistani origin.
Police “regarded many child victims with contempt,” Professor Jay said, adding that the first report that described the situation in Rotherham was “effectively suppressed” because senior officers refused to believe the data.
She later told the BBC that she fears such systematic abuse may also be prevalent in other English towns.
The town’s former Labour MP, Denis MacShane, agrees. “It is clear the internal trafficking of barely pubescent girls is much more widespread,” he said.
Police say some 29 arrests have been made in relation with child sexual exploitation offences in Rotherham. There have also been arrests in 11 other Northern and Midlands communities.
Almost all arrests have been of men of Pakistani origin.
Police “regarded many child victims with contempt,” Professor Jay said, adding that the first report that described the situation in Rotherham was “effectively suppressed” because senior officers refused to believe the data.
Professor Jay's report also found how the police and the authorities suppressed and openly and deliberately ignored previous reports, detailing (and some in explicit terms) the scale of abuse in Rotherham. From the report's summary:
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.
In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were 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. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.
Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.
Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover-up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them.
Seminars for elected members and senior officers in 2004-05 presented the abuse in the most explicit terms. After these events, nobody could say 'we didn't know'. In 2005, the present Council Leader chaired a group to take forward the issues, but there is no record of its meetings or conclusions, apart from one minute.
By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. 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.
In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were 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. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.
Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.
Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover-up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them.
Seminars for elected members and senior officers in 2004-05 presented the abuse in the most explicit terms. After these events, nobody could say 'we didn't know'. In 2005, the present Council Leader chaired a group to take forward the issues, but there is no record of its meetings or conclusions, apart from one minute.
By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. 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.
And the litany of failures continue.
Sadly, the abuse continues to this day. Some victims reported and detailed how they still see their rapists and abusers walking the streets to this day. Of the 29 that were arrested, there is no word on how many were prosecuted.
From page 36 makes for harrowing reading. As it begins to detail the extent and what these children and their families suffered. In some cases, the fathers of the victims who had managed to track down where their daughter's were being held abused and attempted to rescue them, were arrested by the police, no charge or investigations against the rapists and kidnappers of these girls. The rapists and kidnappers were never arrested or even charged. In some instances, the victims were arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Some parents, desperate to save and protected their children, deliberately placed them into State care, in the hope that their daughters would be protected after having been raped and ignored by the police. What they then found was that these children were at even more risk as these gangs were finding easy pickings in vulnerable children in State care and protection.
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.
There are numerous historic examples (up to the mid-2000s) of children being stalked by their abusers, and some extreme cases of violent threats or actual assaults on the victims and their families.
One parent, who agreed to her child being placed in a residential unit in order to protect her, wrote to children’s social care expressing her fears for her daughter’s safety. She described her despair that instead of being protected, her child was being exposed to even worse abuse than when she was at home:
One child who was being prepared to give evidence received a text saying the perpetrator had her younger sister and the choice of what happened next was up to her. She withdrew her statements. At least two other families were terrorised by groups of perpetrators, sitting in cars outside the family home, smashing windows, making abusive and threatening phone calls. On some occasions child victims went back to perpetrators in the belief that this was the only way their parents and other children in the family would be safe. In the most extreme cases, no one in the family believed that the authorities could protect them.
There are numerous historic examples (up to the mid-2000s) of children being stalked by their abusers, and some extreme cases of violent threats or actual assaults on the victims and their families.
One parent, who agreed to her child being placed in a residential unit in order to protect her, wrote to children’s social care expressing her fears for her daughter’s safety. She described her despair that instead of being protected, her child was being exposed to even worse abuse than when she was at home:
“My child (age 13) may appear to be a mature child, yet some of her actions and the risks to which she constantly puts herself are those of a very immature and naïve person. She constantly stays out all night getting drunk, mixing with older mature adults, and refuses to be bound by any rules.”
One child who was being prepared to give evidence received a text saying the perpetrator had her younger sister and the choice of what happened next was up to her. She withdrew her statements. At least two other families were terrorised by groups of perpetrators, sitting in cars outside the family home, smashing windows, making abusive and threatening phone calls. On some occasions child victims went back to perpetrators in the belief that this was the only way their parents and other children in the family would be safe. In the most extreme cases, no one in the family believed that the authorities could protect them.
The report details how these gangs preyed on and groomed children in vulnerable areas and homes, many went after children in State care. Many of these children were in abusive households. Schools had noticed that these children were being groomed and filed reports highlighting the risk to these children. They were ignored and dismissed. Why? Because these girls were apparently not worthy of protection, police in some instances believed that they were asking for it, that it happened because of how they dressed (remember, some of these victims were groomed and some were raped by the time they were 11 - rapes that were deemed consensual sex by the police), that they wanted it to happen, that they consented and a whole litany of excuses misogynists make to excuse rape. All of it can be found in how the police responded to these girls reporting being raped, abused, gang raped, tortured and all the rest of it.
The grooming process was repeated over and over again (and all ignored by the police and child protection).. These girls were courted by a young man, sometimes even their own friends who were also victims, they were given expensive gifts, mobile phones, then alcohol and drugs, told how they were loved, by which point they were introduced to other men, who also showered them with gifts, took them on drives, and more often than not, were appearing outside the school gates, picking them up in taxis (taxis were often used in the kidnapping and sexual exploitation of these children) and expensive cars.. And made these girls believe that their rapists loved them. That they were special. By the time the girls were 11-12, many of them were hooked and had been completely groomed. Then the rapes, beatings, torture, gang rapes, being prostituted and held and sold to other boroughs would commence. The police ignored, disregarded them and treated them with absolute contempt. The rapes and abuse would usually end by the time they hit their mid teens.
In many instances the police and child protection services fought against other agencies attempting to protect these children and placing them on the child protection lists, because they believed that these children were consenting to sex. For example (page 38):
Child A (2000) was 12 when the risk of sexual exploitation became known. She was associating with a group of older Asian men and possibly taking drugs. She disclosed having had intercourse with 5 adults. Two of the adults received police cautions after admitting to the Police that they had intercourse with Child A. Child A continued to go missing and was at high risk of sexual exploitation. A child protection case conference was held. It was agreed by all at the conference that Child A should be registered. However, the CID representative argued against the category of sexual abuse being used because he thought that Child A had been ‘100% consensual in every incident’. This was overruled, with all others at the case conference demonstrating a clear understanding that this was a crime and a young child was not capable of consenting to the abuse she had suffered. She was supported appropriately once she was placed on the child protection register.
Worse still, the police and child protection services blamed many victims who did come forward and accused them of wanting it to have happened and of thus, making false allegations because they (the child) had not done enough to protect themselves from the multitudes of rapes and abuse they had suffered. The police and local government also attempted to manipulate the date and reports and indicators of the abuse of these girls, in their attempts to hide it. As the Guardian notes:
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.
The report details one paedophile being caught with one child in his car, with explicit photos of the girl on his phone and he was merely cautioned and allowed to carry on. And there are hundreds of such stories. Hundreds. The report only touched on a small portion. And the 1400 figure is an estimate. They suspect it could be much worse than that.
This report makes for hard reading.
And the absolute misogyny and hatred the authorities held towards these victims is vomit inducing. Page 83 of the report details the reaction to previous reports that were critical of the handling of the explosion of sexual exploitation and abuse of children in the Rotherham area. In one case, one researcher was unable to finalise her critical report after she was harassed and was shown such extreme hostility from the local police and council, who wished to dismiss it and regarded it as over-exaggerated. The content of her very explicit and descriptive report of what these children were being subjected to were found to have been accurate.
While many members of the local council attempt to deny knowledge, and the police and child services attempt to cover their tracks, deny knowledge and pass the blame onto others and some are falling on their swords, the greater majority of these victims are still without support and their abusers and rapists are still free and have not been prosecuted or even questioned by the police. In many instances, the victims were blamed by the police, even when found with their rapists and their rapists had recordings and pictures of the rapes they had committed. The rapists were never questioned and allowed to carry on.
As noted above, the report can be downloaded here: "Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013)"
This could be just the tip of the ice-berg. They suspect that it could be the same in other areas.
