Rotherham: The Perfect Storm - Part Three (2024)

Back in 2014, a Yorkshire town made international headlines for all the wrong reasons. Rotherham in South Yorkshire is a name that is now synonymous with a crime that has sullied Britain’s name all over the world - organised gang rape. Throughout the UK, groups of men prey upon girls, usually from dysfunctional or chaotic backgrounds, rape them, and then force them into prostitution. For years, police did nothing to tackle these crimes, partly because, in the vast majority of cases, the victims were young white girls, and the rapists were Muslim immigrants or their descendants. The police did wish not to inflame “community tensions,” so the crimes went unpunished for decades.

Nevertheless, the Jay Report of 2014 revealed that more than 1,400 girls had fallen victim to rape gangs in Rotherham over the previous decade. A year later, I undertook a mammoth task: to find out how many white English girls had been similarly abused through the preceding five years. I wrote a lengthy report, which I will post here.

In 2025, I will publish an update to mark ten years since my initial investigation and to illuminate the extent of the crime over the past decade. Has anything changed? I intend to find out. In the meantime, I will publish my initial report in parts.

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PART THREE - LOCAL COUNCILS

Local councils (or local authorities) in England consist of Borough Councils, Metropolitan Borough Councils, County Councils, and District Councils. Not all kinds of council have responsibility for children in care, this report will focus on those who do. Councils have a legal obligation to actively prevent abuse of all children in their constituency, whether that child is under their care or not. Several children however, including many who suffered child sex exploitation, had been placed in to the care of the local authority, meaning the authority exercised parental rights and obligations over the child. The reasons a child might be placed in to the care of a local council are beyond the scope of this document, but put simply when a child is placed in to the care of a local council, the council takes on what is known as parental responsibility – a legal term which in practice means that the council takes on the obligations usually borne by parents or other legal carers.

At the end of 2014, there were over 68,000 children in the care of local councils in England.

The following Freedom of Information request was sent to all such councils:

Please send me the following details:
· How many children have been in your care between December 2009 and December 2014
· How many children in your care have made allegations of sexual abuse (any offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003) to your services, during this period
· How many of these allegations were reported to the police

Please also provide recorded information on:
· The ethnicity/nationality of the alleged perpetrator(s)

At the time of writing, not all councils have replied. However, of those that did, a common and rather worrying pattern emerged. The vast majority of councils with duty of care to children were unable to report how many of those children had informed the council that they had been, or were being, sexually abused; to provide such information, council officers would have been forced to read through each child’s record individually.

What this tells us is that no separate record is kept in most of England’s councils as to how many of the children in their care are being, or have been, sexually abused. One might assume that such abuse, and the prevention of such abuse, would be a top priority for persons or bodies in the legal position of guardian to many children. This does not appear to be the case however.

The vast majority stated that they could not provide the required information as to search through each individual record would take officers above the time required by the Freedom of Information Act.

Therefore, an offer of payment was made to cover the cost of the extra administration work. This offer was made to the following councils: Blackburn and Darwen, Bury, Oldham, Barnsley, Bradford, Sheffield, Wakefield, Derby, Leicester, Leicestershire, Nottingham, Coventry, Dudley, Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Brighton and Hove, Wolverhampton, and East Riding. Of those that replied, none of them were willing to accept the offer of payment, utilising their discretion under the Freedom of Information Act to refuse to do so.

In conclusion, it is not possible for a member of the public to know how many children, in the care of local authorities, have reported rape or sexual abuse. This data is not readily available, and therefore not being collated, even in the wake of the Rotherham report and various other criminal prosecutions.

Interviews

One of the most remarkable parts of conducting research of this kind was the reluctance of people to talk to me. Most of the people I approached either did not respond, or would not agree to meet with me. Some agreed but would not fix a date or time. There were meetings and phone-calls arranged, only to be cancelled or “re-arranged” to a time that did not come. Some would speak but only on condition of anonymity, others would speak but provided clearly ‘scripted’ responses.

Several people I spoke to, who had previously tried to carry out similar research, agreed on the difficulty of this. I heard anecdotes of victims being too frightened to speak out because they had experienced little police action or support. I was told a story of one victim who had made complaints to police and a Muslim police officer was assigned to the case, meaning the victim no longer wished to go ahead. I heard of families whose daughters were brought in to drug abuse and prostitution and who have not been seen for many years.

Few police officers would respond to my requests, even though I promised anonymity. The same applies to council officers. Despite many attempts to obtain an interview with a representative of Rotherham council, no interview was granted: several questions were submitted via email but no reply received. A response to a Freedom of Information request to Rotherham council read as follows:

There have been a total of 1109 children looked after at any point between 1st December 2009 and 31st December 2014.

The Children and Young People’s Service could provide figures of all Looked After Children who have been subject to a Child Protection Investigation in line with Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 during a given period. However, this would not distinguish those which relate to sexual abuse nor those which were specifically reported as a crime.

To provide the specific detail requested a manual interrogation of relevant case files would be required and such an exercise would exceed the maximum cost as detailed in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

I was told: Rotherham MBC does not hold the information to provide a response to this question. This referred to the ethnicity of alleged offenders in cases of children reporting sexual abuse to the authority. The reply continued: Case files are held in the name of individual children, while names of any alleged perpetrator may be contained within such files no aggregated data is produced of the nature requested. Any manual interrogation of relevant case files would exceed the maximum cost as detailed in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. In any event it is unlikely to yield accurate data as it would be based on perception of ethnicity/nationality as reported by the child ( age- post verbal to 18 ) making such allegations and will be dependent on their age and understanding of ethnic identity. Data in relation to ethnicity/nationality of convicted offenders may be held by crime agencies but is not held by the Local Authority.

Therefore, Rotherham MBC was unable to provide a response to the questions contained in the FOI request.

An attempt to secure an interview with a representative of Rochdale council was also unsuccessful. Their reply to a freedom of information request was similar to that of Rotherham – a full response could not be supplied as to obtain the information would take longer than the statutory 18 hour limit.

During the investigation, I spoke to some child abuse experts, journalists, and former whistle-blowers; most attempts to obtain interviews however were unsuccessful.

Of the interviews that were obtained – mostly on condition of anonymity – certain things were agreed by interviewees who had investigated or known of child abuse, and these were:

• There was widespread failure across the public sector
• Political issues and community tensions play a part
• Cultural and racial attitudes played a significant part, including attitudes towards women
• Whistle-blowing is something that people are unlikely to undertake given the possible risks to themselves

All-Party Parliamentary Select Committee

Following the Jay Report in to sexual abuse in Rotherham, an All-Party Parliamentary Select Committee was established. It published its report in June 2013 . The report refers to multi-agency failures, and the increasing sophistication of grooming methods.

On the issue of race, the report notes:

The vast majority of convicted child-sex offenders in the UK are single White men. However, with this specific model of offending, there is a widespread perception that the majority of perpetrators are of Asian, British Asian or Muslim origin. This would certainly seem to be the case from the major grooming prosecutions which have gone to court so far, but in fact both CEOP and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner have found serious inconsistencies with recording of ethnicities and gender of both victims and perpetrators across UK forces.

Given the number of child sexual exploitation cases which have so far failed to make it to court, for the reasons discussed, this highly unsatisfactory situation means that it is extremely difficult to form an evidence based opinion on the true nature of what is still a largely hidden crime. Nevertheless, the perception, that grooming perpetrators are largely of Asian, British Asian or Muslim origin colours the attitudes of those working in the field, as well as the media and the wider public. Ann Cryer, the former MP for Keighley, who raised concerns about localised grooming in her constituency as long ago as 2003, faced a backlash when she described the offenders as Asian and pointed to the fact that most of them came from the Mirpur district of Kashmir (a description which she still stands by). She suggested that underlying cultural attitudes might be a factor in the offending. As Andrew Norfolk told us:

“The far right leapt on the story, predictably, and [Ann Cryer] was accused of demonising all Muslims. I think that it almost acted as a brake for several years on anybody seriously looking at whether there was any truth in what she was saying but, as the years passed, I noticed cases cropping up from time to time across Yorkshire and Lancashire with a very similar pattern.”

Kris Hopkins MP, the current Member for Keighley, also spoke of the reaction that Ann Cryer received and supported her view that a fear of being labelled ‘racist’ had hindered the ability of official agencies to combat the grooming and sexual exploitation. Lots of the people in that community dismissed Ann’s comments and saw them as inflammatory rather than as challenging and helpful. Many people believed another injustice was being done to the community by the fact that Ann kept raising the issue. The victimhood that ran through the community gave an excuse for not facing up to the problem. I went to lots of public events to discuss the issue, but all I heard was that Ann’s constant comments undermined the community. The community failed to face up to the core issues that Ann was putting out there. The reality is that the problem has not gone away. Ann Cryer was right. Since that time, many more children have been abused because of the failures of the agencies and of the communities to address what was happening.

The All-Party Parliamentary Select Committee report goes on to state:

Witnesses have given us a number of reasons why they think there appears to be an association with the British Pakistani community. Kris Hopkins MP who had previously spoken in the House on the sexist behaviour of some Muslim men which went unchallenged by their peers or community elders,248 talked to us about the importance of the empowerment of women in these communities.

“I think the most powerful voices within there—or they need to be the most powerful voices—will be women in those communities, so the mums, grandmas, future mums, the girls in those families need to be empowered.”

Andrew Norfolk suggested that issues around the age of consent may play a role, pointing out that:

“If you come from a rural Mirpuri, Kashmiri community, where, whatever state law says, village tradition and sharia says that puberty is the green light for marriage—as it does—and if you recognise that most girls in this country are hitting puberty at 11 or 12, perhaps one begins to understand why it is not just lone offenders. There has to be something, given that so often this is a normalised group activity—not among a major criminal gang, but among friends, work colleagues and relatives—that does not have the same sense of shame attached to it as would be the case for your typical White offender, who works alone because if he told too many people, somebody would report him.”

During this investigation, I spoke to a child abuse expert who had interviewed young men with regard to rape and attitudes to women. Although she stated that attitudes to women were problematic generally, she added “in some communities, white girls are viewed differently” and can be seen as having lower “moral standards”. Also causing some difficulty she said was the internal nature of closed communities, and their reluctance to approach mainstream services. For example, wrong-doing may be dealt with by “community leaders” rather than police and social services. Andrew Norfolk has also referred to this, and said “I have spoken to young men in some of the towns where this has been going on. Universally, they decry what happens. They say they are disgusted with the men who have been doing this but, equally, that they would never have dreamt of going to the police about it, because you do not turn on your own community.”

The child abuse expert interviewed for this report also argued that attitudes towards young women by police and public services are themselves problematic. Young girls are often seen as “troublesome” rather than victims of exploitation. She acknowledged that “political correctness” was an issue, but one of many.

The All-Party Parliamentary Select Committee report discusses race at some length. However, religion again escapes criticism or scrutiny. Indeed, a Muslim voice called upon to give evidence was Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain – a controversial group which advocates sharia law.

Mogra said “If the perpetrator is a Muslim, treat that perpetrator and that criminal as you would treat any other criminal. They should not get any preferential treatment or anywhere to hide behind the name of Islam or of Muslim.” Whilst on the surface, this may appear an admirable approach, it also prevents any scrutiny of Islamic teaching and the impact this may have on attitudes towards women, sex, and the age of consent.

As is now very clear, accurate information on the issue of child sex abuse by “Asian” gangs is impossible to obtain – certainly by members of the public. Let us therefore examine what we do know about the most notorious cases involving this crime in recent years. A thorough examination of the Jay Report is an essential starting point.

NEXT CHAPTER - THE JAY REPORT