Despite suggestions that Rotherham council and South Yorkshire Police tried to cover the horrific exploitation and sexual abuse of over a thousand children for fear of being politically incorrect, it is now well documented that the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani origin. There has been widespread condemnation of PCC Sean Wright; indeed I called for his resignation here two weeks ago. He finally did the right thing and stepped down last week.

Last week end Joyce Thacker, director of children’s services agreed to leave her £180,000 job, by mutual consent, following strong criticism of her part in the failings.

Council leader Roger Stone, chief executive Martin Kimber and Wright had already stepped down before her.

Ms Thacker, who was forced to defend her decision in 2012 to remove three children from foster carers because they voted UKIP.

What this whole sorry episode has done is open the doors of Rotherham and neighbouring towns to UKIP and even less savoury groups such as the English Defence League. The EDL had a strong presence in Rotherham last Saturday where their thuggish supporters ran amok in the town intimidating shoppers and generally being antisocial. Also present on Saturday were around 200 protesters including a Muslim protest group.

Chief executive of the British Ramadhan foundation, Mohammed Shafiq said “we want to see justice for the victims, and we want the community to come together to say not in our name”. Mr Rafiq went on to say “There has been utter systematic failings in South Yorkshire Police. We want to see the system that has failed these girls changed so that people believe the victims rather than labelling them as prostitutes or a lifestyle choice.”  

This is absolutely where the focus should be going forward. It is not appropriate for politicians elected to serve the public to trample over each other desperately trying to score cheap points for their parties. It is obscene to say this is the fault of the Labour party, the Tory party or any other party. This is the fault of wicked men who systematically groomed, abused, raped threatened and violently tortured young girls. It is not right to say all Asian men have no respect for white women.

 It is easy to point the finger at a police force already on the ropes, following the damning Hillsborough enquiry and the report into violence against minors at the Orgreave site in the 1980’s. It is easy to blame the beleaguered Mr Wright, who clung to his job probably longer than he should. It easy to raise the point that less than 20% of the electorate turned out to vote in the PCC elections, it is clear that the role is now in question and the Government (whichever colour rosette they wear) has to think very carefully about whether the role should be scrapped and replaced with a body that can itself be held to account.

None of these things will help the victims.

The harrowing tales told by some of the victims brave enough to speak out, is enough to make one ashamed to live in Yorkshire and in some cases, ashamed to be a man.

One victim, who called herself Sarah, told the BBC that police found her naked in the bed of a man when she was just 11 years old and they left without taking any action. The girl, who was in care at the time, tells how she was taken to a house where there were two Asian men waiting, and another girl showed her what to do. The two girls were naked by the bed when police arrived but despite making clear eye contact with the terrified victims, the police left the property, leaving the children behind to be abused until the next day.

When Sarah reported the abuse, which she says went on for over 5 years and involved more than 40 men; she says police accused her of lying.

Another victim, who calls herself Jessica in the article, claims she was groomed for two years by a man who picked her up in his car when she was just 14. Her father went to [police four times to report the abuse but officers told him that if she chose to hang around with these men she was consenting, effectively saying she deserved it.

Others tell of being raped once a week every week while their families were being threatened and intimidated yet police and local authorities did nothing to protect them, presumably feeling the victims deserved it.

It was not just abuse from the perpetrators it was abuse of power by the authorities. People who earned a good living to protect vulnerable children and families betrayed the trust that their position offered them.

It is true the victims deserve justice. They deserve an apology. They deserve an explanation why this abuse went on for years and years without being opposed. They deserve to know that this will kind of abuse will never ever happen again.

In my previous blog post two weeks ago, I called the scandal the perfect political storm. Politicians, social services, police authorities, and the Pakistani community have all been accused. I too called for Sean Wright to resign, but there are still other aspects which remain largely unreported. It is a fact that the vast majority of the victims were poor vulnerable children. Many were in care and many others came from poor working class families. The establishment’s lack of respect for working class females lays at the heart of the events that took place in Rotherham.

This sort of organised abuse and abandonment by the authorities simply does not exist in middle class lives. Imagine a wealthy business man and his well-tailored solicitor walking into a police station to report such crimes being sent on their way or threatened with arrest.

Removing the people from office that were responsible for allowing the abuse is not enough. Stiff prison sentences for the vile men who committed these despicable offences is not enough. There needs to be a mechanism put in place to ensure that this sort of crime can never happen again.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband need to stand up and be counted. They need to apologise to the victims and they need to say which ever one of runs the country in future must absolutely guarantee that this type of abandonment of poor vulnerable working class females will not be tolerated no matter what colour or religion the accused are.

The way the police deal with sexual assault victims needs immediate overhaul. It is unacceptable that a victim be told by police that it will be their word against the attackers. It is unacceptable that child victims are forced to face courts and accused of being liars or called slappers by solicitors. Obviously there needs to be a level of protection from malicious accusations but there must be a system where victims of such life destroying crimes feel comfortable that they will be believed and treated with dignity rather than being forced to relive the nightmare.

Anyone who is employed as a social worker or police officer must empowered to take difficult decisions and be open minded to reports of crimes regardless of the colour of the accused or the social standing of the victim’s family. Communities must stand together and say we will no longer tolerate our young being treated with such little respect; we will no longer tolerate people employed to protect, turning a blind eye to these behaviours.

The Asian community has to stand side by side with neighbouring communities and say this is not acceptable. While we continue to have pockets of ethnic minorities concentrated into areas such as Rotherham or Sheffield’s Page Hall. Integration is the answer. Forget pandering to extreme groups like EDL or the respectable face of racism UKIP and blaming immigrants, forget fear of offending ethnic groups of people, integrating people of all races into all places is the way to solve the problem. Community leaders and local politicians need to do more to help the multi-cultural society we are so proud of, become one community. We need to stop demonstrating against the building of a mosque and take the time to educate ourselves about how vast majority of law abiding peace loving immigrants live in reality.

 If we can begin to have this kind of existence and rid ourselves of the ignorance blighting the lives of victims such as those of Rotherham, we can begin to ensure never again will anyone be afraid to speak out or stand up and be counted for fear of being lambasted

The victims deserve it.

       

 

 

 

Rotherham; the perfect political storm.

An independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation set up in 2013 by Rotherham Council was published on August 26^th. Its findings have placed a spotlight on the South Yorkshire town the likes of which has never been seen before.   The inquiry found that an estimated 1200 children had been sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013.

Although systematic grooming and abuse by predominantly Pakistani men had been reported to the authorities, the terrible crimes had gone unpunished for two decades. The fact that the men accused of trafficking, kidnapping and rape were of Pakistani origin was largely covered up by social services and the police for fear of accelerating racial hatred in the area.

Members of the Pakistani community condemned both the crimes and the cover up.

South Yorkshire police commissioner Sean Wright has refused to step down from his £85,000 a year job despite being head of children’s services during much of the period when the attacks took place, before being elected in 2012. His deputy, Tracey Cheetham resigned this week, saying she could no longer support him (wright) nor could she continue to be his deputy and called on him to also resign. There is no suggestion that Ms Cheetham had any connection to the appalling scandal but feelings are running so high in the town that a local council meeting was interrupted by locals, furious that the grooming and abuse had continued despite appeals for the local police to act.

Deputy leader of Rotherham council released a statement apologising for the council’s failings, but Mr Wright still refuses to stand down although he has now quit the Labour party.

This not only highlighted the abuse in Rotherham but the ridiculous idea that the man charged with holding the police force to account cannot be held to account.   

A document published in 2012 by the home office called Have you got what it takes to be police and crime commissioner states “as PCC you will have a responsibility to hold the police to account on behalf of the public” it goes on to say “you will provide the link between the police and communities”. It also lists other responsibilities as delivering safety and reducing crime.

It is quite clear that not only is Mr Wright not fit to continue in the post but that he should never have been given the role in the first place.

The position of PCC was widely criticised when it was introduced and voting was remarkably low in the elections. Surely now it is time that all PCC’s were removed. Whoever is in charge of the police force must be able to be held accountable.

Many of the victims in Rotherham were vulnerable children in care; children that were already on the books of social services. As head of children’s services it is implausible to believe Wright knew nothing of the abuse happening on his watch. This means he was either incredibly incompetent or implicit in turning a blind eye – either way a vote of no confidence must passed on him and he should be removed and banned from holding public office again.

Rotherham in recent years has been the scene of many demonstrations from groups such as the English defence league and UKIP. The lack of action by Rotherham council for fear of upsetting the Asian communities has done nothing to help that situation but has helped right wing parties like UKIP gain a foothold in the once labour dominated area.

In the local elections in May UKIP won 10 of the 21 seats in Rotherham, and 3 seats in neighbouring Sheffield.  While many will feel this was a protest vote aimed at the main parties and particularly Labours refusal to offer a referendum on Europe.  What it actual does is paves the way for more extreme right wing parties like the BNP to target the area.

Failing to investigate crimes because they may have been committed by Pakistani men is irresponsible and dangerous. Local councils and police authorities must send out a clear message that these sorts of crimes will not be tolerated by people of any gender, age or ethnicity and anybody or group of people found guilty of these crimes must be punished to the fullest. Boys, girls, women and men have the right to feel safe and be protected by the police and the government.

Mr Wright was forced to cancel a public surgery in Barnsley today due to no members of the public booking an appointment. This sends a blunt message to the commissioner who still hangs on despite calls from the prime minister, the home secretary and leader of the labour party Ed Miliband for him to fall on his sword. Let us hope that today’s message that he is no longer wanted gives him the courage to finally do the right thing and go.