What I find shocking is that dozens of professional people had for years been aware of and had witnessed the systematic grooming, terrorising and trafficking for sex of girls as young as 11 years old.
The only agency that had the power to investigate, arrest, and charge these criminals was the police. Yet one police officer had said of a 12 year old, who it had been established had had sex with 5 Asian men, that it had been "100% consensual in every incident." He and some of his colleagues were either unaware that in law a child cannot consent to sexual activity and to flout this law is a serious crime, or they felt that "deviant" children (as some police officers had described them) were not worthy of protection under the law. What is perhaps even more damning is that the head of the inquiry said that there had been "evidence of collusion between police and perpetrators." A researcher - who had persuaded a girl to make a complaint to the police and who was suspicious about the way the matter had been dealt with - wrote to the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, but had been ordered by the District Police Commander "never to do such a thing again".
It is very convenient for attention to be taken away from these derelictions of duty and possible corrupt behaviour by citing "political correctness" as the reason for inaction. It could, I think, be legitimately argued that it was the lack of political correctness that allowed this "reign of terror" to continue. A council environment that was found to be "macho and bullying" could hardly be described as "politically correct", nor could a policing environment in which it was decided that children were, because of their dress and behaviour, not entitled to protection under the law.
