Rotherham Child Abuse

Oh papa - the task is enormous. We're talking about wholesale cultural change as well as systemic change. And it involves all of in one way or another. I don't want knee jerk easy peasy solutions being put forward in sound bites by band wagon jumping politicians.

The sensible woman on the wireless at lunchtime , would say that wouldn't she !

I heard a sensible woman on the radio at lunchtime (didn't catch her name) saying 'it's racist and insulting to assume that communities of Pakistani people would not want to eradicate this from their midst and would not want to collaborate with the authorities and carers to enable it to be done.'

They could not have got it more wrong in justifying their negligence by shifting blame on to politically correct critics.

Correction : how must THEY feel now?

What is being done to make sure that this cannot all happen again? Surely the government should be taking a lead. Why aren't they?

HD - of course not all but the general culture

How must the neighbours, shop-keepers, passers-by and others- who perhaps had suspicions and did nothing. Why? Where the girls dismissed by society at large too, and not only their parents who'd given them up, etc, etc???

From the report, it looks as though Rotherham was something of a shambles with councillors bullying officers, all the agencies colluding to suppress reports they didn't like and different bodies competing for limited funds and fighting about hierarchy. They seem to have been more worried about how things appeared than the crimes being committed. I found it beyond belief that when some parents tried to rescue their children from danger, they were charged! And that vulnerable girls were occasionally arrested while the exploiters went scot free.

How many of the non white police officers and non white child protection officers were involved in the abuse.
Why was that child's clothes 'lost' too many trite answers for me: 'oh I didn't know". " I didn't want to be called a racist "
Absolute b......s As if this case isn't horrendous enough,I feel there is a lot more that is being covered up.

How must those abused children feel now?

they have had to be pulled kicking and screaming ( along with our predominantly male elected representatives) into dealing properly with crimes against women

Not all police officers. After a man had attempted to sexually assault me when I was 6 years old, it took the police two days to find and arrest him - he was imprisoned.

Of course most perpetrators of sexual abuse are white males

Is that down to the fact that there are simply more white males in Britain? Or have percentages of population already been taken into account?

Was the lack of response from the authorities really down to fearing accusations of racism, or is it just a convenient excuse?

There was a senior police official (can't remember his name) on the news this morning who said it was down to fear of being labelled 'racist' - he said that given the recent accusations of institutional racism within the police force, it is understandable that they didn't want to do anything that would seem to confirm those accusations. That was his take on it.

the cat is out the bag and it doesn't matter how hard anybody tries to brush it back under the carpet

This particular cat came out of the bag a few years ago and was brushed, successfully, back under the carpet.

And if one more official says 'Lessons will be learnt' I shall SCREAM.

Absolutely. Another one trotted out is 'lessons have been learned' - did they really need to learn that it was unacceptable?

I remember the days before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 - the Guildford 4, Birmingham 6 - no rose coloured spectacles here about the police in days gone by.

I don't think it's true that there was ever a time when the police were not sexist and racist - they have had to be pulled kicking and screaming ( along with our predominantly male elected representatives) into dealing properly with crimes against women and bme people . South Yorkshire police got away for years with their behaviour at Hillsborough because so many of the victims were working class.

I was waiting for someone to say it KatyK. Exactly what I wanted to say but thought I might be shot down. Overkill on the Cliff Richard case (one un-proven allegation so far) and a blind eye to serious, serial abuse of vulnerable girls. S Yorks police along woth dozens of other forces have a lot to answer for. Policing in the Uk has gone severely down the pan in the last twenty years.

The senior staff who presided over this disgusting fiasco are a disgrace to their professions and should be removed from their jobs if still in post. That is the job of government. Instead of flopping about on a beach in a wet-suit our Prme Minister should be taking a grip. Get on with it Cameron!

South Yorkshire Police have a dreadful record in many areas, this being one of them.

And I think it's true that sometimes people are very anxious about being thought to be racist.

They are also anxious about reporting / complaining about anyone in powerful positions, be it the media, sport, high professional position or senior business.

It takes a lot of courage to do so; to take a risk, to put one's own job on the line, to expose oneself to bullying and worse. I have great respect for those who do.

If you read the report you will see on about page 110 the response of Councillors to those who attempted, unsuccessfully to raise the issue and try to get something done.

It makes chilling reading. And the quoted comments from these elected men were described as 'the less offensive'.

I agree with you penguin. South Yorkshire police were very quick to act in the Cliff Richard case with what so far seems to be one allegation. Several police officers searching his home with the media alerted. Of course he may well be guilty. Meanwhile this scum are doing these dreadful things to what seems to be possibly 1400 children over 16 years. There was a lady on a TV phone in this morning whose daughter was one of these girls. She was obviously a lovely, caring mother who had reported the matter to the police, Social Services, anyone she could think of. Her daughter had even confided in the school nurse (the child was 12 when this started and was walking home from school and was dragged into a car). The mother spoke to the nurse and tried to her encourage her to tell the authorities (to back her up), she was too afraid. The mother said everyone ignored her pleas. She would spend every night trawling the streets to try to find her daughter with a younger child in the back of the car. Why are we so afraid of being called racist? These people know it, and use it against us for their own means.

Child protection of course. Not cold protection.

Sad to say when that committed cold protection workers are an extinct breed. Promoted to management after a bare two or three years, they stay only a short time before moving on to less stressful areas of work or to leave the profession altogether. If there are one or two experienced workers who might like to remain at work on the ground, they are soon driven out because their values are seen as outdated and at odds with the prevailing ethos. I have seen it in authority after authority and it makes me very sad.

Thank you when.

I think the 'cowards who avoided investigating and tackling these offenders' were at a high level. The report describes how members of staff at ground level were confused and even afraid to refer to issues of race. The 'Risky Business' project manager was instructed not to refer to the race of the perpetrators when delivering training. Other staff members reported that they were instructed by their managers 'to be cautious' about referring to the ethnicity of the perpetrators.

Having worked in a number of local authority child protection teams I can verify that it is common for staff to feel uncertain and uneasy about what they can and can't say about issues to do with ethnicity in reports, in meetings, and in peer group supervision. This has been going on for more than 20 years and is not a healthy situation.

Of course most perpetrators of sexual abuse are white males, and most abuse happens within the family. However CSE is different and needs specialist teams to tackle it. We do no one any favours if we overlook the fact that there may in some cases, and some areas, be a race element that could be specific to that area. I fail to see what is wrong with acknowledging that and in using that knowledge to work with all communities to tackle the problem. I completely agree that the worst prejudice at work here is sexism and misogyny which affects females of all ethnic backgrounds.