Major investigation finds police failed to protect children during sexual abuse scandal in Rotherham

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigated 265 separate allegations made about the police response by 51 people, as part of Operation Linden, after the Jay Report found there had been at least 1,400 victims of child sexual exploitation in the town between 1997 and 2013.

Fourteen officers were found to have a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct, after 47 officers were investigated and 43 complaints were upheld, but none of them have been dismissed from the force. Seven retired before they could face misconduct hearings.

Steve Noonan, IOPC Director of Major Investigations, said the £6m investigation will deliver “wholesale changes” to the system and help police better protect survivors in the future, but the independent watchdog is “not judge and jury” and police misconduct panels ultimately determine guilt.

But Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, said the report “fails to identify any individual accountability” and it “lets down victims and survivors”.

The final report, which produced 13 recommendations for improvements, stated officers did not respond effectively in many cases, as they did not understand child sexual exploitation and believed many of the young victims were “consenting to their exploitation”.

The IOPC found officers had left victims in cars and at properties with their abusers on numerous occasions, failed to properly investigate allegations of sexual assault or even take statements from victims in some cases, and failed to “effectively disrupt” the activity of known abusers and act on intelligence.

In one case an abuser was allowed to "hand over" a victim and avoid arrest as part of a deal.

There were also several allegations of police working with the abusers, but Mr Noonan said: “I don’t believe we’ve uncovered evidence of corruption” .

According to the report, there was “little evidence” that senior officers in the force acted on “emerging concerns”, first identified and logged in the early 2000s, and a lack of training and guidance meant most officers were not prepared to deal with complex cases of exploitation.

The former Head of South Yorkshire Police’s (SYP) Public Protection Unit told investigators officers began learning about child sexual exploitation around 2007 but “there was still the mindset that what we had was 14, 15 and 16-year-old girls having inappropriate relationships with older boyfriends and being showered with gifts and presents”.

The IOPC said there were also “missed opportunities” to work with community leaders to tackle the issue, as many front-line officers knew “a high proportion of Asian men” were involved in the exploitation.

During Operation Linden, which was completed in 2020, the conduct of 47 officers was investigated but none of them were named in the report. Eight were found to have a case to answer for misconduct and six had a case to answer for gross misconduct.

Five received sanctions ranging from management action up to a final written warning, while former Detective Sergeant David Walker was cleared of wrongdoing at a misconduct hearing in March, after he was accused of failing to investigate claims about a teenage girl being abused. The final report on Operation Linden was released following that hearing.

The complaints which were upheld

Forty-three of the complaints were upheld by the IOPC, including one which said SYP failed in its legal duty to protect children from exploitation in Rotherham between 1999 and 2011.

One upheld complaint stated an abuser was allowed to “hand over” a victim to officers, as part of a deal which meant he would not be arrested. Another was lodged after police failed to investigate an older man when the same victim was found half-naked under his bed.

One officer allegedly told that victim, who was abused from the age of 14, he would look after because she was an abuser’s “girl” and on another occasion he was allegedly seen buying steroids from that abuser.

The IOPC said the officer, who denied the allegations, had a case to answer for gross misconduct, but he resigned from the force before he could face a misconduct hearing.

In another case, an officer left two underage sisters in a car with a man, even after the girls told him how old they were and the man admitted one of them had just performed a sexual act on him.

SYP "failed to adequately deal" with child abuse suspects first identified in the 1990s and it left one victim "exposed to abuse".

One officer was charged with gross misconduct for failing to conduct an adequate investigation and follow all available lines of enquiry, after a girl contacted police in 2007, claiming several men had raped her.

However, the IOPC stated it was difficult to investigate many of the allegations, as some of the events took place more than 20 years ago, there were gaps in the police records and some officers "would not fully engage with us".

Mr Noonan said Operation Linden is not over and it will continue to investigate complaints made by survivors.

'We got it wrong and we let victims down'

Tim Forber, Deputy Chief Constable of SYP, said: "We let victims of child sexual abuse down. We failed to recognise their vulnerability and failed to see them as victims, for that I am deeply sorry. They deserved better from us.

“The brave accounts of these girls caused a seismic change in policing crimes of this nature for South Yorkshire Police and the wider police service.”

He added: “Whilst I am confident we are a very different force today, I will not lose sight of the fact that we got it wrong and we let victims down.”