Policing tsar orders inquiries into claims of failure to act over historic sex abuse cases

Shaun Wright, police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire, has announced plans to set up a new team of detectives to carry out a wide-ranging investigation of all allegations of historic child sex abuse.

He has asked Yorkshire’s chief crown prosecutor to review all historic abuse cases in the county where the Crown Prosecution Service was involved to check if charges should have been brought. A probe by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, due to report back in six weeks, has been ordered to assess whether South Yorkshire Police’s procedures for investigating child sexual exploitation (CSE) are up to standard.

It comes after it was revealed that four women are to sue Rotherham council for “systematic failures to protect them from sexual abuse by predatory men” when they were children.

The authority’s deputy leader, Coun Jahangir Akhtar, stepped down last week over claims he knew about a relationship between a girl in care and a relative who is a suspected child abuser.

Local authorities in South Yorkshire were heavily criticised for being “inexcusably slow” to tackle widespread sexual abuse of children in a recent report by the Home Affairs Select Committee.

Mr Wright has already pledged an extra £500,000 a year to pay for 10 detectives and an analyst to tackle child sexual exploitation.

But he said the team dealing with historic cases would be “entirely separate” and that the investigation would take the officers “as far back as they need to go”.

He said: “There can be no greater priority for me than ensuring that the people who are most vulnerable in society are properly supported, cared for and protected from harm.”

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