Simply reacting to child sexual exploitation reports without being proactive "ruins lives", Rotherham MP Sarah Champion tells inquiry

The Labour MP for Rotherham submitted a statement at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) today (Monday).

The inquiry is drawing evidence from a range of complainants and organisations to assess how abuse networks like grooming gangs have been able to operate, hearing how one girl was abused by multiple men with a gun held to her head.

A statement read by Ms Champion's solicitor Haafiz Suleman at the inquiry today said that the tendency from institutions to only act when child sexual abuse (CSE) is reported to them, rather than seeking it out, was "the enemy of joined up thinking".

The statement said: "[Being reactive] prevents institutions from drawing meaningful conclusions by forcing them to deal with incidents of CSE in isolation. We want to be entirely clear on this point, reactive approaches ruin lives."

She added how authorities needed to look at the "big picture" rather than incidents in isolation, and to be "constant" in efforts to abolish abuse instead of "box-ticking".

Following the Rotherham CSE scandal, which remains an ongoing investigation with two further arrests made last week, Ms Champion launched a cross-party inquiry to examine whether existing legislation around abuse was fit for purpose.

This also led to the banishing of the term "child prostitute" from legislation.

Ms Champion's statement at today's inquiry continued: "Proactivity requires institutional curiosity about what more can be done to root out CSE and protect potential victims.

"The onus shouldn't be on victims to come forward and give psychologically damaging witness evidence, but on police, local authorities and schools to disrupt CSE in a proactive manner.

"CSE is a crime. What the panel needs to recognise is this – describing children as 'vulnerable to CSE' is to put the cart before the horse. All children are vulnerable. It's the organized networks who exploit them."

The inquiry also heard from lead counsel Henrietta Hill QC how CSE was still "under-reported" with its prevalence likely to be “much higher” than previously thought.

“We know from research that the big picture is that many thousands of children are sexually exploited each year.”

Ms Hill said police recorded 1,012 offences of abuse of children through sexual exploitation in 2018/19, and 5,900 offences of sexual grooming.

Evidence will come from a number of child exploitation victims, including one girl who was first raped as a 12-year-old.

Junior counsel Antonia Benfield told the inquiry: “She was bullied and desperate for affection.

“She was regularly reported missing (from home) and picked up by police, reporting sexual abuse. She does not consider meaningful steps were taken.”

Ms Benfield said the girl was still a young teenager when she was “abducted by a group of men and forced to have oral sex with 23 men while a gun was held to her head”. She was also raped, the inquiry heard.

Ms Benfield added: “She considered she was failed by social services and by the police, she also feels there was a lack of co-ordination between agencies tasked with protecting her.”

In another case, fellow junior counsel Paul Livingstone described how a 14-year-old girl abused by men while in a care home claimed staff “colluded with her abusers” by suggesting the men “collect her by car near the children’s home, rather than outside it”.

The investigation into organised networks is due to last for two weeks.

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