Watchdog ‘failed’ with investigation into South Yorkshire Police’s handling of grooming gangs, whistleblowers claim

Two people working on the watchdog investigation into South Yorkshire Police’s handling of grooming gangs have come forward to call it a “failure”.

One investigator, Garry Harper, who worked on the Independent Office for Police Conduct probe for two years, told Channel 4 News he was instructed not to look at senior officers.

Operation Linden was set up by the IOPC to investigate South Yorkshire Police after the Jay Report concluded that political and police failings contributed to at least 1,400 girls being abused by grooming gangs between 1997 and 2013.

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This was the IOPC’s second largest ever operation, which went on for seven years and had £6m spent on it.

It said it didn’t believe it uncovered evidence of corruption. While 14 officers were found to have a case to answer for misconduct or gross misconduct, no one lost their job. In fact, seven officers were allowed to retire before they could face misconduct hearings.

This was despite the three-month court case into ringleader Arshad Hussain and his associates which heard shocking allegations about collusion between police officers and the gang - with victims alleging officers had passed information and drugs to the grooming ring he headed.

The IOPC also upheld a complaint that South Yorkshire Police gave Hussain a “no arrest” deal after he abducted a pregnant 14-year-old girl.

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Now, two whistleblowers working on Operation Linden have come forward to Channel 4 News with claims the investigation was itself a failure.

Mr Harper, who spent seven years as an investigator with the IOPC, said he was told to focus on one specific junior officer, not senior officers.

Jayne Senior,who ran the Risky Business youth project in Rotherham until 2011, was one of the first people to report allegations of abuse to the police and raise concerns about a lack of action.Jayne Senior,who ran the Risky Business youth project in Rotherham until 2011, was one of the first people to report allegations of abuse to the police and raise concerns about a lack of action.
Jayne Senior,who ran the Risky Business youth project in Rotherham until 2011, was one of the first people to report allegations of abuse to the police and raise concerns about a lack of action.

He said: “We were actively discouraged from working up the chain trying to find out what had gone on. It was very much this is your complainant, you deal with that and that alone.

“We’re just another chapter in the failure for the survivors. They haven’t received the service they should have received and the force hasn’t been held to account in the way that it should.”

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Chris Owen, a former Greater Manchester Police officer, worked on Operation Linden as a contractor in 2018 and 2019.

He told Channel 4 News: “The organisation itself is a failed organisation. The leadership had no idea what they were doing.

“The systems didn’t work, disclosure was virtually non-existent, the management of it was haphazard. Exhibits were lost, documents were lost. There seemed to be no direction of the investigations they took.”

Both whistleblowers said they raised their concerns with senior managers within the IOPC at the time.

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The watchdog denied both former officers allegations and said that the claim that documents were lost or mishandled is overstated.

Mr Harper also said that officers tried to discredit Jayne Senior - one of the main whistleblowers of the Rotherham grooming gangs - and tried to push for her to be investigated.

When she found out about this, Ms Senior said: “I just wanted to cry. Did those senior officers hate me that much for wanting answers for those children that that’s what they were willing to do.”

The IOPC said it would be beyond its jurisdiction to investigate Ms Senior and it had no reason to.

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Ms Senior and fellow whistleblower Dr Angie Heal, who raised the issue of grooming gangs while working for South Yorkshire Police in the early 2000s, complained to the watchdog that officers failed in their statutory duties to protect children.

The IOPC upheld this complaint, known as Operation Amazon, but the pair said they believe this was deliberately “buried”.

Dr Heal said: “So they upheld our complaint that senior officers failed in their statutory duty to protect children and then they buried their own report. They didn’t publish the findings.

“I think there were some bits of the report where they got it but they didn’t go anywhere far enough. There’s no recommendations in it, nobody’s been held to account.”

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Ms Senior added: “I think it’s just another nail in their coffin, they’re inept, they’re unable to run independent investigations.

“I think it dismally failed and I actually feel it was planned to fail. They never wanted the truth, it’s just disgraceful. These are the people we trust to hold police officers to account.”

An IOPC spokesperson said: “Every one of the 91 investigations within Operation Linden was carried out thoroughly and all lines of enquiry explored by up to 50 IOPC staff.

“During the seven-year investigation, the second largest in our history, we investigated 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants, 44 of whom were survivors of abuse and exploitation.

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“Approximately 1,000 statements were taken and 4,000 investigative actions undertaken.

“It’s completely inaccurate to suggest that investigators were told not to investigate senior South Yorkshire Police officers – there was a dedicated investigation within Operation Linden which was focused solely on senior officers within the force and, had we found any indication of corruption, it would have been rigorously pursued.

“Our final report concluded that South Yorkshire Police failed to protect vulnerable children and young people at that time and to recognise the scale of the offending and effectively tackle it.

“We found systemic issues including failures in leadership, lack of professional curiosity, cultural issues and gaps in skills and training. The force acknowledged past failings and the focus needs to be on learning from those mistakes.”

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While Det Ch Insp Scott Harrison, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “Since the publication of the Jay Report in 2014, our understanding and handling of cases of child sexual exploitation in South Yorkshire has evolved and developed considerably.

“We have shaped our policing response after listening to the experiences of victims and survivors of these horrific crimes, and their courage and bravery has instigated this crucial change to policing.

“The force has publicly recognised its past failings in terms of its response to child sexual exploitation and we remain absolutely committed to safeguarding victims of exploitation in any form and conducting thorough investigations to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.”

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