Grooming scandal: Lessons learned, say police and council

South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham Council welcomed the findings of the Home Affairs Select Committee, which criticised their handling of cases and attitude towards victims.

The force said “significant progress” had been made on the issue in the last year and there were now more than 60 live investigations into child sexual exploitation.

Six people are due in court next week after they were charged with a total of 71 grooming-related offences last week, the forced revealed. And at the end of last month, a 28-year-old Sheffield man was found guilty of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl and jailed for five years.

Welcoming yesterday’s report, a spokesman for the force said: “It is accepted that South Yorkshire Police and partner agency services to combat child sexual exploitation in the past have not been as strong as they are today, however, lessons have been learnt and this is an area of work where significant progress has been made within the last 12 months.”

Its findings “highlight and emphasise the importance of all agencies working together to help combat this vile crime”, he added.

Around 180 children, mostly girls, who have showed signs of being at risk of exploitation, are currently being dealt with by multi-agency teams in the region.

South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright, who was criticised by MPs for his “reluctance to engage with victims”, has provided funding for an extra ten detectives who will be dedicated to investigating grooming-related crimes.

Rotherham Council, which was slammed for being “inexcusably slow” to react to the abuse and having a “woeful” lack of curiosity about the problem, also said it welcomed the committee’s work in raising the profile of the issue.

A spokeswoman said the authority needed time to consider and reflect on the issues it raised to assess how it could build on improvements it had made in recent years.

“Working with our partners, including South Yorkshire Police, we continue to give top priority to tackling this horrific crime and to protecting the children and young people of Rotherham from the people who will use any means at their disposal to cause them harm,” she said.