Scandal of child sexual exploitation abuse warnings being ignored – Bill Carmichael

But it would appear from a report published this week that that promise was an empty one. Although there have been some improvements in some areas, children are still being abused by grooming gangs, and the perpetrators are getting away with it.

The Jay Report came up with a “conservative estimate” that 1,400 children were abused in Rotherham alone, but a similar pattern was seen in numerous cities across the UK with strikingly similar features.

Gangs of men were deliberately grooming girls as young as 11 years of age, often living in care or with dysfunctional families. The children would be offered lifts in fancy cars, plied with alcohol and drugs, and then raped, tortured, trafficked and forced into prostitution.

One of the most disgraceful features of these incidents is that the police and social workers knew what was going on but did little to protect these children for over a decade. And the most controversial aspect of all is that the perpetrators were overwhelmingly – although not exclusively – from Pakistani heritage and the victims white working class girls.

This is significant because it is clear that political correctness, and a misplaced sensitivity over race, played a part in the woefully inadequate response of the authorities. One Home Office researcher who pointed out that the Rotherham gangs consisted mainly of Asian men was admonished.

Some of the detail is stomach churning – gang rapes, physical torture, multiple pregnancies and abortions involving very young girls, and one 15-year-old doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight if she didn’t do her pimp’s bidding.

In one incident, police arrived at a house after neighbours reported screaming coming from inside. They found a 13-year-old, drunk and in a state of undress, with a gang of men. She was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, but the men were not even questioned.

The Jay Report was published almost seven years ago and it would be comforting to think that things have moved on and such terrible incidents are in the past.

But an independent review on child sexual abuse in Bradford, published this week, is clear that although there have been some improvements, children remain at risk. The report concludes bleakly that some children “Remain unprotected while some perpetrators remain unknown and unchallenged”.

The review was commissioned following the 2019 conviction of nine men for child sexual exploitation of five young girls in council care. The details are depressingly familiar – clear and obvious evidence of widespread abuse and a totally inadequate response from those charged with protecting the children.

For example, staff at the children’s home where the 14-year-olds were living said they were aware the girls were “being picked up by multiple Asian males in smart cars”, but felt they couldn’t stop them.

The report details another astonishing incident in which a social worker recommended one of the victims, known as Anna, be placed in the foster care of the parents of the man who was abusing her.

While living there she was treated as a domestic slave, sexually abused, and became pregnant at the age of 15. She went on to marry her abuser in an Islamic wedding, which she says was allowed by the authorities.

The response by the authorities to the latest review amounts to the same platitudes we have heard a thousand times before – “lessons have been learned”.

But attitudes need to change. White working class girls should no longer be seen as expendable and expected to keep quiet for the sake of diversity. And police and social services need to understand that racial sensitivities must never be allowed to get in the way of a robust response when there is evidence of child abuse.

Until this happens, I am afraid we will continue to see cases of exploitation similar to Rotherham and Bradford.

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