Child abuse row council to hold its own inquiry

The Rotherham Council inquiry will run alongside three reviews ordered by South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright last week.

Four women are planning to sue Rotherham Council over its alleged failure to protect them from abuse and last month deputy council leader Jahangir Akhtar announced he was standing down temporarily while claims he knew about a relationship between a girl in care and a relative who is a suspected child abuser were investigated.

Coun Akhtar denies the allegations.

Speaking at a meeting of Rotherham Council’s cabinet yesterday, leader Roger Stone said: “I know that I speak for us all in condemning unreservedly this vile crime and acknowledging the devastating impact it has on the young victims and those who love and care for them.

“We apologise unreservedly to those young people who have been let down by our safeguarding services which prior to 2009 simply weren’t good enough.”

He added: “As a council we have reiterated time and time again that the safeguarding of our young people here in Rotherham is our highest priority.

“We see the exploitation of our young people as a crime that must not be overlooked or forgotten and we will pursue each and every case to ensure that justice is done.”

Coun Stone said that significant improvements to the way the authority protects children meant its “culture and approach are unrecognisable from that which existed 10 years ago”.

“But in addition to this, we must also recognise that there remains a need to convince and reassure the public that real change has been achieved; to restore public confidence in the safeguarding services that the council provides now and in the future; to show that people have been genuinely held to account and to demonstrate clearly our understanding and appreciation of the devastating consequences of these historic failings.”

The inquiry was “a significant milestone in our fight against the scourge of child sexual exploitation,” he said.

Final details of who will lead the inquiry and its timetable are likely to be agreed at another meeting of the council’s cabinet later this month.

The council’s decision to commission an inquiry follows persistent criticism of its past handling of child abuse cases.

The jailing in 2010 of five men over the grooming of teenage girls for sex led to the emergence of documents suggesting the police and other agencies in Rotherham were aware of these activities for years but failed to take action.

A later report by the Home Affairs Select Committee said the council had been “inexcusably slow” to recognise widespread, organised sexual abuse of children, many of them in the care of the local authority.

New allegations in recent weeks, centred on suggestions that a teenager in the care of social services was allowed regular contact with a violent offender suspected of abuse along with the suggestion that abuse victims may take legal action, has heaped fresh pressure on the council.

The South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner has already asked for a new team of detectives to look at historic cases and for the decisions of the Crown Prosecution Service over whether to pursue cases to be reviewed.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary will also consider whether South Yorkshire Police’s procedures are up to standard.