Why Rotherham Cabinet members must be charged with Malfeasance in Public Office
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/401125/46966_Report_of_Inspection_of_Rotherham_WEB.pdf
Extracts from Louise Casey report on CSA in Rotherham
The good
people of Rotherham and beyond Inspectors found many committed, hardworking and
dedicated staff working for Rotherham Council including frontline staff and
social workers. Inspectors acknowledge that it cannot be easy for them to go
into work every day intending to do a good job, amid a stream of criticism of
their organisation, let alone marches from the English Defence League (EDL) in
their town centre. During the course of the inspection we came upon various
individuals and organisations who were worthy of particular mention and praise
by the inspection,
however
we were conscious that to list them in this report may cause them difficulties
either professionally or personally. However, our sincere thanks must go to two
particular groups of people who spoke to us under the most testing
circumstances; the individuals and whistle-blowers who came forward bravely to
give evidence to us and of course, the victims of child sexual exploitation and
their families who courageously recounted the awful things that happened to
them.
WHAT
HAPPENED IN ROTHERHAM AND WHY IT MATTERS
“I think
it’s quite sad, not just what happened to my daughter but how the system has responded.
I was brought up to believe that when something bad happened, you told the
police or social services and they help you - something would be done about it
- that isn’t what happened.”
A
victim’s father Professor Alexis Jay’s report in August 2014 set out a history
of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over 16 years. The Council
commissioned the report following mounting concerns from outside bodies about
CSE in the town. Over 2012 and 2013, Rotherham had been on the front page of The
Times newspaper. RMBC’s Chief Executive and Strategic Director of Children’s
Services had appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee as had the
police and
Crime
Commissioner and Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police. The then Police and
Crime Commissioner had requested three reports into the poor handling of CSE by
South Yorkshire Police and sexual exploitation in Yorkshire and the North West
was a live issue.
The Home
Affairs Select Committee report on 5 June 2013 on CSE criticised RMBC and South
Yorkshire Police. “Both Rochdale and Rotherham Councils were inexcusably slow
to realise that the widespread, organised sexual abuse of children, many of
them in the care of the local authority, was taking place on their doorstep.
This is due in large part to a woeful lack of professional curiosity or
indifference.”
“We have heard evidence that South Yorkshire
Police Force have previously let down victims of localised grooming and child
sexual exploitation— as a result, we would expect the force be striving to
redeem their reputation.”
In August
2013, The Times ran a story regarding the Deputy Leader of Rotherham Council as
having been involved some years previously in the handover of a girl to police
who had been a victim of CSE.
In
September 2013, the Council commissioned the Jay Report and the long standing council
Leader apologised to the “young people and their families [who] have been badly
let down by the Council in the past.”
Professor
Alexis Jay was commissioned to establish what had happened in Rotherham. Her
review’s terms of reference were very wide ranging. She was to look back at the
past and see whether and how things had changed today.
15
WHAT IS
CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION?
“I want
you all to...look for the child that is unhappy, that doesn't want to be at
school, that has no friends, that seems to be going out an awful lot, that
could be driving around in cars, has more than one mobile, that has an
attitude, that seems to have a lot of boyfriends and ask yourself, is this a
victim of CSE?”
From a
presentation given by a victim of CSE In order to look at how effectively RMBC
was tackling CSE, Inspectors needed to have a working understanding of the
issue. It is, undoubtedly, a very difficult problem for public services to deal
with and there are many complexities involved. But that should never be used as
an excuse for inaction.
CSE is a
form of child abuse in which perpetrators develop total control over their victims.
It starts with a grooming process, in which victims are showered with gifts and
attention. They are treated like adults, for example, by being taken out in
cars. The young person can believe that the perpetrator is their boyfriend and
that they are in love. This is a powerful thing, especially for young children
or young people who may have difficult family backgrounds and crave love and
attention. As a result, they do not complain. The grooming process isolates the
victim from friends and family.
At some
point, drugs, alcohol and sex may be introduced. They are forced not only to
have sex with their abuser but sometimes other men too. This is coupled with more
overt coercion, threats and violence. By now, victims may be dependent on drugs
and alcohol, afraid of their abuser, isolated from their family and scared that
they will not be believed or that worse may happen to them or their families if
they make a complaint.
The
consequences of CSE are appalling. Victims suffer from suicidal feelings and often
self-harm. Many become pregnant. Some have to manage the emotional consequences
of miscarriages and abortions while others have children that they are unable
to parent appropriately.
The abuse
and violence continues to affect victims into adulthood. Many enter violent and
abusive relationships. Many suffer poor mental health and addiction. The
predators often target children with difficult backgrounds, including those in
care, who are particularly vulnerable to grooming. But they are also sometimes
able to exploit those from stable backgrounds. That families, despite their
very best efforts, are unable to prevent the abuse reflects the power of the
abusers and the degree of control they exert.
Tackling
CSE is incredibly difficult. Noone should underestimate this. It requires spotting
the signs, helping young people to recognise their experience as abuse and getting them to trust public services instead of their abusers,
often in the face of serious threats. Then it requires supporting victims through
the criminal justice system, where they may have to ‘relive’ the experience
again. There are challenges in gaining sufficient evidence for prosecution. When
child sexual exploitation is happening on the scale that it did in Rotherham, there
will be multiple perpetrators and victims, and establishing a complete picture
by fully appreciating all the links and connections, will be difficult.
CSE
embodies issues which are incredibly difficult to deal with. First, serious
sexual violence. Second, victims who may reject help. The grooming involved is
a form of brainwashing, which means that even though the victims are being
abused emotionally, physically and sexually, they can be loyal to their abuser,
rather than their family or social worker. Third, the age of the victims involved.
Teenage sexuality is a confusing issue for adults and adolescents alike. Many
of these girls are on the cusp of adulthood and want to behave like adults but
do not yet have the emotional capacity to do so. Abusers exploit this
uncertainty.
Many
local authorities and other services are struggling with this complex crime and
as the OFSTED report on CSE found few have got it right. Given all the
difficulties involved, this is not surprising. But CSE is a horrifying and brutal
crime with devastating consequences for victims and their families. Councils
and their partners must not give up on them.
Tackling
CSE effectively requires a council and its partners to mobilise their services and
powers together. The Council has a duty to safeguard the victims. It also governs
the landscape in which CSE is played out including many schools, care homes,
parks, taxis and take away food shops. Councils have powers of licensing and
regulation which can be used to disrupt illegal activity in these places and
keep the community safe. This is in addition to the duties and powers of the
police. We accept all these challenges make tacking exploitation difficult. But
they cannot be used as excuses.
Fundamentally,
this is about the rape and abuse of children by adults. Victims cannot be
abandoned to their abusers. Authorities cannot claim they are powerless to act.
CHILD
SEXUAL EXPLOITATION – A PICTURE IN ROTHERHAM
From a
review of case file s and files on police operations, information from Risky Business,
and from victims, parents and professionals, it is possible to present a picture
of sexual exploitation in Rotherham as it developed.
Vulnerable
girls, most frequently those with difficult family backgrounds, and or a history
of being in care, were particularly affected. Girls were as young as nine when they
began to be exploited.
Perpetrators
in Rotherham appear to have been largely from the Pakistani heritage Community.
Perpetrators used what is known as ‘street grooming’ to prepare their victims
for exploitation.
Some of
the exploitation was connected to a nucleus of men or gangs of men who were
already involved in criminal activity, including supplying drugs, trafficking, sexual
exploitation and prostitution across Rotherham and South Yorkshire.
There
were other less organised groups of predatory men who would seek out young girls
and form emotional bonds with them. Girls would be contacted initially by phone
or by text, often by a young adult male who they had met on the street, or in
the shopping centre or park. These younger men who carried out the grooming
weren’t always the abuser. Girls were misled into believing these men were
their boyfriends.
Once
their trust had been gained, the girls were vulnerable to sexual abuse and were
even shared and passed around other men or groups of men. Victims would start
to receive phone calls from numerous other males wishing to meet them and engage
in sexual acts, and be pressured by their ‘boyfriend’ into doing what was
asked. They would be picked up in taxis and cars, from schools or children’s
homes or from their own family homes. Girls would go missing from home
regularly and for extended periods. They would be taken to restaurants or to
other properties where they would have sex with one or more men.
They were
given drugs and alcohol which they then had to ‘pay for’ in sex. If they did not
concur, they would be subject to rape, multiple rapes, rape with physical violence,
and threatened with weapons.
Perpetrators
in Rotherham generated real fear. They were often perceived to be connected to
other forms of criminality and violence and victims and their families were too
frightened to speak and did not feel the police could protect them. They were
threatened and intimidated into silence. Victims and their families speak of
groups of men in cars waiting outside their house or outside children’s homes,
sometimes attempting to break in. Phone calls and texted threats, including
threats to rape other members of the family, were described to us.
Fear was
also evident at times among professionals, teachers, hostel workers and youth
workers. Some children needed to be
placed out of the area and others in secure units for their own protection. The
grooming was so effective that, despite the abuse and violence, victims would
continue to attempt to return to their abusers.
Other
patterns in Rotherham involved lone offenders targeting under 16’s. Adult
males, and on occasion females, with dysfunctional lives allowed girls and boys
to gather at their properties, supplying them with drink, drugs and cigarettes.
Vulnerable children often became subject
to sexual abuse in these environments.
RESPONSE
TO PROFESSOR JAY’S REPORT - DENIAL
Professor
Jay’s Independent Inquiry into CSE in Rotherham was treated with disbelief and
evasion of the issue. When Inspectors commenced work in Rotherham we were
struck by the overwhelming denial of what Professor Jay set out in her report.
This attitude was so prevalent that we had to go back through many of the
aspects of her work in order to satisfy ourselves that the Council had no grounds
upon which further action could be delayed. We soon discovered, however, that RMBC
has a history of denial. We deal with this later in the report.
Inspectors
noted four distinct forms of denial which arose in interviews with both Members
and officers. These were striking in their frequency and their similarity. Even
some of the same expressions were used.
These
were:
1. Denial
of the accuracy of Professor Jay’s methods and findings.
2. Denial
of the extent of the issue of CSE, particularly in Rotherham.
3. Denial
of culpability and belief that CSE was ‘being dealt with elsewhere’.
4. Denial
that CSE remained a significant problem, although acknowledging that it may
have been in the past. Denial of the accuracy of Jay’s methods and findings. The
clearest manifestation of denial was that Member after Member and officer after
officer disputed the methodology of the Professor Jay’s report. The numbers of victims
were challenged, the cases she referred to were questioned and the interviews
she had undertaken were queried.
When
asked, 70% of the current Rotherham Councillors we spoke to (including those in
the Cabinet) disputed Professor Jay’s findings. Officers complained that Professor
Jay had got their employment dates wrong, or used the wrong job title, that she
had got the attendance list for a meeting wrong, that she had not spoken to
someone they considered important or had spoken to someone who had an axe to
grind, or that she had not spent enough time with others.
One
officer, when called to interview, brought a copy of the Jay report which he
had scrutinised line by line. He then proceeded to emphasise what he believed
were its flaws and inaccuracies
