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Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal

Rotherham town centre, March 2010
Date	1970s–present
Location	Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England
Coordinates	53°25′48″N 1°21′25″W / 53.430°N 1.357°W / 53.430; -1.357
Events	Child sexual abuse of an estimated 1,400 (1970s–2013, according various reports including Jayne Senior) majority aged approximately 11–16.
Reporter	Andrew Norfolk of The Times, with information from Jayne Senior, youth worker
Inquiries	Home Affairs Committee (2013–2014) Jay inquiry (2014) Casey inquiry (2015)
Trials	Sheffield Crown Court, 2010, 2016–2017, convictions for rape, conspiracy to rape, aiding and abetting rape, sexual intercourse with a girl under 13, indecent assault, false imprisonment, procurement. Numerous individual prosecutions regarding child sexual exploitation over the years, including 8 in 2012, 9 in 2013, and 1 in the first quarter of 2014
Convictions	c. 60 (rising) Operation Central: 5 men Operation Clover: 18 men & 2 women Operation Stovewood: 21 men (trials ongoing as of August 2019)
Awards	Andrew Norfolk: Orwell Prize (2013), Journalist of the Year (2014) Jayne Senior: MBE (2016 Birthday Honours)

The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal refers to the organised child sexual abuse that occurred in the town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, Northern England, from the late 1980s until 2013. An estimated 1,400 girls, commonly from care home backgrounds, were abused by "grooming gangs" of predominantly British-Pakistani men between 1997 and 2013. Researcher Angie Heal, who was hired by local officials and warned them about child exploitation occurring between 2002 and 2007, has since described it as the "biggest child protection scandal in UK history". Evidence of the abuse was first noted in the early 1990s, when care home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers. From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16.

From January 2011 onwards Andrew Norfolk of The Times covered the issue, reporting in 2012 that the abuse in the town was widespread and that the police and council had known about it for over ten years. The Times articles, along with the 2012 trial of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, prompted the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee to conduct hearings. Subsequently, Rotherham Council commissioned an independent inquiry led by Alexis Jay. In August 2014, the Jay report concluded, finding at least 1,400 girls had experienced child sexual exploitation in the city, and detailed multiple failings of the police and local authorities. Girls would be taken in taxis, almost "every night", to be abused. The abuse included gang rape, forcing children to watch rape, dousing them with petrol and threatening to set them on fire, threatening to rape their mothers and younger sisters, as well as trafficking them to other towns. There were pregnancies (one at age 12), pregnancy terminations, miscarriages, babies raised by their mothers, in addition to babies removed, causing further trauma.

The majority of victims were White British girls, but British Asian girls were also affected. Social isolation and fear of dishonour may have prevented Asian victims from coming forward. The failure to address the abuse was attributed to a combination of factors revolving around race, class, religion and gender, as well as institutional problems—fear that the perpetrators' ethnicity would trigger allegations of racism; contemptuous and sexist attitudes toward the mostly working-class victims; lack of a child-centred focus; a desire to protect the town's reputation; and lack of training and resources.

Rotherham Council's chief executive, its director of children's services, as well as the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Police all resigned. The Independent Police Complaints Commission and the National Crime Agency both opened inquiries. The Rotherham Council was also investigated, and found to be "not fit for purpose". As a result of new police inquiries, 19 men and two women were convicted in 2016 and 2017 of sexual offences in the town dating back to the late 1980s.

Background

Rotherham

Rotherham is the largest town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, with a population of 109,691 in the 2011 census. Around 11.9 per cent of Rotherham's population belonged to black and minority ethnic groups, compared to eight per cent of the population of the borough (population 258,400); three per cent of the population of the borough belonged to the Pakistani-heritage community. Unemployment in the borough was above the national average, and 23 per cent of homes consisted of social housing. The area has traditionally been a Labour stronghold. Until Sarah Champion was elected in 2012, it had never had a female MP. The council was similarly both controlled by Labour and male-dominated.

Terminology

The term child sexual exploitation (CSE) was first used in 2009 in a Department for Education document, intended to replace the term child prostitution, which implied consent. CSE is a form of child sexual abuse in which children are offered something—money, drugs, alcohol, food, a place to stay, or even just affection—for sexual activity, with violence and intimidation common. CSE includes online grooming and localised grooming, with localised grooming typically happening in a public place. Targets of abuse sometimes include children cared after by the local authority, which was highlighted in particular with the Rotherham case.

In CSE, the first contact might be made by other children, who hand the target over to an older man. One of the adult perpetrators becomes the "boyfriend", but the girl is used for sex by the larger group and comes to view this as the norm. The abuse can involve being raped multiple times by dozens of men during one event. Victims are often trafficked to other towns, where sexual access to the child might be "sold" to other groups. According to one victim, the perpetrators prefer children aged 12–14. As they get older, the group loses interest and may expect the child to supply younger children in exchange for continued access to the group, on which the child has come to rely for drugs, alcohol, a social life, "affection" or even a home.Adele Gladman and Angie Heal, authors of early reports on the Rotherham abuse, suggest that describing rape, murder and attempted murder as "exploitation" does not help people understand the seriousness of the crimes.

Summary of convictions

History

The earliest reports of localised grooming in Rotherham date to the early 1990s, when several managers of local children's homes set up the "taxi driver group" to investigate reports that taxis driven by Pakistani men were arriving at care homes to take the children away. The police reportedly declined to act. In 1997, Rotherham Council created a local youth project, Risky Business, to work with girls and women aged 11–25 thought to be at risk of sexual exploitation on the streets. Jayne Senior, awarded an MBE for her role in uncovering the abuse, began working for Risky Business as a coordinator around July 1999.

Around 2001, Senior began to find evidence of what appeared to be a localised-grooming network. Most Risky Business clients had previously come from Sheffield, which had a red-light district; now the girls were younger and came from Rotherham. Girls as young as 10 were being befriended, perhaps by children their own age, before being passed to older men who would rape them and become their "boyfriends". Many of the girls were from troubled families, but not all. The children were given alcohol and drugs, then told they had to repay the "debt" by having sex with other men. The perpetrators obtained personal information about the girls and their families—where their parents worked, for example—which was used to threaten the girls if they tried to withdraw. According to Senior, Risky Business gathered so much information about the perpetrators that the police suggested she forward it to an electronic dropbox on the South Yorkshire Police computer network to protect the identity of Risky Business's sources. She later learned the police had not read the reports, and they could not be accessed by other forces. Risky Business was seen as a "nuisance" and shut down by the council in 2011.

Criminal proceedings and convictions

Operation Central (2010)

In 2008, South Yorkshire Police set up Operation Central to investigate the allegations. Eight men were tried at Sheffield Crown Court in October 2010 for sexual offences against girls aged 12–16. Four victims testified. Five men were convicted, including two brothers and a cousin. One of the brothers, Razwan Razaq, had a previous conviction for indecently assaulting a young girl in his car, and had breached a previous sexual offences prevention order. His brother Umar appealed against his sentence and was released after nine months. All five were placed on the sex offenders' register.

Operation Clover, trials (2015–2017)

Initial convictions (December 2015)

In August 2013, South Yorkshire Police set up Operation Clover to investigate historic cases of child sexual abuse in the town. Six men and two women were tried on 10 December 2015 at Sheffield Crown Court. Four were members of the Hussain family—three brothers and their uncle, Qurban Ali—named in Adele Weir's 2001 report. The Hussain family were said to have "owned" Rotherham. Ali owned a local minicab company, Speedline Taxis. One of the accused women had worked for Speedline as a radio operator. On 24 February 2016, Ali was convicted of conspiracy to rape and sentenced to 10 years.

Arshid "Mad Ash" Hussain, reportedly the ringleader, was jailed for 35 years. In late 2018, Arshid Hussain sought visitation rights for his child, who was conceived during a rape. Sammy Woodhouse, the child's mother started a petition to change the Children's Act 1989 to deny access rights to rapists. The petition obtained over 200,000 signatures. Basharat "Bash" Hussain was sentenced to 25 years, and was later also convicted of indecent assault and given an additional seven-year sentence, to run concurrently. Bannaras "Bono" Hussain was jailed for 19 years. The court heard that the police had once caught Bannaras Hussain abusing a victim in a car park next to Rotherham police station, but had not taken action. Two other men were acquitted, one of seven charges, including four rapes, and the second of one charge of indecent assault.

In November 2016, a fourth Hussain brother, Sageer Hussain, was jailed for 19 years for four counts of raping a 13-year-old girl and one indecent assault. The girl's family had reported the rapes at the time to police, their MP, and David Blunkett, the home secretary, to no avail. The police collected bags of clothes the girl had saved as evidence, but lost them two days later. The family was sent £140 compensation for the clothes and advised to drop the case. Unable to find anyone to help them, they moved to Spain for 18 months in 2005. After his brother, Arshid, was named in the media as a ringleader, Sageer attributed the abuse to girls wearing miniskirts, and blamed social services for having let the girls out in the first place. Two cousins of the Hussains, Asif Ali and Mohammed Whied, were convicted of rape and aiding and abetting rape, respectively. Four other men were jailed for rape or indecent assault.

Karen MacGregor and Shelley Davies were convicted of false imprisonment and conspiracy to procure prostitutes. MacGregor, who had worked as a radio operator at Speedline Taxis, was sentenced to 13 years. Davies was given an 18-month suspended sentence. MacGregor and Davies would befriend girls and take them back to MacGregor's home, where they bought them food, clothes, and alcohol. The girls were told to earn their keep by having sex with male visitors. MacGregor had even applied for charitable status for a local group she had set up, Kin Kids, to help the carers of troubled teenagers.

Eight men went on trial in September 2016 and were convicted on 17 October that year. In January 2017, six men, including three brothers, went on trial and were convicted of 21 offences relating to assaults on two girls, aged 12 and 13 when the abuse began, between 1999 and 2001. A rape by Basharat Dad was reported to the police in 2001 but he had been released without charge. One of the girls became pregnant at age 12. She had been raped by five men and did not know who the father was. DNA tests established that it was one of the defendants. In May 2017, another man was found guilty of sexual offences, bringing the total to 26.

Operation Stovewood (2014–present)

In December 2014, the National Crime Agency (NCA) set up Operation Stovewood to conduct a criminal inquiry, and to review South Yorkshire Police investigations in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. This followed the release of the Jay Report in August 2014 which found a number of failures by South Yorkshire Police. Similar failings were reported by the subsequent Drew report in March 2016. It had been described as the single largest law enforcement investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation and abuse in the UK. The NCA stopped taking on new investigations on 1 January 2024 after identifying more than 1,100 victims and hundreds of perpetrators in their nine-year investigation. Criminal cases are expected to be ongoing until 2027.

2017–2019

In November 2017, three men were convicted for the indecent assault of a girl under the age of 14 between June 1994 and June 1995, following a trial at Sheffield Crown Court. Asghar Bostan was convicted in February 2018, followed by Tony Chapman and a sixth man, both in May 2018. In 2018, five men were charged with a total of 21 offences, including rape and indecent assault against two girls under the age of sixteen between 2001 and 2004. The girls were groomed in and around the Meadowhall shopping centre when they were 12 or 13, and one of the accused had sex with a girl in the shopping complex. Three of the men were found not guilty on all counts. A fourth man absconded but was arrested in Bulgaria in November 2023 and extradited back to the UK.

In October 2018, taxi driver Darren Hyett was sentenced to nine years in prison for sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl. Later that month, seven men were convicted of sexual offences against five girls committed between 1998 and 2005, including two who raped a young girl in Sherwood Forest between August 2002 and 2003, giving her drugs and alcohol and threatening to abandon her if she did not comply with their demands. The girl became pregnant and decided to have an abortion. One girl said she had slept with 100 men by the time she was 16.

In August 2019, seven men were convicted for the sexual exploitation of seven teenage girls more than a decade previously. At least four were already in prison at the time of sentencing. Takeaway delivery driver Aftab Hussain was sentenced to 24 years for indecent assault after being jailed for 3 years and 4 months back in April 2016 after he admitted two counts of sexual activity with a child and attempted witness intimidation in another case. Masaued Malik was sentenced to 5 years after being previously sentenced to 15 years in September 2016 for similar offences. Mohammed Ashen pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault, and was already serving a 17-year sentence, reduced from 19 years, for murder after stabbing Kimberley Fuller in a Rotherham nightclub in 2005. He had previously been jailed for threatening a former partner with a knife. Waseem Khaliq was sentenced to 10 years in prison and then sentenced for a further 45 months after admitting three counts of witness intimidation. He also called the National Crime Agency control centre from prison to threaten two of the investigating officers.

Lord Nazir Ahmed (2022)

Nazir Ahmed, a Labour life peer and a former Rotherham councillor, came to the United Kingdom from Pakistan-administered Kashmir when he was 11. On 1 March 2019, Ahmed was charged with two offences of attempted rape and one offence of indecent assault between 1971 and 1974. The alleged victims were at the time a boy and a girl, both under the age of 13. The incidents reportedly took place between 1971 and 1974, while Ahmed was aged between 14 and 17 and living in Rotherham. On 5 January 2022 he was found guilty of attempted rape of a girl and of a serious sexual assault upon a boy, and was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

2023–2024

In November 2023, Neil Cawton was jailed for 10 years for offences against four girls between 2006 and 2012. In December 2023, Ishtiaq Khaliq was sentenced to a further 2 years after originally being jailed for 17 years in 2016; Khaliq assaulted his victim in the stairwell of a block of flats in Rotherham and stole her phone. In May 2024, Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar was jailed for a further 12 years after being jailed for 23 years in October 2018. In July 2024, Adam Ali, previously known as Razwan Razaq, was sentenced to 13 years for offences relating to two victims. Ali was jailed for 11 years in 2010 under Operation Central for similar offences. That same month, Neil King was found guilty of 17 sexual offences against a girl and her best friend at Sheffield Crown Court. King's girlfriend was charged alongside him, but died before her trial. He was jailed for 21 years,

In August 2024, David Saynor, 77, was jailed for 24 years for sexual offences against eight victims after picking them up from outside schools and care home in his stretched limousine. Seven men were convicted in September 2024 for sexual abuse of two girls in Rotherham after they were investigated under Operation Stovewood. Mohammed Amar, Mohammed Siyab, Yasser Ajaibe, Mohammed Zameer Sadiq were found guilty of assaulting one girl, while Tahir Yasin and Ramin Bari assaulted the other. Abid Saddiq, who abused both, had previously been found guilty in 2019. The two girls were aged aged 11 and 15 and were in the care system when the abuse started. That same month, Waleed Ali was convicted for raping a girl aged 14 around 2003 to 2004, when in his 20s. Ali had pulled the underage girl into a dark alleyway from the fountain area of Rotherham town centre. Ali has a previous conviction from Operation Clover in 2016 of raping a 13 year old girl in the same alleyway in 2003. That same month, Shahid Hussain a Pakistani national was given eight years and a deportation order for indecent assault against a girl aged 14 in 2003. Hussain was charged in 2018 alongside several other men who were all later found not guilty. Hussain fled to Bulgaria before the trial; he was later arrested and extradited back to the UK where he was convicted.

Civil proceedings

After his conviction, Asghar Bostan was ordered by the High Court to pay £425,000 in damages to his victim. The complainant, known only as Liz, started civil proceedings against her abuser in 2020 after she felt the justice system had failed to sufficiently punish her attacker. Her solicitor Robin Tilbrook described it as an "ice-breaker" case, which would allow "others to follow".

Ongoing legal proceedings

Criminal proceedings are ongoing and expected to continue until 2027. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said assumptions that abuse had fallen since high-profile cases in Rotherham and Rochdale were "flawed", and that children were still being sexually exploited in all parts of England and Wales in the "most degrading and destructive ways".

Reports and inquiries

Weir report (2001)

Home Office pilot study

In 2000, solicitor Adele Weir (later Gladman) was hired by Rotherham Council as a research and development officer on a Home Office Crime Reduction Programme pilot study, "Tackling Prostitution: What Works". A section of the study was devoted to "young people and prostitution", and would cover Bristol, Sheffield and Rotherham. Weir was employed to write the report on Rotherham. Researchers at the University of Bedfordshire, including the social scientist Margaret Melrose, were involved as Home Office evaluators. Weir's line manager was the manager of Risky Business, and she was placed in the Risky Business offices in Rotherham's International Centre, where she worked with Jayne Senior. According to Weir, she encountered "poor professional practice from an early stage" from the council and police; child protection issues were, in her view, "disregarded, dismissed or minimized".

Mapping exercise

In response to a complaint from police that evidence of child abuse in Rotherham was anecdotal, Weir compiled a 10-page mapping exercise in 2001, showing what appeared to be a local abuse network. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in 2014, she said she had found "a small number of suspected abusers who were well known to all significant services in Rotherham." Using material obtained by Risky Business, and from health services, social services, police records, a homelessness project, and substance-misuse services, Weir's report included names of suspects, car registration numbers, links to local businesses and people outside the area, and the relationships between the suspects and the girls. The suspects included members of the Hussain family, who were jailed in 2016. Weir estimated at that point that there were 270 victims.

Home Office report

Weir's report for the Home Office evaluators linked 54 abused children to the Hussain family, as of October 2001. Eighteen children had named one of those men, Arshid Hussain, then around 25, as their "boyfriend", and several had become pregnant. One girl got pregnant twice when she was 14. She said social workers had expressed concern for the baby but not for her; she said that they maintained her relationship with him was consensual. In February 2016, Arshid Hussain was convicted of multiple rapes and jailed for 35 years. The Weir report said that members of the family were "alleged to be responsible for much of the violent crime and drug dealing in the town". They used untraceable mobile phones, had access to expensive cars, were linked to a taxi firm, and may have been involved in bed-and-breakfast hotels that were used by social services for emergency accommodation. Several girls sent to those hotels had been offered money, as soon as they arrived, if they would have sex with several men. Other girls were targeted at train and bus stations.

Weir handed her report to South Yorkshire Police, but was told it was "unhelpful". According to the Jay Report, one incident was, for Weir, the "final straw". A victim decided to file a complaint with the police. The perpetrators had smashed her parents' windows and broken her brothers' legs to stop her from reporting the rapes. Weir took her to the police station, but the victim received a text from the perpetrator to say he had her 11-year-old sister with him, and it was "your choice". This led the victim to believe someone had told the perpetrator she was at the police station, and she decided not to proceed with the complaint. Following this, with the consent of her manager, Weir wrote in October 2001 to Mike Hedges, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, and to Christine Burbeary, the District Commander. The letter said:

I have been visiting agencies, encouraging them to relay information to the police. Their responses have been identical—they have ceased passing on information as they perceive this to be a waste of time. Parents also have ceased to make missing person reports, a precursor to any child abduction investigation, as the police response is often so inappropriate. ... Children are being left at risk and their abusers unapprehended.

The letter was not well received by the council or police. During a meeting at Rotherham police station with senior police and council officials, they seemed incensed that Weir had written to the Chief Constable. Jayne Senior, who was present, said Weir was subjected to a "tirade that lasted I don't know how long". According to Weir, at some point after this an official warned her against mentioning Asian men and booked a diversity training course for her.

Files removed

At their request, Weir sent her data to the Home Office evaluators in Bedfordshire in April 2002, which reportedly upset the Risky Business manager. On or around Monday, 18 April 2002, when she arrived at work, Weir discovered her Home Office pilot data had been removed from the filing cabinets in the Risky Business office over the weekend. According to Weir's evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, documents had been deleted, and someone had created, on the password-protected office computer, the minutes of meetings that Weir had purportedly attended, which showed her agreeing to certain conditions, such as not submitting data to Home Office evaluators without her line manager's consent. Weir told the committee that she had not agreed to those conditions or attended any such meeting; one of the meetings had taken place while she was on holiday overseas.

Weir was told that social services, the police and education staff had met over the weekend, and had decided that Risky Business staff were "exceeding roles". Weir was suspended for having included in her report data from confidential minutes, an "act of gross misconduct"; she managed to negotiate a return to work by demonstrating her manager had passed those minutes to the Home Office evaluators. She was told she would no longer have access to Risky Business data, meetings, or the girls. In June 2002 she was asked to amend her report to "anonymise individuals and institutions and only include facts and evidence that you are able to substantiate". The Jay Report found the secrecy surrounding the report and the treatment of Weir "deeply troubling": "If the senior people concerned had paid more attention to the content of the report, more might have been done to help children who were being violently exploited and abused."

Heal reports (2002–2006)

2002 report

In 2002–2007 South Yorkshire Police hired Angie Heal, a strategic drugs analyst, to carry out research on drug use and supply in the area. Working in the drug strategy unit with two police officers, Heal wrote several reports during this period. She first encountered examples of organised child sexual abuse in 2002 while researching the local supply of crack cocaine, and consulted Jayne Senior of Risky Business and Anne Lucas, the child exploitation service officer in Sheffield. Lucas explained that part of the grooming process was to give the children drugs. Heal's first report in 2002 recommended dealing with the child-abuse rings; if the evidence was lacking to prosecute for sex offences, they could be prosecuted for drugs offences instead. Heal wrote in 2017 that her report was widely read, but she "could not believe the complete lack of interest" in the links she had provided between the local drug trade and child abuse.

2003 report

Heal decided to continue researching the issue and included CSE in her bi-annual intelligence briefings. While Heal was preparing her second report, Sexual Exploitation, Drug Use and Drug Dealing: Current Situation in South Yorkshire (2003), Jayne Senior secretly shared with her Adele Weir's Home Office report from 2002. Heal wrote that she actually felt scared after she had read it, given the level of detail, the lack of interest, and the sidelining of Weir. Heal's 2003 report noted that Rotherham had a "significant number of girls and some boys who are being sexually exploited"; that the victims were being gang raped, kidnapped and subjected to other violence; that a significant number had become pregnant, and were depressed, angry and self-harming; and that Risky Business had identified four of the perpetrators as brothers. Heal created two versions of her report. One was for wider distribution among officials; the second, for the police alone, contained the names of the perpetrators, obtained from Risky Business.

2006 report

In 2005, a new department of children and young people's services was created, with Councillor Shaun Wright appointed cabinet member for the department. In March 2006, the conference "Every Child Matters, But Do They Know it?" was held in Rotherham to discuss children's sexual exploitation. Heal's third report, Violence and Gun Crime: Links with Sexual Exploitation, Prostitution and Drug Markets in South Yorkshire (2006), noted that the situation was continuing and involved "systematic physical and sexual violence against young women". The victims were being trafficked to other towns, and the violence used was "very severe". If the girls protested, the perpetrators threatened to involve the girls' younger sisters, friends and family. There had also been an increase in reports of the perpetrators being seen with guns.

In Heal's study, the majority of identified victims in Yorkshire were White British girls, targeted from age 11; the average age was 12–13. British Asian girls were also targeted, but even less was known about the number of Asian victims, because their abuse was not part of the same scene, and therefore poorly understood by researchers. The most significant group of perpetrators of localised grooming were British Asian men. Heal wrote that several employees dealing with the issue believed that the perpetrators' ethnicity was preventing the abuse from being addressed. One worker said that British-Asian taxi drivers in Rotherham had been involved for 30 years, but in the 1970s the crimes had not been organised. Heal added that a high-profile publicity campaign was underway about the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe, with posters in Doncaster Sheffield Airport, while the issue of local trafficking "appears to be largely ignored". The report recommended: "More emphasis should be placed on tackling the abusers, rather than the abused."

Heal sent her 2006 report to everyone involved in the Rotherham Drugs Partnership, and to the South Yorkshire Police district commander and chief superintendents. Shortly after this, according to the Jay report, Risky Business's funding was increased, and the council's Safeguarding Children Board approved an "Action Plan for responding to the sexual exploitation of children and young people in Rotherham". Heal said that, around this time, it became clear she was being sidelined. The drug strategy unit was disbanded, and she was told that several officers in her department were not supportive of her work. She has said the lack of support "will never fail to astonish and sadden" her. She left the South Yorkshire Police in March 2007. Her 2003 and 2006 reports were released by South Yorkshire Police in May 2015 following a Freedom of Information Act request.

Home Affairs Committee (2013–2014)

Initial hearing and report (2013)

The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee began hearing evidence about localised grooming in June 2012, as a result of the Rotherham convictions in 2010 (Operation Central), Andrew Norfolk's articles in the Times, and the Rochdale child sex abuse ring (Operation Span), which saw 12 men convicted in May 2012. The committee published its report, Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming, in June 2013, with a follow-up in October 2014 in response to the Jay report.

In October 2012 the committee criticised South Yorkshire's chief constable, David Crompton, and one of its senior officers, Philip Etheridge. The committee heard evidence that three members of a family connected with the abuse of 61 girls had not been charged, and no action was taken when a 22-year-old man was found in a car with a 12-year-old girl, with indecent images of her on his phone. Crompton said that "ethnic origin" was not a factor in deciding whether to charge suspects. The committee said that they were very concerned, as was the public. In January 2013 the committee summoned the head of Rotherham Council, Martin Kimber, to explain the lack of arrests, despite South Yorkshire Police saying it was conducting investigations and the council having identified 58 young girls at risk. committee chair, Keith Vaz, questioned why, after five Asian men were jailed in 2010, more was not done: "In Lancashire there were 100 prosecutions the year before last, in South Yorkshire there were no prosecutions." The council apologised for the "systemic failure" that had "let down" the victims.

During a hearing in September 2014 to discuss Rotherham, Vaz told Crompton that the committee was shocked by the evidence, and that it held South Yorkshire Police responsible. Asked about an incident in which a 13-year-old found in a flat with a group of men was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, Crompton said it would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Follow-up report (2014)

The committee's follow-up report on 18 October 2014 detailed the disappearance of Adele Weir's files containing data on the abuse from the Risky Business office in 2002. The allegations were made in private hearings. Keith Vaz said: "The proliferation of revelations about files which can no longer be located gives rise to public suspicion of a deliberate cover-up. The only way to address these concerns is with a full, transparent and urgent investigation." The report called for new legislation to allow the removal of elected Police and Crime Commissioners following a vote of no confidence.

Jay inquiry (2014)

Report

In October 2013, Rotherham Council commissioned Alexis Jay, a former chief social work adviser to the Scottish government, to conduct an independent inquiry into its handling of child-sexual-exploitation reports since 1997. Published on 26 August 2014, the Jay report said that, as a "conservative estimate", at least 1,400 children had been sexually exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. According to the report, children as young as 11 were "raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated". Taxi drivers commonly picked up children for sex from schools and care homes. The inquiry team found examples of extreme threats, violence and rape.

Sarah Champion, who in 2012 succeeded Denis MacShane as Labour MP for Rotherham, said "these children weren't seen as victims at all". According to the report, the police had shown a lack of respect for the victims in the early 2000s, deeming them "undesirables" unworthy of police protection. The concerns of Jayne Senior, the former youth worker, were met with "indifference and scorn". Several council staff described themselves as being nervous about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist, since most were of Pakistani heritage; others, the report said, "remembered clear direction from their managers" not to make such identification.

The report noted the experience of Adele Weir, the Home Office researcher, who attempted to raise concerns about the abuse with senior police officers in 2002; she was told not to do so again, and was subsequently sidelined. In some instances, fathers who had tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being abused were themselves arrested by police. Staff described Rotherham Council as macho, sexist and bullying. There were sexist and harassing comments to female employees, particularly during 1997–2009.

Resignations and suspensions

Following the Jay Report, the Labour leader of Rotherham Council and its chief executive both resigned. The council's director of children's services, and the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire Police from 2012 stepped down in September 2014, under pressure. Several others also resigned. Malcolm Newsam was appointed as Children's Social Care Commissioner in October 2014, and subsequently Ian Thomas was appointed as interim director of children's services.

Reception

The Jay Report received extensive news coverage. In response, David Crompton, Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police from 2012 to 2016, invited the National Crime Agency to conduct an independent inquiry. Keith Vaz, then chair of the Home Affairs Committee, told Meredydd Hughes, Chief Constable from 2004 to 2011, that Hughes had failed abuse victims. Theresa May, then Home Secretary, accused the authorities of a "dereliction of duty".}} Simon Danczuk, Labour MP for Rochdale, where similar cases were prosecuted, argued that ethnicity, class and the night-time economy were all factors, adding that "a very small minority" in the Asian community have an unhealthy view of women.

British Muslims and members of the British-Pakistani community condemned both the abuse and that it had been covered up. Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for North West England from 2011 to 2015, made the decision in 2011 to prosecute the Rochdale child sex abuse ring after the CPS had turned the case down. Responding to the Jay Report, he said the abuse had no basis in Islam, and said, "It is not the abusers' race that defines them. It is their attitude to women that defines them."

Casey inquiry (2015)

Following the Jay Report, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, commissioned an independent inspection of Rotherham Council. Led by Louise Casey, director-general of the government's Troubled Families programme, the inspection examined the council's governance, services for children and young people, and taxi and private-hire licensing. Published in February 2015, the Casey Report concluded that Rotherham Council was "not fit for purpose". Casey identified a culture of "bullying, sexism ... and misplaced 'political correctness'", along with a history of covering up information and silencing whistleblowers. The child sexual exploitation team was poorly directed, had excessive case loads, and did not share information. The council had a history of failing to deal with issues around race: "Staff perceived that there was only a small step between mentioning the ethnicity of perpetrators and being labelled a racist." The Pakistani-heritage councillors were left to deal with all issues pertaining to that community, which left them able to exert disproportionate influence, while white councillors ignored their responsibilities. Councillor Jahangir Akhtar, in particular, was named as too influential, including regarding police matters. In February 2015, the government replaced its elected officers with a team of five commissioners, including one tasked specifically with looking at children's services. Files relating to one current and one former councillor identifying "a number of potentially criminal matters" were passed to the National Crime Agency. The leader of the council, Paul Lakin, resigned, and members of the council cabinet also stood down.

Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation (2020)

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) began an investigation into allegations of police wrongdoing following the Jay Report. It was the second-largest inquiry the IPCC had undertaken after the inquiry into the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster in Sheffield. As of March 2017, nine inquiries were complete, with no case to answer regarding officer conduct, but recommendations were made to the force about the recording of information. Another 53 investigations were underway.

According to Andrew Norfolk, one Rotherham police officer had been in regular contact with one of the perpetrators. In one incident in March 2000, he and a local taxi driver—who later became a Rotherham councillor—are alleged to have arranged for Arshid Hussain to hand a girl over to police at a petrol station "in exchange for immunity". Another complaint concerned the same officer, who reportedly asked two of the victims out on a date. One victim reported this to police in August 2013, but no action was taken. The IPCC also investigated the officer who failed to act on the report. The first officer died in January 2015 after being hit by a car in Sheffield, in an unrelated accident.

A five-year investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said that the Rotherham police ignored the sexual abuse of children for decades for fear of increasing racial tensions. The IOPC upheld a complaint from the father of one of the victims that police took "insufficient action". The complainant says he was told by a police officer the town "would erupt" if it became known that South Asian men were sexually abusing underage girls.

Home Office Report (2020)

The Rotherham case was among several cases which prompted investigations into the claim that the majority of perpetrators from grooming gangs were British Pakistani. The first, by Quilliam, was published in December 2017, and claimed 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage. This report was criticised by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail in a scholarly paper in January 2020. A further investigation was carried out by the British government in December 2020. The Home Office investigation suggested the majority of child sexual exploitation gangs were, in fact, composed of white men and not British Pakistani men.

"Beyond specific high-profile cases, the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending. Research has found that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly White. Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending. This is due to issues such as data quality problems, the way the samples were selected in studies, and the potential for bias and inaccuracies in the way that ethnicity data is collected"; the report also added "Based on the existing evidence, and our understanding of the flaws in the existing data, it seems most likely that the ethnicity of group-based CSE offenders is in line with CSA more generally and with the general population, with the majority of offenders being White".

Writing in The Guardian, Cockbain and Tufail wrote of the report that "The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim". In the foreword to the Report, the Home Secretary Priti Patel stated that: "Some studies have indicated an over-representation of Asian and Black offenders. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders as existing research is limited and data collection is poor. This is disappointing because community and cultural factors are clearly relevant to understanding and tackling offending." A 2020 report by CEOP indicated that in the records of defendants prosecuted for child sexual abuse offences, Asians were actually underrepresented among the child sexual abuse offenders in the country.

The Times investigation

Background

Andrew Norfolk of The Times first wrote about localised grooming in 2003, after moving from London to Leeds, when he wrote a brief story about the Keighley child sex abuse ring. Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, had complained that "Asian men" were targeting teenage girls outside schools, while parents alleged that police and social services were declining to act. From then until 2010, Norfolk heard of court cases in northern England and the Midlands reporting a similar pattern. Court records showed 17 cases of localised grooming in 13 northern towns since 1997 (14 since 2008) in which 56 men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 11–16. Norfolk interviewed two of the affected families, and in January 2011 the first of a series of stories appeared over four pages in The Times, accompanied by an editorial, "Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs". Norfolk said to the Home Affairs Committee in 2013 that council staff and senior police officers called him to thank him. He said one director of children's services told him: "My staff are jumping for joy in the office today because finally somebody has said what we have not felt able to say."

Murder of Laura Wilson

In 2012, Rotherham Council applied to the High Court of Justice for an injunction to stop Norfolk publishing an unredacted version of a serious case review written after the murder of a local girl, Laura Wilson. Known in the review as "Child S", Wilson was 17 when, in October 2010, she was stabbed 40 times and thrown in the canal by her 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, Ashtiaq Asghar in an act the police called an "honour killing". She had had a baby four months earlier by a 21-year-old married man. The families of the men, both of Pakistani heritage, had reportedly been unaware of the relationships and the child. Tired of being a secret, Wilson decided to tell them. Days later, the ex-boyfriend murdered her. At trial, the older man was acquitted, and Asghar was jailed for 17 years and six months.

Assessed as having an IQ of 56 and a reading and spelling age of 6, Wilson had been the target of localised grooming from at least age 11. The council had referred her to Risky Business three months after her 11th birthday, and when she was 13, Wilson and her family had appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show to discuss children who were out of control. She had also been mentioned in the 2009 criminal inquiry that led to the first five convictions arising out of localised grooming in Rotherham. Laura Wilson's younger sister, Sarah, was also groomed by Pakistani men from the age of eleven to seventeen. She was supplied with vodka and cocaine, forced to engage in sex with multiple men on a daily basis, and later trafficked across England.

After Wilson's murder, the government ordered the council to publish its serious case review. It was published with passages redacted on 61 of its 144 pages. Norfolk obtained an unredacted version, and found that the council had hidden the men's ethnicity, Wilson's mention during the 2009 criminal inquiry, and the extent of the council's involvement in her care. Michael Gove, then education secretary, accused the council in June 2012 of withholding "relevant and important material". Subsequently, the council withdrew its legal action, and Norfolk published the story.

September 2012

On 24 September 2012, Norfolk wrote that the abuse in Rotherham was much more widespread than acknowledged, and that the police had been aware of it for over a decade. His article was based on 200 leaked documents, some from Jayne Senior, such as case files and letters from police and social services. The documents included Adele Weir's 2001 report for the Home Office, which linked 54 abused children to the Hussain family; 18 of the children had called Arshid Hussain their "boyfriend". Cases highlighted by Norfolk included that of a 15-year-old having a broken bottle inserted into her; a 14-year-old being held in a flat and forced to have sex with five men; and a 13-year-old girl, "with disrupted clothing", found by police in a house at 3 am with a group of men who had given her vodka. After a neighbour called the police after hearing the girl scream, the girl was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, but the men were not questioned.

The newspaper cited a 2010 report by the police intelligence bureau that said, locally and nationally, and particularly in Sheffield and Rotherham, "there appears to be a significant problem with networks of Asian males exploiting young white females". South Yorkshire children were being trafficked to Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Dover, Manchester, and elsewhere, according to the police report. A document from Rotherham's Safeguarding Children Board reported that the crimes had "cultural characteristics ... which are locally sensitive in terms of diversity":

There are sensitivities of ethnicity with potential to endanger the harmony of community relationships. Great care will be taken in drafting ...this report to ensure that its findings embrace Rotherham's qualities of diversity. It is imperative that suggestions of a wider cultural phenomenon are avoided.

In August 2013, Norfolk published the story of a 15-year-old Rotherham girl, later revealed to be Sammy Woodhouse, who had been described in Adele Weir's report in 2001, and who was allowed by social services to maintain contact with Arshid Hussain, despite having been placed in care by her parents to protect her from him. Hussain was jailed in 2016 for 35 years. The girl had been made pregnant twice. According to the Times, one of those "aware of the relationship" was Jahangir Akhtar, then Rotherham Council's deputy leader and reportedly a relative of Hussain's. He resigned but denied knowledge of the relationship. Akhtar was one of the officials later described in the Casey report as wielding considerable influence on the council and reportedly known for shutting down discussion about the sexual abuse. Shortly after publication of the Times story, Rotherham Council commissioned the Jay inquiry.

Ethnic, religious and cultural factors

The Jay Report (2014) estimated there were at least 1,400 victims in Rotherham. While it did not specify the ethnicity of the victims or the perpetrators, it said: "In a large number of the historic cases in particular, most of the victims in the cases we sampled were white British children, and the majority of the perpetrators were from minority ethnic communities." Operation Stovewood reported that most victims were white girls and about 80% of perpetrators were males of Pakistani heritage. The Jay Report also described other, less investigated cases in which Asian women and girls were the primary victims, despite the belief that the victims were only white. Social isolation and fear of dishonour prevented Asian victims from coming forward. The report further said that "there is no simple link between race and child sexual exploitation, and across the UK the greatest numbers of perpetrators of CSE are white men". The ethnicity of offenders has also increased community tensions and led to far-right marches and violence in the town. An 81-year-old man was murdered by two white men who called him a "groomer" as they attacked him.

Underreporting due to ethnicity, religion or culture

According to the Muslim Women's Network UK, Asian victims may be particularly vulnerable to threats of bringing shame and dishonour to their families, and may have believed that reporting the abuse would be an admission they had violated their cultural beliefs. One of the local Pakistani women's groups had described Pakistani girls being targeted by Pakistani taxi drivers and landlords, but they feared reporting to the police out of concerns for their marriage prospects. The report suggested "the under-reporting of exploitation and abuse in minority ethnic communities" should be addressed.

In response to claims that social services had failed to act through political correctness, the Jay Report "found no evidence of children's social care staff being influenced by concerns about the ethnic origins of suspected perpetrators when dealing with individual child protection cases, including CSE". In 2021, an investigation by the Times suggested South Yorkshire Police was not routinely recording the ethnicity of child sexual abuse suspects. In Rotherham, police omitted suspect ethnicity in 67% of cases. The force said it had increased reporting of ethnicity since 2019.

See also

• Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom
• Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
• Aylesbury child sex abuse ring
• Banbury child sex abuse ring
• Bristol child sex abuse ring
• Derby child sex abuse ring
• Halifax child sex abuse ring
• Huddersfield grooming gang
• Keighley child sex abuse ring
• Manchester child sex abuse ring
• Newcastle sex abuse ring
• North Wales child abuse scandal
• Oulu child sexual exploitation scandal
• Oxford child sex abuse ring
• Peterborough sex abuse case
• Rochdale child sex abuse ring
• Telford child sexual exploitation scandal
• List of sexual abuses perpetrated by groups

• Yorkshire

Notes

1. Andrew Norfolk began investigating in 2010. The first of his articles appeared over four pages in The Times in January 2011, accompanied by an editorial.Andrew Norfolk (The Times, 24 September 2012): "Confidential police reports and intelligence files ... show that for more than a decade organised groups of men were able to groom, pimp and traffic girls across the country with virtual impunity. Offenders were identified to police but not prosecuted."
2. Other towns within the borough are Dinnington, Laughton, Maltby, Rawmarsh, Swinton, and Wath-upon-Dearne.
3. One Labour insider told The Guardian in 2012: "The Rotherham political class is male, male, male."
4. The Home Affairs Committee defined localised grooming as "a model of child sexual exploitation in which a group of abusers target vulnerable children, including, but not confined to, those who are looked after by a local authority. The group typically makes initial contact with the victims in a public place such as a park, cinema, on the street or at a friend's house. The children are offered gifts and treats—takeaway food, sweets, cigarettes, alcohol or drugs—in exchange for sex, sometimes with dozens of men on the same occasion. There will often be occasions where they are missing from home although such times may be less than 24 hours. The children sometimes identify one offender as a 'boyfriend', and might regard the sexual abuse by multiple offenders as 'normal'. The gangs sometimes use younger men or boys to make the initial approach, reinforcing the misapprehension that the children are involved in consensual relationships with partners of a similar age. In a number of cases, victims are internally trafficked within the UK, being taken to other towns for the express purpose of being 'given' or 'sold' for sexual exploitation."
5. Janice Turner (The Times, 19 March 2016): "The older men made them feel special with presents and questions about their lives. The girls—trusting, guileless children—would reveal where their parents worked, all about their friends and pets, where their granny lived. ... Once the girl was ensnared, this attentive boyfriend would turn nasty. He'd say he needed money, the girl must repay drinks and presents with favours. She must sleep with his friend, or brother, come to a certain house ... The beatings would start, then the threats. "Tell anyone and we'll hurt your mum. You told us where she lives ..." One girl said: "They used to follow my mum because they used to know when she went shopping, what time she had been shopping, where she had gone." A 15-year-old was told she was "one bullet" away from death. Girls were doused in petrol and told they were about to die. When she told her "pimp" that she was pregnant and did not know who the father was, one 15-year-old was beaten unconscious with a clawhammer. A 12-year-old with a 24-year-old "boyfriend" had a mother who invited the perpetrators into the family home, where the girl would give the men oral sex for 10 cigarettes.
6. "The biggest part of the problem you have these days is these young girls, that are dressed up, i.e. miniskirts, stuff like that, they're going into the clubs, and they're ending up going with blokes, and stuff like that, and they're waking up next morning, and they scream rape. Or groomed."
7. According to Weir: "She said you must never refer to that again. You must never refer to Asian men. And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues.
8. Adele Weir (in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, 2014): "I was told that over the weekend somebody had gained access to the Risky Business office, opened the filing cabinets and removed all of the data relating to the Home Office work. To be clear to the committee that involved accessing the grounds of the International Centre; gaining access to the Centre itself; disarming the alarm; moving through a key coded and locked security door; unlocking the door to the part of the building where the project office was located; unlocking the door to the project office itself; unlocking a desk and finding the keys to the filing cabinets; identifying which filing cabinet had my Home Office pilot data in it; and removing my data but nothing else. There were no signs of a forced entry."
9. Jayne Senior (2016) said that a police officer told her: "We've been told we have to take this down the honour-killing route. We can't mention anything to do with CSE in this investigation."

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114. "Rotherham child groomer murdered teenage girl in nightclub". www.rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
115. "Rotherham child abuser trolled his victim online – National Crime Agency". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
116. "Parents' relief as killer jailed". 23 March 2006. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
117. "Seventh man convicted of Rotherham child sex abuse". 29 August 2019. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
118. "Rotherham child groomer murdered teenage girl in nightclub". www.rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
119. "Rotherham child abuser trolled his victim online – National Crime Agency". www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
120. Anasudhin Azeez, Andrew Norfolk (1 March 2019). "Controversial peer Lord Ahmed charged with child sex offences". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
121. Syal, Rajeev (19 March 2019). "Lord Ahmed appears in court charged with child sexual offences". The Guardian.
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123. "Lord Ahmed: Ex-Labour peer jailed for child sex offences". BBC News. 4 February 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
124. "Rotherham man jailed for 10 years for child sex offences". BBC News. 23 November 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
125. "Rotherham paedophile Ishtiaq Khaliq has jail sentence extended". BBC News. 14 December 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
126. "Rotherham child sex abuse ringleader handed further sentence". BBC News. 24 May 2024. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
127. "Rotherham ex-taxi driver who sexually abused girls jailed again". BBC News. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
128. "Rotherham: Child abuse trial begins but woman dies before it". BBC News. 15 July 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
129. "Rotherham child abuser Neil King jailed for 21 years". BBC News. 20 September 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
130. "Rotherham limousine rapist David Saynor who abused girls jailed". BBC News. 15 August 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
131. "Seven men jailed for abusing girls". BBC. 13 September 2024.
132. "Operation Stovewood Man jailed for rape in alleyway 21 years ago". NCA. 14 September 2024.
133. "Child sex offender who fled abroad jailed". BBC News. 24 September 2024. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
134. "Rotherham grooming survivor awarded £425k after suing rapist". BBC News. 27 March 2023. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
135. "Grooming gangs still sexually abusing children across country in 'most degrading and destructive ways'". Independent. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
136. Hester & Westmarland 2004.
137. ^ Weir 2014, ¶ 2.
138. Jay 2014, 83–84.
139. Hester & Westmarland 2004, 4.
140. Hester & Westmarland 2004, 3.
141. ^ Home Affairs Committee (c) 2014, 5.
142. Senior 2016, 96.
143. Weir 2014, ¶ 5.
144. Weir 2014, ¶ 4.
145. Senior 2016, 97–98.
146. Weir 2014, ¶ 6.
147. Senior 2016, 98–99.
148. ^ "Rotherham abuse: Researcher 'faced council hostility'". BBC News. 1 September 2014. "The Rotherham Grooming Scandal", Panorama, BBC, 1 September 2014, 00:10:15.

     Tom Brooks-Pollock (2 September 2014). "Rotherham researcher 'sent on diversity course' after raising alarm", The Daily Telegraph.

149. ^ Weir 2002, 6.
150. Bethan Bell, "Rotherham abuse: Hussain brothers 'were infamous'", BBC News, 24 February 2016.
151. "The Rotherham Grooming Scandal", Panorama, BBC, 1 September 2014, 00:06:27.
152. "Hussain brothers jailed in Rotherham abuse case", BBC News, 26 February 2016.
153. Weir 2002.
154. ^ Senior 2016, 102.
155. Jay 2014, 85.
156. ^ Jay 2014, 86.
157. Weir 2001.
158. Senior 2016, 103.
159. Senior 2016, 105–108.
160. ^ Senior 2016, 106.
161. Weir 2014, ¶ 14.
162. Weir 2014, ¶ 15.
163. ^ Home Affairs Committee (c) 2014, 5–6.
164. Senior 2016, 109–116.
165. ^ "Rotherham abuse scandal: MPs want missing files answers". BBC News. 18 October 2014.
166. Norfolk, Andrew (9 January 2013). "MPs seek hidden files on Rotherham sex-grooming". The Times.
167. Andrew Norfolk and Billy Kenber (29 August 2014). "Rotherham 'seized files in grooming cover up'", The Times.
168. Williams, Martin (1 September 2014). "Home Office worker investigating Rotherham child abuse 'had data stolen'". The Guardian.
169. Harley, Nicky (29 August 2014). "Scandal hit Rotherham 'deleted abuse files'". The Daily Telegraph.
170. Weir 2014, ¶ 16.
171. ^ Weir 2014, ¶ 26–27.
172. ^ Jay 2014, 87.
173. Also see "Interview with Hilary Willmer", (Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation), Channel 4 News, 1 September 2014.
174. Gladman & Heal 2017, 24.
175. Gladman & Heal 2017, 27.
176. ^ Gladman & Heal 2017, 24–25.
177. Gladman & Heal 2017, 26.
178. ^ Heal 2003.
179. Jay 2014, 88.
180. Heal 2014.
181. Chris Burn (5 May 2015). "Exclusive: South Yorkshire Police given list of key Sheffield and Rotherham abuse suspects in 2003" Archived 26 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Star (Rotherham).
182. ^ "Rotherham abuse warning reports released", BBC News, 5 May 2015.
183. ^ Jay 2014, 9.
184. Heal 2006, 10–11.
185. Heal 2006, 12.
186. Heal 2006, 14, 16–17.
187. Jay 2014, 88–89.
188. ^ Heal 2006, 18.
189. Gladman & Heal 2017, 27–28.
190. Heal 2006.
191. Home Affairs Committee (a) 2013, 3–4, 19.
192. ^ "South Yorkshire Police 'must get a grip' on child abuse". BBC News. 16 October 2012.
193. ^ "Rotherham council apologises to child grooming victims". BBC News. 8 January 2013.
194. "Ex Rotherham police chief 'failed' abuse victims", BBC News, 9 September 2014.
195. "Alexis Jay will lead child abuse failings probe at Rotherham". BBC News. 1 November 2013.
196. Jay 2014, 29–30.
197. ^ Jay 2014, 35.
198. ^ Peachey, Paul (26 August 2014). "Rotherham child abuse report finds 1,400 children subjected to 'appalling' sexual exploitation within 16-year period". The Independent.
199. Jay 2014, 71–74.
200. Khaleeli, Homa (3 September 2014). "Rotherham: 'It's sad that it's taken something so horrific to give voice to these girls'". The Guardian.
201. Jay 2014, 36.
202. "Rotherham child abuse scandal: 1,400 children exploited, report finds". BBC News. 26 August 2014.
203. Jay 2014, 69.
204. Coker, Margaret; Flynn, Alexis (22 May 2015). "One Woman's Crusade for U.K. Town's Young Rape Victims". Wall Street Journal.
205. "Charity worker who fought to expose Rotherham child abuse to work for victims". The Yorkshire Post. 14 October 2014. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
206. Becky Johnson, "'Horrific' cases of child abuse in Rotherham", Sky News, 26 August 2014.
207. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". The Economist. 30 August 2014. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 1 January 2025.
208. Jay 2014, 114–115.
209. "Rotherham child abuse: Martin Kimber, council chief exec, to step down". BBC News. 8 September 2014.
210. Pidd, Helen (27 August 2014). "Shaun Wright's record in Rotherham comes under uncomfortable scrutiny". The Guardian. "PCC Shaun Wright resigns over Rotherham child abuse scandal". BBC News. 16 September 2014.

     "Rotherham abuse scandal: Children's services director Joyce Thacker quits". BBC News. 19 September 2014.

211. "Labour party members suspended over abuse scandal". ITV News. 2 September 2014.
212. Rotherham BC, "Rotherham Borough Council's response to Department of Education announcement" Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine, 7 October 2014.
213. Pidd, Helen (17 December 2014). "Incoming Rotherham children's chief: 'It's the most difficult job in Britain'". The Guardian.
214. Boyd 2015, 7–8.
215. "Ex Rotherham police chief 'failed' abuse victims". BBC News. 9 September 2014.
216. Theresa May (2 September 2014). "Child Sex Abuse (Rotherham)", Hansard, vol. 585.
217. Chakelian, Anoosh (28 August 2014). "How have MPs dealt with cases like the Rotherham child abuse scandal in the past?". New Statesman.
218. Bingham, John (31 August 2014). "Rotherham: politics 'imported from Pakistan' fuelled sex abuse cover-up – MP". The Daily Telegraph.
219. Trevor Grundy (28 August 2014). "Political correctness about Muslims may have led UK officials to ignore reports of sex abuse", The Washington Post.

     "Real or imagined: Racism 'fear' over Rotherham child abuse". BBC News. 27 August 2014.

220. Wertheimer, Fay (21 November 2012). "Nazir Afzal: how the CPS plans to bring more child abusers to justice". The Guardian.
221. ^ Gentleman, Amelia (3 September 2014). "Nazir Afzal: 'There is no religious basis for the abuse in Rotherham'". The Guardian.
222. "Rotherham Council to be subject of independent inspection". BBC News. 10 September 2014.
223. Casey 2015, 9.
224. Casey 2015, 9, 11.
225. Casey 2015, 34.
226. Casey 2015, 32–34.
227. ^ "Government in Rotherham Council takeover after abuse inquiry". BBC News. 4 February 2015.
228. "IPCC begins concluding some Rotherham CSA investigations" Archived 6 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine, IPCC, 8 March 2017.

     Nazia Parveen (9 March 2017). "Rotherham sexual abuse scandal: no misconduct found so far, IPCC says", The Guardian.

229. Andrew Norfolk (16 January 2016). "Rotherham boss 'helped broker deal over girl'", The Times.

     Andrew Norfolk (5 February 2015). "Rotherham: politicians and police 'abused girls'", The Times.

230. Lisa O'Carroll and Josh Halliday (25 February 2016). "How a Rotherham gang with history of criminality abused vulnerable girls", The Guardian.
231. ^ "Rotherham Pc implicated in child sex scandal dies after car crash", The Yorkshire Post, 6 February 2015. Martin Evans (6 February 2015). "PC under investigation over Rotherham sex abuse scandal dies in crash", The Daily Telegraph.

     "Man cleared over Rotherham PC's car crash death", BBC News, 17 February 2017.

232. Andrew Norfolk (19 December 2015). "Rotherham detective had sex with girls, grooming trial told", The Times, 19 December 2015.
233. Chief Investigative Reporter, Andrew Norfolk (18 January 2020). "Rotherham police chief: we ignored sex abuse of children". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
234. "Rotherham child sex abuse victim 'vindicated'". BBC News. 18 January 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
235. "Rotherham police did not do enough to protect girls from abuse by Asian men, says watchdog". The Telegraph. Press Association. 18 January 2020. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
236. Barnes, Tom (10 December 2017). "British-Pakistani researchers say grooming gangs are 84% Asian". The Independent. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
237. Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (2020). "Failing victims, fuelling hate: Challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative". Race & Class. 61 (3): 3–32. doi:10.1177/0306396819895727. S2CID 214197388.
238. Kenan Malik (11 November 2018). We're told 84% of grooming gangs are Asian. But where's the evidence?. The Guardian. Archived Version. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
239. ^ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation – Characteristics of Offending" (PDF). Home Office. December 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
240. ^ Grierson, Jamie (15 December 2020). "Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men, Home Office report says". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
241. Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (19 December 2020). "A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a 'Muslim problem'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
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243. "The 17 cases identified by The Times which showed a pattern of exploitation", The Times, 5 January 2011.
244. "Child protection squad will investigate patterns of sex abuse", The Times, 31 January 2011.
245. Home Affairs Committee (b) 2013, 80–81.
246. ^ Andrew Norfolk (7 June 2012). "Officials hid vital facts about men suspected of grooming girl for sex", The Times.

     Andres Norfolk (7 June 2012). "A case of moral cowardice", The Times.

247. Jay 2014, 102.
248. ^ "Teenager is 'first' white victim of honour killing ", The Daily Telegraph, 17 March 2012.
249. Senior 2016, 221.
250. "Laura Wilson murder: Rotherham children's board reports", BBC News, 29 May 2012.

     For length of sentence: Lizze Dearden (30 August 2014). "Rotherham abuse scandal: Authorities' decisions to take away babies born to abused girls caused yet more suffering", The Independent.

251. Cantrill 2011, 54.
252. Andrew Norfolk (2 December 2011). "Murdered girl was victim of Pakistani sex grooming gang", The Times.
253. Hollington 2013, 227.
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255. "'They Don't Scare Me Now'". The Big Issue. 21 August 2015. Retrieved 14 January 2025.
256. "The true horror of the Rotherham grooming scandal – and the shameful failure to stop it". The Telegraph. 13 January 2025.
257. "South Yorkshire Police deny hiding girls' sex abuse". BBC News. 24 September 2012.
258. Norfolk, Andrew (28 November 2018). "Rotherham rape victim reveals new care scandal". The Times. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
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260. "Rotherham councillor Jahangir Akhtar steps down over claims", BBC News, 13 August 2013.
261. Casey 2015, 29, 36.
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264. Jay 2014, p. 94
265. Jay 2014, p. 94
266. Jay 2014, 91,94.
267. Topping, Alexandra (10 September 2013). "Abuse of Asian girls missed because of focus on white victims, says report". The Guardian.
268. Shabnam Mahmood (24 November 2014). "Yorkshire Muslim girl speaks of grooming ordeal". BBC News. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
269. Khaleeli, Homa (3 September 2014). "Rotherham: 'It's sad that it's taken something so horrific to give voice to these girls'". The Guardian.
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271. Jay 2014, p. 91.
272. "Rotherham grooming: South Yorkshire Police not recording ethnicity". BBC News. 30 December 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2023.

Works cited

The article cites the following books and reports. All other sources are listed in the References section only.

• Boyd, Iain (July 2015). "Being Heard: A Thematic Analysis of the Newspaper Media Response to the Jay Report and the Rotherham Child Abuse Scandal" (PDF). University of Hertfordshire.
• Cantrill, Pat (April 2011). Serious Case Review Overview Report. In respect of: Child S (PDF). Rotherham: Rotherham Borough Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 August 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2017.
• Casey, Louise (4 February 2015). Report of Inspection of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (PDF). London: Department for Communities and Local Government. ISBN 978-1-4741-1507-0.
• Drew, John (23 March 2016). An independent review of South Yorkshire Police's handling of child sexual exploitation 1997–2016 (PDF). drewreview.uk.
• Gladman, Adele; Heal, Angie (2017). Child Sexual Exploitation After Rotherham. London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher. ISBN 978-1-7845-0276-8.
• Heal, Angie (August 2003). Sexual Exploitation, Drug Use and Drug Dealing: The Current Situation in South Yorkshire (PDF). London: Local Government Chronicle.
• Heal, Angie (March 2006). A Problem Profile—Violence and Gun Crime: Links with Sexual Exploitation, Prostitution and Drug Markets in South Yorkshire (PDF). London: Local Government Chronicle.
• Heal, Angie (9 September 2014). "Supplementary written evidence submitted by Dr Angie Heal" (PDF). London: House of Commons Home Affairs Committee.
• Hester, Marianne; Westmarland, Nicole (2004). Tackling Street Prostitution: Towards an holistic approach (PDF). London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. ISBN 1844733068. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 April 2017. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
• Hollington, Kris (2013). Unthinkable: The Shocking Scandal of the UK Sex Traffickers. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-47111-455-7.
• Home Affairs Committee (a) (10 June 2013). Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 1 (PDF). London: House of Commons, The Stationery Office Limited.
• Home Affairs Committee (b) (12 June 2013). Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 2 (PDF). London: House of Commons, The Stationery Office Limited.
• Home Affairs Committee (c) (15 October 2014). Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming: follow-up. Sixth Report of Session 2014–15 (PDF). London: House of Commons, The Stationery Office Limited.
• Jay, Alexis (21 August 2014). Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997–2013). Rotherham: Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.
• Senior, Jayne (2016). Broken and Betrayed: The true story of the Rotherham abuse scandal by the woman who fought to expose it. London: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9781509801619.
• Weir, Adele (23 October 2001). "Letter" (PDF). London: House of Commons, The Stationery Office Ltd.
• Weir, Adele (2002). "Chapter Four: Key Achievements of the Home Office Pilot" (PDF). Home Affairs Committee. (This draft document shows the anonymised evaluation results of Adele Weir's 2000–2002 Home Office pilot study in Rotherham. Risky Business is referred to as the "Project". The reports about other towns in the pilot study were published, but the Rotherham chapter was not. It was first published in 2014 as part of the Jay report and again by the Home Affairs Committee.)
• Weir, Adele (15 October 2014). "Summary of evidence to Home Affairs Committee". London: House of Commons, The Stationery Office Ltd.
• Wilson, Sarah; McKelvie, Geraldine (2015). Violated: A Shocking and Harrowing Survival Story from the Notorious Rotherham Abuse Scandal. London: Harper Element. ISBN 978-00081-4126-4.

Further reading

Home Affairs Committee

• Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 1, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. London: The Stationery Office Limited, 10 June 2013.
• Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 2, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. London: The Stationery Office Limited, 12 June 2013.
• Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming: follow-up. Sixth Report of Session 2014–15, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. London: The Stationery Office Limited, 15 October 2014.

Miscellaneous

• "Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs", The Times (editorial), 5 January 2011.
• "Rotherham child abuse scandal: The background to the report". BBC News. 26 August 2014.
• Ahmed, Samira (27 August 2014). "We shouldn't turn a blind eye to race over the Rotherham abuse scandal". The Guardian.
• Phillip, Abby (27 August 2014). "Report reveals the horrors of 1,400 sexually abused children in a British town and the system that failed them", The Washington Post.
• Talbot, Margaret (4 September 2014). "An Old Contempt in Rotherham", The New Yorker.
• Flanagin, Jake (4 September 2014). "How Rotherham Happened", The New York Times.
• Douthat, Ross (6 September 2014). "Rape and Rotherham", The New York Times.
• "Too many in Rotherham turned a blind eye to child abuse", The Washington Post (editorial board), 15 September 2014.
• Coker, Margaret; Flynn, Alexis (22 May 2015). "One Woman's Crusade for U.K. Town's Young Rape Victims". The Wall Street Journal.
• Wilson, Sarah, with Geraldine McKelvie (2015). Violated: A Shocking and Harrowing Survival Story from the Notorious Rotherham Abuse Scandal. London: Harper Element. ISBN 978-00081-4126-4
• "Op Stovewood: Victims get justice after another six men guilty of sexually abusing young girls in Rotherham Archived 28 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine" (28 August 2019), National Crime Agency

• 2000s in South Yorkshire
• 2014 in England
• 2014 scandals
• Child sexual abuse in England
• Crime in South Yorkshire
• Labour Party (UK) scandals
• History of South Yorkshire
• Pakistani-British gangs
• Police misconduct in England
• Politics of Rotherham
• Gang rape in the United Kingdom
• Race relations in the United Kingdom
• Rape in England
• Rape in Yorkshire
• Scandals in England
• Child sex rings in the United Kingdom
• Child sexual abuse cover-ups
• Torture in England
• Violence against women in England
• Child prostitution in the United Kingdom
• Incidents of violence against girls