The report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham issued this week makes tragic reading. It highlights the collective failure of the authorities to take robust action over a number of years. It is a matter of astonishment that the findings of no less than three reports were either dismissed or treated as exaggerating the situation. How many fewer victims would there have been if a more aggressive approach had been taken at an earlier stage?
Let us not forget that the real villains in this are the perpetrators of these crimes, who have committed unspeakable acts of violence and abuse on vulnerable young girls over many years.
However, that does not excuse the various authorities, agencies and individuals who were meant to protect these children but instead failed them. Given the scale of the problem and the evidence available, it is astonishing that there have only been five convictions to date.
This is why, on the same day this report was published, I called for the resignation of Shaun Wright as Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire. Shaun Wright has been a key player at crucial times in this case. Not only was he the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services at Rotherham Council from 2005 to 2010 but he was also Deputy Chair of the Police Authority.
Both bodies have some serious questions to answer. This week we have heard harrowing accounts of young girls being treated with contempt and not being believed in spite of overwhelming evidence. Of evidence that could have led to convictions being “lost” by the police.
Someone needs to take responsibility for these failures and that’s why it’s right and reasonable that local people in Sheffield, Rotherham and across South Yorkshire expect Shaun Wright to do the right thing and step aside.
The Labour Party have taken a good first step by backing these calls but the next big question facing the Labour politicians is why Shaun Wright was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the post? Shaun Wright stood down as Cabinet Member in 2010 following earlier revelations in this case and yet prominent South Yorkshire Labour politicians supported his candidature when they must have been aware of the part he played in the unfolding tragedy in Rotherham.
I’ll continue to press Shaun Wright to resign and ask questions of the Labour politicians who backed him but it’s also important that we do not allow Mr Wright to alone become a scapegoat for corporate failings.
It’s easy to say that “lessons will be learnt” and mistakes not repeated. Yet in Rotherham clearly lessons were not learnt from previous reports. The findings cannot be ignored again. That’s true not only in Rotherham, but elsewhere across the country as we know that these cases are not isolated to one South Yorkshire town.
Those of us elected as councillors have a duty to young people as corporate parents. All of us in positions to do so need to ask urgent questions of our children’ social services and police forces to ensure we protect local children rather than fail them.
* Councillor Colin Ross is Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Sheffield City Council.
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26 Comments
“I’ll continue to press Shaun Wright to resign”
All very well n’all, but i rather think you miss the wood for the trees.
Q. Why did Shaun Wright and all those others fail?
A. Multiculturalism (in the normative sense).
To quote Michael Henderson:
“Rotherham’s murky Asian subculture is not unique. All over England, but particularly in the north, towns have been transformed out of all recognition in the last generation because people failed to act upon the evidence of their eyes. People preferred not to rock the boat.
At times there’s something to be said for boat-rockers. Ray Honeyford was one. In 1984, when he was headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, he wrote an essay in The Salisbury Review in which he argued persuasively that separate development – allowing different cultures to remain separate – in schools could only lead to greater fragmentation in society. For his pains he was denounced, hounded, suspended and reinstated before, fed up with the argy-bargy, he stood down.
But separate development remains a fact of life in towns such as Bradford, where George Galloway now sits as an MP, spreading sweetness and light. It is separate development that has led to the scandals of Rotherham, Rochdale and Derby; to the Trojan Horse stalking Birmingham schools; to allegations of vote-rigging in Tower Hamlets; and to the cultivation of home-grown warriors who skip off to Syria at the drop of a hat.
It is possible to say these things because the vast majority of immigrants and their offspring do not want to live separate lives. But there is a significant minority who, sensing the weakness of so much liberal thought, have encouraged and exploited a sense of resentment and exclusiveness.”
Can we have fill the fourth plinth in parliament square with a statue to Ray Honeyford please? Celebration, finally, of the death of multiculturalism (in the normative sense):
wiki – “Multiculturalism (or ethnic diversity) relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is used in two broad ways, either descriptively or normatively.[1] As a descriptive term, it usually refers to the simple fact of cultural diversity: it is generally applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, sometime at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighbourhoods, cities, or nations. As a normative term, it refers to ideologies or policies that promote this diversity or its institutionalisation; in this sense, multiculturalism is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.”
I agree that scapegoating individuals is not the answer and it will not solve the problems of child sexual abuse. What we now know shows that no political party or institution can hold its head high when it comes to caring for the most vulnerable in society.
What we need is a cultural change where children are not written off. We need to understand that the children exposed to child abuse don’t behave in ways that we think a ‘real ‘ victim might behave. These girls thought that the men abusing them ‘loved them’. Children were viewed as the architects of their own abuse. They have backgrounds where they are seen as unreliable witnesses and we as a society are too happy with the status quo. This unreliability factor continues as these children grow into adults where often a descent into alcohol and substance abuse are deemed to make them still unreliable.
As far as I can see, the only organisation that came out of the report with any honour was ‘Risky Business’.
I am not sure whether Sheffield and other areas have a similar organisation that helps to identify when behaviour that is written off as making a victim unreliable, is in fact a sign that the victim is indeed a victim.
People who committed these appalling crimes must be brought to justice, because it is they who are the perpetrators.
Colin,
As a senior councillor only a few miles from Rotherham, can you point me in the direction of the investigation, you and the Liberal Democrat group in Sheffield must have conducted to investigate the likliehood of this happening in your own patch. I would be interested in reading your conclusions.
After all , anybody knowing this area is aware that Rotherham and Sheffield are to all intent the same area, and with all the publicity over the years, the LibDems must have taken the position to investigate the abuse at least 10 years ago, when the abuse was already becoming common currency, to ensure the extent of it in your own area.
Thanks in advance for any information.
jedi, you’ve done nothing there – and referred to nothing in the report – to explain why you think “multiculturalism in the normative sense” is the cause of failure. Multicultural -as you’ve defined it- societies still operate under a common rule of law, and all the cultures in question are opposed to the sexual exploitation of children. (Albeit it may to be a greater risk in patriarchal and sexually-repressed cultures.)
Here’s the reason I think the racial factor is overstated. Yes, clearly the perpetrators were showing contempt for their victims, but so did the largely white police and council. And do you think the Asian victims were treated any different to the white victims? The difference there is that the Asian victims found it even harder to come forward.
I suggest the main cultural problem here is one of slut-shaming. (And maybe I am speculating here a little). Once a woman is identified as slutty, she is deemed not to deserve respect and not to deserve the protection of the law. The police and social services will have “seen out of control children like this before and they end up as addicts and prostitutes” and apply the same lack of logic. The authorities were guilty of the same cultural prejudice as the perpetrators.
Now my view is that prostitutes should get the full protection of the law, and they don’t, and that is a scandal. But even if you don’t care about justice for prostitutes, this case illustrates how a double standard can bleed out of the group you have contempt for into innocent victims who are labelled (whether they have “earned” the label or not) as members of that group.
It is inimical to the rule of law to say that anybody does not deserve its full protection, and it should not have needed 1600 child victims to illustrate this.
“multiculturalism is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.””
Our society is not “at ease with itself” and those on here who argue it is are either in denial or in a state of cognitive dissonance.
Rotherham is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a problem across the country with probably tens of thousands of victims. We will never know the number. As for the numbers of perpetrators the mind boggles.
There will be no justice for most of the victims, the paedophiles and abusers are still walking our streets and most will never be brought to book.
Almost all the victims were white, the abusers Pakistani. And yet the “racial factor is overstated.” Imagine if all the victims had been Pakistani and the abusers white working class northerners?
Would you have said “the racial factor is overstated” then??
Multiculturalism, in a normative sense has utterly failed. The fact that the Lib Dems still cling to it despite its destruction of our cohesion and culture (as evidenced by such a comment redolent of the failed metropolitan elite) is a reason for your own electoral meltdown, but it is wider than that.
The other two parties cling to this failed intellectual project too, and that is why there is such contempt for them.
In my opinion, Joe Orton is correct, the cultural prejudice that allowed these girls to be abused and the authorities to fail them ( and society at large) was, and sadly still is, because of a shared cultural value. These children were deemed worthless, a value that they so sadly internalised.
There seems to have been very little discussion of funding of the care services. What is clear from the report is that deprived communities like Rotherham probably have an enormous, overwhelming workload, and if ‘lessons are to be learned’, I suspect that there will be funding implications.
I agree Shaun Wright should go, However the fact remains that the police and the various authorities in charge looking after vulnerable youngsters consistently act late. There are lots cases where the youngster who told about what was being done to them and by whom are now middle aged. Sir Jimmy Seville, not a Pakistani Brit, was named multiple times by victims over decades. was questioned more than once and his behaviour in hospitals, at the BBC and at various institution seems to have been an open secret, Absolutely nothing was done until he died. In Rotherham fear of being labelled racist seems to have played a part, but it was seen as Okay to label youngsters who went to the police as trouble makers and parent who tried to get justice as bigots. What I can’t help noticing is that most of the victims in nearly all of these sorts of crimes are the kinds of youngsters right wingers like to demonise as worthless or as the problem rather than a symptom of deeper problems. In some of the reports the police are not just dismissive of the crimes, they are hostile to the people coming foreword. On top of this the social services were failing or were being side-lined when they did try to do something about it. This is not merely about the failings of political corrects. Though in this case it was a certainly a factor. It is about the consistent failure of people to do their jobs and a climate in which deep seated prejudices mean the victims are ignored .
Political correctness or the failings of Multiculturalism might explain a little of what went wrong in Rotherham, but it does not explain how Sir Jimmy Seville and others operated for so long or why numerous complaints from former residents and workers in children’s homes were and are still being ignored.
Well said, Joe. It is all too easy to ignore the victims here and the prejudice they suffer from all sides. The reason the ‘racial aspect’ is overstated is because it allows people to ignore the other uncomfortable problems this case raises.
I think Glenn and Joe have really hit the nail on the head here. Right now, almost all of the reporting/discussion about this tragic event is being focused on who the perpetrators were, whilst the victims are still basically being ignored. However, if we do look at who these victims are, we suddenly see a different story coming forward.
To ignore the racial aspect in this case would be foolish and wrong, but the sad truth is that this is not about how any one culture in Britain is currently treating women and young girls, but how we are treating women and young girls in general. Even our own party has recently fallen prey to following the easy path of just dismissing events involving the harassment of women rather than rock the boat.
How often do we see the narrative in society at large that ‘rape’ victims were makers of their own downfall because they dress too provocatively – as if the men involved cannot be expected to have some level of self-control.
Even if we take the simple narrative of newspapers of these being one ethnic group of men preying on ‘white girls’, the sad truth is that we failed these girls because we set down a precedent that we considered these girls to be second class citizens, less deserving of society’s help and protection. If we set that narrative down as the precedent of how we are going to treat these girls, then we cannot we shocked when sick and vile people view them as easy targets and second class victims. They are going to exploit our apathy towards these girls if we show that at best we do not even care about them.
This is not a failing of multiculturalism (though that played a part), but a failure of society. This is the whole of society coming together to turn these poor girls into victims: whether it be the various agents of the state failing in their duty to treat all with dignity and respect due to their own prejudice; the police allowing their own prejudices to lead them into ignoring the crimes occurring here; the social services not providing these girls with the right support and a safe heaven; the ordinary people who turned blind eye; or, the newspapers and politicians creating their narratives that demonise so many different groups of women, whether they be ‘dirty prostitutes’, ‘druggies’ ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘Eastern Europeans hordes’, ‘white working class ‘trash’, ‘unemployed scroungers’, ‘problem families and children’, ‘sluts’ … etc. These are just a select few of the ways we as a society have referred to women/girls in the last year, but the list is sadly endless. All of these things come together to turn these women/girls into victims.
Vile people, whether they be the groups in this case or men like Seville are only all too willing to take advantage. That does not excuse their crimes, but nor do their crimes excuse our failings.
I guess in short, what I am saying is that one person asked what the narrative would if this had been ‘white working class men’ committing such crimes against women an ethnic minority. Whilst that is probably a question worthy of an answer, I think an even more depressing question may be how quickly would these crimes have been stopped if these men had foolishly chosen to target the children of middle class people.
Liberal Al.
Thank you. Though I agree that young women in this kind of situation are treated very badly, I would add is that in some on going inquiries the victims were and are male. I suspect the real problem is that some groups of people are seen as in some way as ” beneath the law”, not worthy of protection or justice. Either way we need to tackle what seems to be a collective lack of will to act when it is politically or socially uncomfortable to act.
Jedibeeftrix’s quote from Wikipedia:
“Multiculturalism … As a normative term … is a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.”
It follows that if like Jedibeeftrix you oppose “multiculturalism as a normative term”, then you don’t want a society “at ease with the … desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit.” In other words, you want immigrants to shut up about their own cultural identities and meekly blend in to British society.
I’m a Liberal and I oppose that sort of thing.
That clearly doesn’t mean that a multiculturalist must accept every facet of an immigrant culture. Of course we oppose FGM. Of course the terrible consequences of male domination of Pakistani culture in Rotherham should have been challenged, and insofar as it was a misguided level of support for multiculturalism that blinded people to that, the point should be taken. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
“Glenn 31st Aug ’14 – 11:03am
Liberal Al.
Thank you. Though I agree that young women in this kind of situation are treated very badly, I would add is that in some on going inquiries the victims were and are male. I suspect the real problem is that some groups of people are seen as in some way as ” beneath the law”, not worthy of protection or justice. Either way we need to tackle what seems to be a collective lack of will to act when it is politically or socially uncomfortable to act.”
Thanks, I did not realise that, but I do agree whole-heartily and it is this rhetoric we must remove.
One thing i think that this point shows is that girls are more affected by these specific problems in the mainstream, but where boys are involved they are even less likely to be regarded. It is a truly sorrowful affair.
David Allen, you ascribe an absolutist view to me then in the next sentence carve yourself an an enormous caveat. How generous.
Perhaps people can explain why the criminals did not include Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians from S America, West Indies and from West Africa and why they were mainly muslims of Pakistani/ Afghan descent. So far rape gangs have not included Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists or Christians, why? As Einstein said we should never stop asking the question why.
Charlie, I expect you could find child abusers in all those groups if you look hard enough. http://xkcd.com/385/
Theres an excellent article on Labour Uncut suggesting that reporting allegations of abuse should be compulsory for Elected Politicians as well as Teachers, Social Workers etc. Worth reading.
Is this not more to do with a systemic, structural failure in our social services? How many more examples are going to come to light now? Clearly, like the catholic church, institutions which care (sic) for children are wide open to infiltration by those who wish to abuse the vulnerable, whether they are establishment figures or immigrants.
Shouldn’t social services be taken away from the auspices of local government where, clearly, there is woefully insufficient monitoring of staff, procedures and policies?
What of the children themselves? We’re they not taken into care, on a case by case basis in their interests? Would they not have been better off wherever they were before?
Of note, too, is the name Joyce Thacker, who you will remember for an outrageous abuse of her position over the UKIP foster couple.
Nigel.
There certainly are failures in the care system and in the way the police treat young victims of sexual abuse., There seems to have been a consensus opinion that these kids were making “lifestyle choices”. This was undoubtedly an appalling attitude to take towards vulnerable youngsters and to the parents and guardians who repeatedly sought help. . But the fact remains that the actual abusers in this case were almost exclusively from the local Pakistani British community in Rotherham. This along with other recent cases strongly suggests that there is a cultural and ethnic dimension to the crimes. .
Jayne Mansfield
“I agree that scapegoating individuals is not the answer ”
That is not what any one is proposing. It is holding people accountable for inexcusable failings.
If I were to compare it to failings in the private sector. Tony Hayward was pushed out as CEO of BP for failings that happened on his predecessor’s watch. Hayward made some PR errors but had to go.
At Barclays Bob Diamond took over as the bank CEO as the LIBOR scandal broke the submitters who falsely submitted were not reporting to him before he became CEO. He did, however create a culture where BarCap staff considered immoral behaviour acceptable. Again he is gone.
Compare this with the outcome of many of the indoviduals involved in Rotherham. Suppressing reports , hostility to the researchers looking at the situation, there are a lot of heads that need to roll.
Let me make it abundantly clear, we are not even at the point of addressing the current victims. The clear out that needs to happen is initially about minimising future victims. The culture is set by those at the top and the culture is toxic. The clear out has to be at the top. A lot of blame has been thrown at the front line staff, but the buck stops at the top.
@ PSi,
I don’t think that I have said that people should not be held to account for inexcusable failings, or if my post can be interpreted that way, it isn’t what I meant.
If one wishes to find out what really went wrong in Rotherham, the first thing that needs to change is the culture where children from this background are not listened to. Scapegoating does not alter the fact that many of these girls , now women , se the perpetrators still walking the street in Rotherham. The way in which these crimes were investigated ends to be re-opened e and , and now they have a voice , those voices should be heard by the police and the CPS. In my opinion, should be a full investigation of the police including those now retired .
Many of the councillors during the years when the abuse took place and the researcher’s finding were ignored etc. are no longer in post, there should be an enquiry into the behaviour of everyone, not just those still in post.
However, to return to my original concern about scapegoating , it is an easy let out. This model of child abuse has been known for some time and there have been relatively few prosecutions. Sacking a few people won’t in itself solve the problem. As a society we need to ask why the men who were the perpetrators of this model of crime felt that they could get away with it with impunity not just in Rotherham but other areas.
One could start by listening to some women, like Anne Cryer, Barones Warsi, Yasmin Alibhai Brown to name just a few high profile women who have spoken out.
One could even stay one step of the game and start investigating to the stories of non white girls who have been victims of the same thugs and criminals and ask ourselves, yes even you Psi, why this level of abuse has been going on under our noses whilst we continue our comfortable lives. Who was not guilty of turning a blind eye?
Jayne Mansfield
“If one wishes to find out what really went wrong in Rotherham, the first thing that needs to change is the culture where children from this background are not listened to. Scapegoating does not alter the fact that many of these girls , now women , se the perpetrators still walking the street in Rotherham. The way in which these crimes were investigated ends to be re-opened e and , and now they have a voice , those voices should be heard by the police and the CPS. In my opinion, should be a full investigation of the police including those now retired .”
But you miss the point, there is not one culture. Most people don’t have children reporting being raped to them. This is not a general culture in the population at large. It was particularly a culture in the police, council (particularly the “safeguarding” department). The culture is heavily influenced by those at the top.
I am not going to disagree that a proper investigation (particularly the claims at the researcher previously looking in to this received “hostility” just try that in the private sector) has to be conducted in to each are and rectification carried out. But the bodies responsible have major cultural failings, those at the top are responsible. The. Criminals are out walking the streets, the bodies have to fix that and in order to do that new management will have to change the culture.
I cited modern private sector examples but others have instead chosen John Byng, I think that is unfair because his failing was a logistical one of his superiors not his however it had a huge cultural impact and changed the culture.
I am not suggesting that we line up the PCC, Chief Constable, politicians in the area, council management (particularly in “safeguarding”) in the centre of Rotherham and shoot them, a la Byng but anyone still involved needs to be removed so the problems can be fixed. That is not scapegoating that is fixing.
Jayne Mansfield
“One could even stay one step of the game and start investigating to the stories of non white girls who have been victims of the same thugs and criminals and ask ourselves, yes even you Psi, why this level of abuse has been going on under our noses whilst we continue our comfortable lives. Who was not guilty of turning a blind eye?”
Well as I mentioned, most people are not in receipt of reports (or even suggestions of) of rape from Children so they are not turning a blind eye to any thing.
You want to try and challenge me, well I am afraid that I believe I once drove through Rotherham on the way to somewhere else, so Even those with the highest opinion of my abilities would be stretching it to claim that I should have noticed something.
If I received a report of child abuse I would pass it to the police, the police should then investigate collect (and appropriately retain) evidence, pass this to the CPS who then should asses the evidence and prosecute. The councils children’s services should care for the children at risk and look for trends of wider problems when they encounter problems they should report them to the police along with what ever evidence they can gather.
There is no existential national crisis here.
The points above about the poor treatment of prostitutes, though also an issue is separate (though is more complex as involves current bad laws surrounding prostitution and drugs). For clarity if you want to discuss those issues I suggest you are a little clearer about what specifics you are concerned about.
“Sacking a few people won’t in itself solve the problem. As a society we need to ask why the men who were the perpetrators of this model of crime felt that they could get away with it with impunity not just in Rotherham but other areas.”
Trust me if lots of senior officers loose their jobs and have pensions curtailed for this no other police force will ignore it again. If council bosses get black listed the rest will refocus on it. Senior public sector workers are very attuned to what keeps them in their relative comfort. It is not a “cuddly” way to operate and shouldn’t be used for every failing but this level of total failure it will give you results, if it good enough for some of the worlds biggest companies it can be used in local services in cases of total collapse.
Punishment in the public sector is used on staff at the bottom, normally badly conceived and targeted it would be much more effective at the top.
@ Psi,
Would you please point out where I have mentioned prostitution. Child sex abuse is about children not prostitutes so I don’t want to discuss prostitution,
In a seminar held in 2005 regarding CSA in Rotherham, councillors who were aware of the child sexual abuse are reported to have claimed in the press that they were told that. What they had learned needed to remain confidential because to discuss the matter openly would damage police investigations. . As one councillor is reported as saying, not many people would want to damage a police investigation into something so important and difficult to prosecute.
I believe that there should be a full investigation where people involved have the opportunity to explain their behaviour before one starts ‘clearing them out’.
Apologies, I had confused a discussion on a different forum with something Joe Otten had said so mis interpreted your agreement with him with that argument (that to be clear joe was not making).
Back on topic though.
“I believe that there should be a full investigation where people involved have the opportunity to explain their behaviour before one starts ‘clearing them out’.”
An investigation will throw up individual failings of people at different levels, it will probably find lots of minor mistakes by front line staff, some of which will have been significant and will require action against individuals but most will be human error combined with weak processes, systems and training.
That is a valid activity that should be carried out, it is an important part of learning from mistakes, but those at the top are paid to deliver outcomes. The out come here is at least 1400 children have been raped. That is epic failure, visible by appalling outcomes.
Whether the person at the top mention well or was personally responsible for certain decisions is irrelevant. They were put in place to ensure their organisation delivered acceptable outcomes with good rewards either provided (pay, pensions, status) or expected on completion (non-financial awards, greater status, other earning opportunities). They failed to deliver acceptable outcomes therefore must go.
If these people wanted to be protected from accountability of this sort they could have been regular police officers, social workers, council officials. They chose to go for the top jobs and with that comes accountability for the performance of the organisations and systems. Hence they must be cleared out.
Jayne Mansfield
“Sacking a few people won’t in itself solve the problem. As a society we need to ask why the men who were the perpetrators of this model of crime felt that they could get away with it with impunity not just in Rotherham but other areas.”
Incidentally the reason they think they can get away with it is they have so far.
They need a serious focus to round up and convict as many as possible.
I haven’t noticed any more looting since the police started locking up every person who stole 99p worth of rice in the riots. It is not a way you can run law enforcement most of the time but when certain crimes appear “decriminalised” the only way to reverse that is to have a burst of extreme effort to catch every one involved.