Image: Stock image
In light of the recent revelation that Rotherham has lost out on a £26 million rape support fund, Sammy Woodhouse, one of the survivors of the infamous sexual exploitation scandal in Rotherham, has openly criticised the government.
She claims that they have ‘let down’ the vulnerable children and adults in the city and even though the scandal came out on the news ten years ago now, it is far from over.
The most recent update occurred in February 2023, when the National Crime Agency revealed that Ann Marie Evans, aged 27, and from Straight Lane, Barnsley, pleaded guilty to four sentences.
The sentence was related to Facebook posts in which she identified two women granted anonymity and a third she wrongly thought was involved.
What is the Rotherham Sexual Abuse Scandal?
Widely known as the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, it involved over 1,400 predominantly white girls from 11 to 16 being taken advantage of by British-Pakistani men.
The crimes, as documented in Professor Alexis Jay’s independent inquiry on Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, included gang rape, forced rape witnessing, threats, trafficking to other towns in the north of England, physical assaults, abduction and incidents of victims being doused with petrol and threatened with fire.
It was reported that the council, police and social care workers were all aware of what was happening, but failed to take any actions.
Professor Jay reported: “Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.”
When did it start?
According to Professor Jay’s report, the earliest reference to sexual exploitation of children reported was in a children’s residential house in the early nineties.
The scandal was known to the public thanks to Sammy Woodhouse, one of the survivors who, back in 2013, anonymously shared her story to The Times, which led to Jay’s report.
Why did no one come forward?
Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the exploitation was underplayed by managers whilst the police gave no priority to it.
Professor Jay stated: “Child victims were regarded with contempt and the police failed to act on their abuse as a crime.”
After the initial report in the late nineties, three more reports came out in 2002, 2003, and 2006 which left the council and police unable to deny their knowledge of the situation.
Professor Jay found out that the first report was completely dismissed by senior officers as they did not believe the information that was in it.
The remaining two reports that had clear evidence of child sexual exploitation, drugs, guns and criminality were completely ignored.
A group of professionals from key agencies met and monitored a large number of children known to be involved in this exploitation but their managers gave little to no help.
Senior police employees and children’s social care workers continued to believe that it was all an exaggeration with the intent of reducing the official numbers of children categorised as Child Sexually Exploited.
In 2004-2005, during a seminar for elected members and senior officers of the council, the abuse was presented in the most explicit terms, which led to them being unable to state that they simply ‘didn’t know’.
As described in the report, by that time, everyone knew that a majority of perpetrators were British-Pakistani men, yet councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could solve the issue.
Some councillors hoped it was a problem that would have simply gone away on its own, whilst several staff hesitated to even identify the perpetrators’ ethnicity for fear of being thought racist. Others were following orders from their managers to not do anything.
What changed after it was revealed?
The National Crime Agency launched Operation Stovewood, in charge of investigating the Rotherham child sexual exploitation from 1997 to 2013.
To date, they have recorded 1367 crimes, arrested 209 individuals, nominated 1080 survivors, and convicted 20 people. Those convicted got a total of 250 years of prison sentence.
0 Comments