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.[14] Following this and further articles from Norfolk, Rotherham Council commissioned an independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay. In August 2014 the Jay report concluded that an estimated 1,400 children[15] had been sexually abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, predominantly by British-Pakistani men.[13] British Asian girls in Rotherham also suffered abuse, but a fear of shame and dishonour made them reluctant to report the abuse to authorities.[16] A "common thread" was that taxi drivers had been picking the children up for sex from care homes and schools.[b] 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.[19] There were pregnancies (one at age 12), pregnancy terminations, miscarriages, babies raised by their mothers, in addition to babies removed, causing further trauma.[20][21][22][23]
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The report stated that "there is no simple link between race and child sexual exploitation", and cited a 2013 report by Muslim Women's Network UK of British Asian girls being abused across the country in situations that mirrored the abuse in Rotherham.[g][67] According to the group, Asian victims may be particularly vulnerable to threats of bringing shame and dishonour on their families,[68] and may have believed that reporting the abuse would be an admission that they had violated their Islamic beliefs.[69][70] The Jay report also noted that 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.[71] The report stated that "the under-reporting of exploitation and abuse in minority ethnic communities" should be addressed.[h]
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 wrote that she had found "a small number of suspected abusers who were well known to all significant services in Rotherham."[81][82] 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, the registration numbers of cars used to transport the girls, the suspects' links to local businesses and to people outside the area, and the relationships between the suspects and the girls. The suspects included members of the Hussain family, thought to be among the network's ringleaders, who were jailed in 2016. [83][84] Weir estimated at that point that there were 270 victims.[85]
The Weir report continued 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, the report said, 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 complained of being offered money, as soon as they arrived, if they would have sex with several men. Other girls were targeted at train and bus stations.[51]
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 [their] roles".[107] 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 that it was her manager who had passed those minutes to the Home Office evaluators.[91] She was told she would no longer have access to Risky Business data, meetings, or the girls, and 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".[107] 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."[108][109]
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.[114][115] 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.[116][117]
In 2005 a new department of children and young people's services was created, with Councillor Shaun Wright appointed cabinet member for the department,[118] and in March 2006 a conference was held in Rotherham, "Every Child Matters, But Do They Know it?", to discuss children's sexual exploitation.[119] 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.[120] There had also been an increase in reports of the perpetrators being seen with guns.[121]
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.[46]
In 2012 Rotherham Council applied to the High Court 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.[134]
The government ordered that the council publish its serious case review. It was published with passages blacked out on 61 of its 144 pages. Norfolk obtained an unredacted version, and found that the council had hidden the men's ethnicity, as well as 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".[142] After Gove's intervention, the council withdrew its legal action, and Norfolk published the story under the headline "Officials hid vital facts about men suspected of grooming girl for sex".[134][46]
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 story, "Police files reveal vast child protection scandal", 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".[13]
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. A neighbour had called the police after hearing the girl scream. The girl was arrested for being drunk and disorderly, but the men were not questioned.[13][143]
In August 2013 Norfolk published the story of a 15-year-old Rotherham girl, later revealed to be Sammy Woodhouse,[145] 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.[86] One of those "aware of the relationship", according to the Times, was Jahangir Akhtar, then Rotherham Council's deputy leader, reportedly a relative of Hussain's.[146] He resigned but denied the claims.[147] 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.[148] Shortly after publication of the Times story, Rotherham Council commissioned the Jay inquiry.[146]
In October 2012 the committee criticised South Yorkshire's chief constable, David Crompton, and one of its senior officers, Philip Etheridge.[144] 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.[144]
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.[151] 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.[151] 2ff7e9595c
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