British sex abuse scandal inquiry unmasks 300 suspects

AT least 300 possible suspects have been identified by investigators probing a British child-sex exploitation scandal.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said most of the potential suspects were Asian men, while the vast majority of victims were young British girls.

The NCA launched a major investigation into the scandal after a damning report last year revealed that as many as 1 400 children had been raped, trafficked and groomed by mainly Asian gangs in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, between 1997 and 2013.

Following the revelations by a professor, Alex Jay, South Yorkshire police, which was criticised for its handling of abuse allegations, asked the NCA to intervene and the agency launched Operation Stovewood.

The report, highly critical of police and local authority ac- tions over 16 years and published in August, shocked the nation and led to a wave of high-profile resignations.

Trevor Pearce, the officer in overall charge of the investigation, said the number of potential offenders was in the low hundreds so far, but he acknowledged some of the names gathered could have been duplicated.

Steve Baldwin, the senior investigating officer, said more than 3 300 lines of inquiry had been identified so far and the investigation would take some time to complete.

“The abuse that has taken place in Rotherham is horrific. We have gathered a huge amount of information which details some very disturbing events,” Baldwin said.

Work to identify all the victims was ongoing, but the 1 400 figure in Jay’s report was a good estimate, he said. – The Telegraph