Rotherham abuse: No one at council to blame

NO council staff will face disciplinary action for failings over the Rotherham sexual grooming scandal despite new revelations of rampant sexism and political correctness at the local authority.

Reports published yesterday put appalling blunders that left hundreds of white girls at the mercy of Asian abusers primarily down to ‘systemic and organisational’ failures rather than individual negligence that warranted punishment.

A ‘culture of fear’ and widespread misogynistic behaviour at the council may have had an impact on the way the child abuse problem was dealt with, the authors said. Council staff were paralysed by fear of being labelled racist for mentioning the ethnic connection to abuse incidents, and one officer was sent on a two-day diversity course for using the words ‘British Asian’ in a meeting, one report revealed. Astonishing details also emerged of councillors having pornography on laptops, affairs between senior officers and junior staff, and ‘groping’ in bars.

The abuse scandal exploded in 2014 when a report by Professor Alexis Jay concluded that 1,400 girls were abused by gangs of men – mostly of Pakistani heritage – over a 16-year period.

At that time there was ‘ huge nervousness’ in the town hall and council leader Roger Stone, who resigned on the day her report was published, was worried about Rotherham becoming known as the ‘kiddie fiddling capital’ and ‘didn’t want race riots’, one of the reports revealed.

In 2015 a follow-up report by Louise Casey exposed further how the Labour council suppressed details of grooming and abuse within the town’s Pakistani community, for fear of a racism row.

Yesterday’s reports – which cost taxpayers £440,000 – were expected finally to nail those most responsible. Instead, they blamed the organisation and let individuals escape action. The town’s Labour MP, Sarah Champion, branded the reports a ‘ wasted opportunity’ because no individual at the council had been ‘held to account’.

Abuse victim Sammy Woodhouse, who has waived her right to anonymity and campaigned to help other victims, said: ‘I want people held accountable and it just feels like it’s never going to happen.’

Not only will council bosses escape legal action over blunders but lawyer Mark Greenburgh, the lead author of one of the reports, said action to review their goldplated public sector pensions could not be justified either. The report stated: ‘In our view, no individual officer can or should be held out as solely or principally culpable for the council’s failings.’ A council meeting to discuss the reports was told by one of the authors that local authority failings were ‘more cock-up than conspiracy’.

The shocking professional standards of social workers were laid bare in one of the six reports.

Ten ‘case studies’ detailed in the original report by Professor Jay were reviewed, and in most professional standards were ‘inadequate’ and practice ‘extremely poor’.

In one abuse case – where a victim was raped at the age of 12 yet never ‘properly investigated’ – standards were so bad that two social workers will face more detailed inquiries to determine if action should be taken against them. This is the only recommended case of possible disciplinary action among all the council staff, managers and councillors.

Among the blunders highlighted were the failure to issue a child protection referral to girls of 12 who were given condoms. There was a general sense that ‘not only were children inviting their own abuse, it was also in their own power to put a stop to it’.

The actions of some former leaders and senior officers at the council were also criticised.

Ged Fitzgerald, a chief executive for three years until 2003, was said to have ‘missed opportunities’ to look into the problem when he had dealings with police. Phil Rogers, the manager leading Rotherham’s youth service for five years, claimed to have ‘no knowledge’ of issues of sex abuse and child prostitution in Rotherham.

But one report found this ‘very surprising’ and indicated he did not ‘effectively line manage’.

At a meeting in Rotherham as the reports were published, many councillors were incensed that no senior manager would be brought to book. Miss Champion, the former shadow women and equalities secretary, was forced to quit her frontbench role last month after saying the UK ‘has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls’.

Commenting on the reports, she said yesterday: ‘This feels like a completely wasted opportunity to allow the town to move forward.’