PrAisE for work to BEAt sEx ExploitAtion

Report: More work still to do in city

Work in the city to protect vulnerable children from sexual exploitation and bring offenders to justicehas been praised in a new report. An overview of the way agencies in Peterborough worked together to identify andtackle child sexual exploitation was published by the Peterborough Safeguarding Children Board.

The report, which covers six years between 2010 and 2016, looks at the lessons learnt from Operation Erle, which resulted in 10 men and boys receiving sentences totalling 114 years and nine months. It also saw Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire police work with a number of other agencies andcharitiestostampout the problem.

In conclusion, the report finds that when concerns over child sexual exploitation have beenidentified, the multi-agency response has been proactive, comprehensiveand reflective.

Thereport also praises the work done with schools, and also with taxi firms, bouncers and other agencies in the city since the problem was first uncovered.

WendiOgleWelbourn, corporate director: people and communities for Peterbor- ough City Council, said: “The big difference in Peterborough is that having followed other places like Rotherham and Oxford we knew we must have child sexual exploitation in our city. So along with the police we went out looking for it, and when we found it we took decisive action.

“Our social workers and the police spent considerable time gaining the trust of the young people so that they felt able tell us the awful details of whatwashappeningto them so that the police could make arrests and we were able to beginsupportingthem properly.”

However, the reports independent author, Ceryl Teleri Davies, a qualified solicitor and social worker, recommended ‘agencies provide assurance to the Peterborough Safeguarding Children Board that they review their missing from home procedures to ensure, for example, that there is information sharing and appropriate recording.’

Mrs Ogle-Welbourn added: “We will be reviewing the recommendations made in the report to see how we can strengthen our work with partner agencies to ensure that children and young people are protected from harm and that raising awareness of child sexual exploitation remains top of all our agendas”

The full report is available at www.safeguardingpeterborough.org.uk

Mohammed Khubaib, jailed for 13 years