Abuse scandal survivor’s police complaint upheld ‘ but no one held to account’

A SURVIVOR of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal has said her complaint against the police has been upheld but “not one professional has ever been held to account and never will”.

A senior officer acknowledged that Sammy Woodhouse should have had the “full force” of South Yorkshire Police ( SYP) “to support and protect her and to bring her the justice she deserved”, as she was targeted, groomed and abused as a teenager in the town.

The statement came as The Times said a long- awaited investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct ( IOPC) into police actions in Rotherham had concluded that Ms Woodhouse’s abuser – the now jailed grooming gang ringleader Arshid Hussain – was left free to target girls in the town.

It said the watchdog had upheld a complaint that police failed to “deal appropriately with information which may have led to a suspect being prosecuted at an earlier stage, thereby exposing other children to abuse”.

Ms Woodhouse said on Twitter: “My complaints against police finally upheld.

“Not 1 professional has ever been held to account and never will. I was 16 yrs old when I first reported Arshid Hussain & corruption of SYP. It’s taken 19 yrs for me to prove but I finally got there.”

Assistant Chief Constable Lauren Poultney, of South Yorkshire Police, said in a statement: “We’re deeply sorry that Sammy was not identified as a victim at the time of the abuse against her or consistently given the support she should have been provided.”

The Times’s original investigation into the grooming and abuse of Ms Woodhouse led to the 2014 Jay Report concluding that more than 1,400 children were targeted. She subsequently waived her anonymity to campaign on behalf of survivors.

The report of the IOPC’s Operation Linden investigation has yet to be published. It began in 2014 and is the organisation’s second biggest inquiry.