Officer in flawed child sex inquiry given warning
A SOUTH Yorkshire Police detective has avoided the sack, despite admitting gross misconduct in relation to an investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, after it was ruled he should not be held personally accountable for the “systematic failings” of the force.
Detective Constable Ian Hampshire admitted, at the start of a two-day police misconduct hearing in Sheffield, of failing to properly investigate allegations made by a teenage girl that she had been raped by a number of men in the town in 2007.
Yesterday, a disciplinary panel decided Det Con Hampshire should be issued with a final written warning rather than being dismissed after hearing that his conduct in relation to the girl was part of much wider failure by South Yorkshire Police to deal with child sexual exploitation in Rotherham at the time.
Panel chairman Simon Mallett said: “It would be wrong for this panel, and it would be wrong for this officer, to make him personally accountable for the systemic failings of the force.”
Det Con Hampshire, who has 23 years’ service with the force, is understood to be the first officer to face a disciplinary hearing following the child sex exploitation scandal in Rotherham.
In 2014, the Jay Report shocked the nation when it detailed how at least 1,400 children had been raped, trafficked and abused by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani heritage in the town between 1997 and 2013.
The report criticised the lack of action by police and social workers and provoked a wave of resignations and further inquiries. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launched Operation Linden into police conduct in relation to the scandal – the organisation’s second biggest inquiry after the investigation into the Hillsborough disaster – but this report has not yet been published.
The hearing was told that the girl, who was about 16 at the time, made a series of complaints of rape to other officers during a police interview in May 2007.
But the allegations against Det Con Hampshire related to further claims she made after he took over her case.
These included a claim that she was raped by a number of men on the night before she was due to be interviewed by Det Con Hampshire and another detective about other alleged incidents.
She disclosed that she was plied with drink and taken to different addresses before waking up with a man in a Rotherham park.
The panel heard that Det Con Hampshire made “good, positive first steps” by taking the girl for a forensic examination and driving her around to see if she remembered where the recent attacks happened.
But he admitted that he later failed to progress the investigation or keep the teenager updated with what was happening.
The chairman said Det Con Hampshire’s leaders and supervisors “bore considerably more responsibility” for these overall failings than he did.
It would be wrong to make him accountable for the failings of the force. Disciplinary panel chairman Simon Mallett.