Daily Mail

When will grooming victims get justice?

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THE principal function of the police service is to protect the vulnerable and apprehend the offender.

But when constabula­ries succumb to twisted priorities, moral disintegra­tion and institutio­nal cowardice if confronted with vile criminalit­y, that worthy ideal is lost.

Those failings were all too evident in the notorious Rotherham grooming scandal.

At least 1,400 mainly white girls suffered grotesque sexual exploitati­on by predatory gangs of predominan­tly Muslim Pakistani men. Yet despite a wealth of evidence of this industrial- scale depravity, police officers, social workers and council leaders turned a blind eye to avoid aggravatin­g ‘community relations’.

After Professor Alexis Jay’s devastatin­g inquiry in 2014, one might have thought it impossible for this shameful episode to become even more depressing. But it has.

An excoriatin­g report into South Yorkshire Police’s handling of the horrors has revealed that not a single officer has been sacked. This is deplorable.

The document makes harrowing reading. The force treated the victims with contempt, regarding them as complicit in their own abuse. Appallingl­y, one father was told his 15-year-old daughter’s rape ordeal would teach her a ‘lesson’. In another case, officers shrugged when a girl was discovered under the bed of a half-naked paedophile.

Yet the worst punishment meted out to those found to have committed profession­al misconduct were slaps on the wrist.

No wonder the victims feel betrayed. even by today’s standards of moral delinquenc­y in public life, it is beyond belief that not one of those implicated has lost their job.

Of course, there is another issue. The pernicious doctrine of political correctnes­s.

Fear of being branded racist meant the police and other public sector functionar­ies preferred to ignore child rape rather than step in and risk such toxic accusation­s.

The Rotherham scandal is a stain on our society. Until all those who let this happen are held to account, there can’t be justice.

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