Growing calls for criminal probe into Rotherham scandal officials
Families and experts presented police with evidence on brothers
THOUSANDS OF people have signed a petition started by a Rotherham child abuse survivor calling for a criminal investigation into the actions of senior council officials in the wake of inquiries costing £440,000 which failed to recommend disciplinary action against any current or former worker.
Six new reports looking at various aspects of how Rotherham Council handled the town abuse scandal in which 1,400 children were victims of sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013 were published on Wednesday.
But after several former senior employees and councillors refused to participate in the investigations and lead author and lawyer Mark Greenburgh said failings were found to be “more cock-up than conspiracy”, calls have been made for a police investigation to be launched.
More than 4,000 people have backed a ‘Truth campaign’ petition set up by an abuse survivor called Elizabeth, which is addressed to Prime Minister Theresa May and states victims were “totally devastated” to hear no one would be held accountable.
The father of one survivor today told The Yorkshire Post there was mounting anger that no victims had been interviewed as part of the inquiries and backed the call for criminal investigations to take place.
“Someone from the Government and MPs need to get hold of this,” he said.
“We are not going to go away. We have not campaigned for 14 years not to get to the truth.”
He said survivors were also unhappy with Mr Greenburgh’s description of the council’s failures. “For a lawyer to say ‘cockup’ when you are talking about survivors of sexual exploitation is terrible.”
Current Rotherham Council leader Chris Read said on Wednesday that the conclusions reached by the inquiries were “disappointing and frustrating”.
“It almost goes without saying that such failures cannot rest solely at the door of one person. But that doesn’t mean that the failure to establish individual culpability is any easier to swallow.”
FAMILIES OF children who were sexually abused by four brothers in Rotherham repeatedly told the police what was happening – but evidence went missing and they were not brought to justice for more than a decade.
The Hussain family are now serving combined sentences of almost 100 years after finally being jailed in 2016 for offences against a number of girls, largely carried out in the early 2000s.
They were jailed two years after the Jay report revealed there were an estimated 1,400 victims of sexual exploitation in the town between 1997 and 2013.
In one case, a father provided his daughter’s diary detailing abuse at the hands of Arshid Hussain and gave an 11-page statement to the police, but both items were lost. In another, clothes belonging to a 13-year-old who had been raped by Sageer Hussain that could have provided DNA evidence to back up her allegations went missing.
It comes after it was revealed earlier this week that police were repeatedly warned about the activities of the brothers by Home Office researcher Adele Gladman in 2001 and 2002, with a mapping exercise she produced linking them to more than 50 young women in the town given a “poor reception” instead of action being taken.
Sammy Woodhouse, an abuse survivor who waived her anonymity earlier this year, said her father had found her diary detailing her involvement with Arshid Hussain when she was 14 and went on to make a statement to police.
Hussain also made her pregnant and she had a child when she was 15.
Now aged 32, she said it is difficult to accept that action was not taken at the time.
“We could have got justice when I was 14 or 15. You had DNA because I was pregnant, I had a diary – how much more evidence do you need?” she said.
“It was pretty much a slamdunk case.”
Miss Woodhouse was 30 when Hussain was finally convicted of abusing her and other children following a three-month trial at Sheffield Crown Court in late 2015 and early 2016.
But she praised the South Yorkshire Police officers involved in Operation Clover, the investigation that finally brought Hussain and his brothers to justice.
Following two trials, Arshid Hussain, inset, was jailed for 35 years, Basharat Hussain for 25 years, Bannaras Hussain for 19 years and Sageer Hussain for 19 years. Their uncle and two of their cousins were also jailed, with a total of 13 people being given combined sentences of 199 years.
“I think that they did a great job. I have got so much respect for them as individuals and as a team. Up until I met the Clover team, I thought every single cop was bad and I hated cops.
“Clover has helped me turned that around and made me realise there are good people, good professionals in the force,” said Miss Woodhouse, who has written a book about her experiences which is due to be published next year.
“They treated me with respect and never judged me, even when I didn’t make things easy for them.”
In the second trial, the jury heard one victim describe how officers in 2003 had offered her “no protection” after she told them she had been sexually assaulted on several occasions by Sageer Hussain. She withdrew the allegation at the time after she said she was told by police clothes that could have provided DNA evidence had been lost and “it was my word against his”. Miss Gladman worked on a Home Office-funded project to investigate grooming in the town in the early 2000s and was assisted by the Risky Business youth project, which supported victims. She said she does not know what the police did with a report she produced in 2002 which said “members of one family” were at the centre of sexual exploitation in the town. She said the involvement of the Hussains in such crimes was a “known fact”. “We would go to strategy meetings, child conferences and everybody would talk about these guys,” she said.
Police watchdog the IPCC is now conducting a major investigation into different elements of how South Yorkshire Police acted on the Rotherham scandal.
A total of 35 officers are under investigation and the IPCC’s work is expected to conclude next year.
We could have got justice when I was 14 or 15. It was a slam-dunk case. Sammy Woodhouse, abuse survivor.