Thousands call for officials to be held to account

MORE THAN 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for officials in charge during the Rotherham scandal to be held to account after £400,000 inquiries by the town’s councils failed to recommend any disciplinary action this week.

The petition, started by a Rotherham abuse survivor called Elizabeth, is asking for a criminal investigation to be opened into the previous senior management teams of Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police over the way an estimated 1,400 victims were let down by the authorities between 1997 and 2013.

It comes after 27 people, including a number of former senior managers and councillors, refused to be interviewed for the independent inquiries.

The petition states: “We have waited and waited for 16 long, hard anxious years to receive an answer as to why and who from RMBC allowed our childhoods to be so cruelly taken from us and totally destroyed.

“Their answer yesterday and at a cost of £440,000? No one will be held accountable. We are totally devastated, and we have every right to know who ignored us and why.”

Mark Greenburgh, the lawyer who examined the conduct of senior managers at Rotherham Council over the time of the scandal, told a public meeting on Wednesday he had determined failings “were more cock-up than conspiracy”. But he added there had been “some surprising lapses of memory” from some of those who were interviewed.