Tragic as this case undoubtedly is, sadly it comes as no great surprise to many of us who have worked in child protection over the last 25 years, and will almost certainly prove to be just the tip of a very large iceberg, as this template was the norm for many local authorities across not only the north of England, but the whole country.
I have worked with victims of organised sexual abuse, and some of their recollections are truly horrendous and harrowing, but before anyone hangs out individual social workers to dry, one factor is almost always constant in every case - the social workers were aware of what was going on, and they submitted reports highlighting their concerns, recommended that vulnerable children were placed in local authority care where appropriate, and legal action taken against the perpetrators, yet nothing was done.
And given that many of these victims were already LOC cases, this should have been a police matter from the outset, as the local authority was clearly neglectful in carrying out its duty of care to those abused.
As most of you know, my politics are way left of centre but, without wishing to make this a simple issue of race or ethnicity, it is undeniable that there was a culture amongst some elements of the Asian community which accepted the exploitation of vulnerable white girls, and to deny this does neither the authorities or the victims any favours, because to the best of my knowledge, only two victims of sexual exploitation I have ever known have been Asian girls, and that's out of a list of several thousand.
Obviously this will come as manna from heaven from some elements on the extreme right who will try to use the abuse of white kids for their own political purposes, and that needs to be shown for the shameless opportunism it is, but equally the left can't bury their heads in the sand here and pretend that race didn't play a pivotal role here, because it clearly did.
The vast majority of the Pakistani community in Rotherham and elsewhere will be as appalled by these cases of grooming as the rest of us, but they have to face the fact that a problem exists where some criminal elements target 'problem' girls as fair game.
What really needs to happen is for heads of department in child protection to act upon the reports made by their social workers on the ground - they are the ones who deal with victims on a first hand basis, and all they can do is flag up their concerns, and make the appropriate recommendations - they don't have the power to intervene as such, and they rely on both their immediate superiors and agencies such as the police and the probation service to adopt a more joined-up-thinking multi-agency approach wherever concerns are expressed, but this just isn't happening, and social workers are frustrated beyond belief when they compile a huge dossier of alleged abuse, only for it to gather dust further up the food chain.
Just why this incredible amount of cases wasn't taken seriously and acted upon by the police defies logic, and in my opinion it's the senior members of the South Yorkshire police force who should be held accountable here, as they have been aware of this situation for years and chose to do nothing, although given their considerable track record of abrogating responsibility, I'm not holding my breath, and as usual we will probably see a couple of social workers with colossal case loads who genuinely highlighted their concerns hung out to dry, rather than those who actually had the power to act losing their jobs, because unfortunately that's what always happens.
And the biggest culprits for scapegoating social workers to protect their own lazy and incompetent arses is the police force.
