Rotherham

[Undertoad]

very sad very terrible

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/wo...-of-girls.html

[Aliantha]

Speachless. Shocking.

[DanaC]

Truly appalling. This is a story that has implications way beyond just Rochdale.

The way those girls were treated by the police, social workers and others who should have protected them. The utter and abject failure of the child protection agencies. The whole thing was a terrible mess.

What those men did to the girls was shameful. That they were facilitated in that by authorities who could have saved them and brought justice but who chose to do nothing is a national disgrace.

They were children. Vulnerable children and the police basically considered them prostitutes complicit or even responsible for their own abuse. They were looked down on. the people who abused them were allowed to continue unchecked because of misguided notions of cultural sensitivity and an unwillingness to see the girls as the vulnerable victims that they were.

Added to the wave of revelations about abuse and cover ups in some of our key institutions (the BBC, care homes, hospitals and seemingly even members of parliament) it is clear that we have been failing children for a long time.

[glatt]

"at least 1,400 children"

Words fail me.

[DanaC]

At least 1400 children and in a small northern town. 0.5 percent of the whole population. Much bigger percentage of the town's children.

This has been bubbling away for quite a while now. That some of the people involved are still in their jobs is fucking disgusting.

You know - I can understand, having spent some time as a councillor, and in particular working with the Children's and Young People's directorate for that council that there is often a sene of unease when faced with something potentially incendiary as far as race is concerned. Indeed, we had a much smaller flurry of cases like this that came up whilst I was a councillor. And I remember as we started getting reports aout it there was real sense that this could play into the hands of the BNP and other racist parties. But that didn't stop us getting those girls into a safe place and it didn't stop the local police from arresting the men concerned and pressing charges.

Rotheram/Rochdale has been a centre of racial tensions for quite a few years - so I can imagine how worried people might have been that this was going to spark a lot of trouble. I cannot get my head around how that stopped them doing the right thing. The answer to the racist accusation that muslim men are abusers is to point out that some white men also abuse not to try and deny that some asian men do. And it is very clear and has been for a number of years that whilst the number of men abusing girls and children is probably no more for one than the other, they tend to follow very distinct patterns in how that abuse is carried out. It is a pattern. And denying it, covering it up,. looking the other way is not being culturally sensitive it is a shameful dereliction of duty.

And as for the police. Their utter contempt for these girls still baffles me. May of the girls were from deprived or troubled families, lot of them in carehomes. That coloured the police view of them as members of an underclass - not like nice girls. These they saw as slags, whores, street scum.

I could fucking weep.

[Gravdigr]

Yep. People suck. Welcome to the world.

[Undertoad]

looking the other way is not being culturally sensitive it is a shameful dereliction of duty

Precisely.

A lot of people are going to say it's political correctness gone mad, but if that was the case, there would be a lot more towns reporting in. Racial tension is everywhere, P.C. is everywhere. This was something local, something broken.

[DanaC]

There's also a deeper problem here of course in the way girls and women are viewed in our society when it comes to rape and sexual abuse. Something which is not just a problem in the Uk but much, much wider.

A couple of years ago there was a a case went to court of a man in his 40s charged with sexual activity with a 13 year old girl. Both the prosecuting lawyer and the judge characterised that girl as 'predatory'. The judge in his summing up said that the man had been 'egged on' by her and coudn't help himself. That she had behaved in a 'predatory' way. The man got a two year sentence.

The whole idea of the 'lolita' effect is alive and well in western culture. As is the notion that women and girls have suspect sexuality and boys and men no control over their sexual urges. recent cases on college campuses in the US and university campuses in the Uk show very clearly that girls and women who say they have been raped are immediately suspected of lying. The attitude seems to be that crying rape is a common thing.

Victim blaming of girls and women is rampant. from the coverage of a girl gang-raped by college football players which focused almost exclusively on the tragic damage to the boys' career whilst twitter erupted in disdain for their victim, to the #JadaPose twitter meme in which users ridiculed the 16 year old victim of a vicious gang rape who was raped whilst passed out at a party - with the video of it posted by her rapists showing them laughing as they inserted objects into her.

The way the police in rotherham viewed the girls who were groomed and systematically raped and abused by those men is not isolated. The idea that they were asking for it - that they were sexual beings and used accordingly pervades even our progressive western culture.

We are not so far away from India, where a leading politician claimed that rape is 'sometimes right, sometimes wrong' that boys 'make mistakes' and girls should not wear short skirts.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Precisely.

A lot of people are going to say it's political correctness gone mad, but if that was the case, there would be a lot more towns reporting in. Racial tension is everywhere, P.C. is everywhere. This was something local, something broken.

Absolutely. I think there was a lot of politics involved in this. And corruption. And people more concerned with protecting themselves from political fallout than in protecting children from abuse.

But there was also a seriously warped view of who those girls were and that is a much wider problem. Not just girls but children, and in particular poor and troubled children. We can see that same thing in the way historic cases of abuse are now coming up for children's homes and what appears to have been some very powerful men (including at least one MP) abusing those children with impunity and then strong arming the police not to investigate. Even without the strong arm tactics to stop police investigations it seems that several youngsters who tried to report abuse were basically ignored because they weren't believed and they weren't believed because they were troubled young lads in a children's home making accusations against pillars of the community.

Poor and ignored.

There is a class element as well as a gender element to much of this. I think poverty in the Uk has similar implications as race in the US in how people are viewed and treated. The police, politicians and care workers were from a different class to most of the victims and that warped their view of them.

[DanaC]

One of the most worrying aspects of the Rotherham cases and of the other child abuse scandals now coming to light is what appears to be systemic tendency to cover up abuse at the highest levels.

A Home Office official who investigated the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham accused the council of being involved in the unauthorised removal of information from her office.

Her report in 2002 suggested there were then more than 270 victims of the scandal, which was finally exposed last week with revelations that at least 1,400 children were abused from 1997 to 2013.

She told Panorama that she had sent her report to both the council and the Home Office on a Friday, but when she returned on Monday she found her office had been raided.

"They'd gained access to the office and taken my data, so out of the number of filing cabinets, there was one drawer emptied and it was emptied of my data. It had to be an employee of the council," she said.

The Home Office researcher, who was not named by Panorama, also said she had been accused of being insensitive when she told one official that most of the perpetrators were from Rotherham's Pakistani community.

A female colleague talked to her about the incident. "She said you must never refer to that again – you must never refer to Asian men.

"And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues."
The Home Office researcher said that at one point the council tried to get her sacked and the report was never published.

A draft of the report severely criticised agencies working to tackle the child exploitation in the area, including "alleged indifference towards, and ignorance of, child sexual exploitation on the part of senior managers".

It said: "Responsibility was continuously placed on young people's shoulders rather than with the suspected abusers."

She met the victims at a youth organisation called Risky Business. "The workers in that project were the only people that those young people trusted, that they were telling the complete story to," she said.

"And some of the stories that I heard very early on were just so graphic that I don't think I will ever forget them.

"I was subjected to the most intense personal hostility – there were threats made from a range of sources. I've never seen back-covering like it and I still feel extremely angry about that."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...claim-panorama

A former cabinet minister has said there "may well have been" a political cover-up of child sex abuse in the 1980s.

Lord Tebbit told the Andrew Marr Show the culture at the time was to protect "the establishment" rather than delving "too far" into such claims.

His comments come after it emerged that the Home Office could not locate 114 potentially relevant files.

Current MP Keith Vaz said files had been lost "on an industrial scale".

The government has rejected calls for an over-arching public inquiry into the various allegations of child abuse from that era.

However, a new review, to be carried out by a senior legal figure from outside Whitehall, will look into a Home Office review last year of any information it received in the 1980s and 1990s about organised child sex abuse.

Home Secretary Theresa May will make a statement on the issue to the House of Commons on Monday.

'View was wrong'

Lord Tebbit, who served in various ministerial roles under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, said at the time people had an "almost unconscious" tendency to protect "the system".

"And if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into them," he said.

"That view was wrong."

Lord Tebbit said he hoped the latest review would report back "fairly quickly" so the government could decide what to do next.

-snip-

The Home Office's 2013 review found 527 potentially relevant files which it had kept, but a further 114 were missing, destroyed or "not found".

Mr Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said this represented loss of files "on an industrial scale" and it was "a huge surprise" that so much potential evidence had gone missing.

Among the files found, there were 13 pieces of information about alleged child abuse - nine of which were already known or had been reported to the police, including four cases involving Home Office staff, the Home Office's top civil servant Mark Sedwill said in a letter to Mr Vaz.

The four other items, which had not been previously disclosed, "have now been" passed to police, Mr Sedwill said - although a Home Office spokeswoman said "now" meant during the 2013 review, as opposed to at the time the allegations were received.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28182373

[DanaC]

The MP who passed a dossier of paedophile allegations to the Home Office in the 1980s told his family the details were "explosive".

Geoffrey Dickens, who died in 1995, said it would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers, his son has told the BBC.

Barry Dickens said he would have been "hugely angered" that the allegations had not been properly investigated.

Labour is demanding a fresh inquiry into the missing dossier.

It comes after one of the party's MPs called for the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan to make public what he knew about paedophiles operating "in and around" Westminster in the 1980s.
Geoffrey Dickens, a long-standing campaigner against child abuse, passed the dossier of allegations to Lord Brittan, who has said he passed it on to his officials and raised concerns about some of the allegations with the director of public prosecutions.

His son Barry Dickens told the BBC's Matt Prodger: "I would like Lord Brittan to name the very next person he handed it on to.

"And where did it end up? There must have been a person who was the last to handle it.

"My father thought that the dossier at the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced, with the names that were involved and the power that they had."
He said the MP would have would have been "hugely angered, disappointed and frustrated" that the allegations had not been properly investigated.

The Home Office said that a search for the dossier in 2013 had found a letter from Lord Brittan to Geoffrey Dickens which said that the allegations had been acted on.

The review concluded that the "credible" elements of the dossier which had "realistic potential" for further investigation were passed to prosecutors and the police while other elements were either "not retained or destroyed".

"It just seems so suspicious that something so important could just go missing," Barry Dickens said.
Mr Dickens said he did not know the details of what was in the dossier but "it was talked about in the family, discussions now and then, sort of 'Wait and see what happens - this is going to blow everything apart. These people won't know what hit them'."

Around the time that the dossier was handed in, Mr Dickens said the MP's London flat and his constituency home were both broken into and ransacked within the same week, but that "nothing was taken".

"They weren't burglaries," he added. "They were break-ins for a reason. We can only presume they were after something that dad had that they wanted."


-snip-

The Metropolitan Police's Operation Fernbridge is investigating allegations of child sexual abuse in the late 1970s and 1980s at the former Elm Guest House in Barnes, the scene of alleged parties involving MPs and other members of the establishment.

Greater Manchester Police are investigating allegations of abuse by Sir Cyril Smith at Knowl View, a Rochdale children's home which closed in 1994. Officers are also looking at claims the authorities covered it up.

Liberal MP Cyril Smith wrote to the BBC in 1976 asking it not to investigate the "private lives of certain MPs".

The MP, who died in 2010 and has been accused of abusing children, wrote to the then home secretary about "filth, innuendo and stirring" by reporters.

The BBC investigation had been looking into claims of an alleged foreign-backed campaign to discredit MPs.

Former children's minister Tim Loughton said the former Rochdale MP's letters were "bully-boy tactics".

"It was an abuse of position that somebody as an MP was saying, 'You shouldn't look at us, we're above the law,'" he said.
Smith had been the subject of an investigation into the alleged abuse of children in Rochdale but the case was not known about publicly, and he was never charged.

Current Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk is due to appear before the Home Affairs Select Committee later, where he is expected to call for a new inquiry to include the activities of Smith.

Mr Danczuk recently published a book alleging more than 140 complaints had been made by victims but Smith had been left free to abuse children as young as eight.

Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council are carrying out two separate investigations into child abuse allegations involving the late MP.

More than 100 MPs are calling for a larger inquiry into historical claims of child abuse in schools, hospitals and care homes.
At the time the media had been investigating a claim made by Prime Minister Harold Wilson that South African secret agents had been trying to smear British MPs.

The Liberal Party was thought to be a particular target because of its outspoken opposition to South Africa's apartheid policy.

The BBC had employed two freelance journalists, Barrie Penrose and Roger Courtiour, to look into Mr Wilson's claims.

According to letters in the National Archives, Smith wrote to BBC director general Sir Charles Curran in September 1976 saying he was "deeply concerned about the investigative activities of the BBC", especially relating to "the private lives of certain MPs".

"So far as I am aware I am not one of them, and hence I write without personal involvement."

Police are examining whether there is evidence of a criminal cover-up over claims of sexual abuse at a school linked to the late MP Sir Cyril Smith.

The leader of Rochdale Council and Greater Manchester's chief constable are due to give an update on the claims over Knowl View school in Rochdale.

Officers are already investigating the abuse allegations and the council is set to widen its own inquiry.

Sir Cyril's family has said he always denied such accusations.

The development comes after police launched an investigation into allegations that former Liberal MP Sir Cyril, who died in 2010 aged 82, sexually abused boys at Knowl View residential school. The school closed in 1992.

Officers are also looking into claims he abused boys at the privately run Cambridge House children's care home, which closed in 1965.

However, the BBC understands that Greater Manchester Police are now reviewing whether there is evidence of a cover-up at Rochdale Council, which was one of the local authorities that ran the Knowl View school.

Police are examining a book written by the Labour MP Simon Danczuk, as well as other sources as part of their inquiries.

[DanaC]

Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith was part of a high-level paedophile ring operating at Westminster in the 1970s, a Labour MP has claimed.

Simon Danczuk alleges in a new book Sir Cyril used his influence to escape prosecution for sexually abusing boys.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the MP was part of an "informal" network of sex abusers.

And he claimed police were pressured by the authorities to drop investigations into his activities.

"Had he been prosecuted, then the house of cards would have fallen, in terms of that paedophile network, and it could have brought the government down," the Labour MP told Today.

He also claimed child abuse allegations against Sir Cyril were widely known at the time and were even raised in public, at a Liberal party conference.
Sir Cyril's family have said they are "saddened" by Mr Danczuk's allegations "made so long after Sir Cyril Smith's death and at a time he is no longer able to defend himself".

"Sir Cyril always denied accusations made against him while he was living," they added in a statement issued when extracts from Mr Danczuk's book were serialised in the Daily Mail.

Mr Danczuk, MP for Sir Cyril's former constituency Rochdale, alleges police received at least 144 complaints about the late Liberal MP but MI5 and Special Branch put pressure on police officers to drop investigations into the alleged abuse.

"When he was initially arrested, he used the local power that he had, in the 60s, to be able to convince people that he shouldn't be prosecuted," he told the Today programme.

"But once he became a member of Parliament in 1972, I think he joined an, obviously informal, network of paedophiles that existed in and around Westminster."

Asked how he could say that with certainty, Mr Danczuk said Sir Cyril had been identified as attending Elm Guest House in south-west London, adding: "[This is] where it is alleged other significant paedophiles attended."
In 2012, the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by politicians in the late 1970s and 1980s, after Labour MP Tom Watson raised concerns in the House of Commons about a "powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10".

The investigation, Operation Fernbridge, is centred on the former Elm Guest House in Barnes, the scene of alleged parties involving MPs and other members of the establishment.


-snip-

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed Sir Cyril was among those who visited the premises.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said he should have been prosecuted for 1960s abuse in Rochdale. Sir Cyril died in 2010 aged 82.

It was alleged he raped boys at the Knowl View residential school and abused boys at Cambridge House Children's Home, a privately-run care home in Rochdale, which closed in 1965.

He had a long association with Knowl View, where he was on the management board when he was a councillor.

Sir Cyril was originally a Labour councillor in Rochdale and later a Liberal then Liberal Democrat MP for the town from 1972 to 1992.

There is little doubt that former Rochdale MP Sir Cyril Smith raped some of his victims, the town's current MP has claimed.

It comes after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) admitted Sir Cyril, a Lib Dem, should have been prosecuted for abusing young boys in the 1960s.

Labour MP Simon Danczuk said the allegations of rape had been made by people who attended Knowl View.

The council-run residential school closed down in 1992.

The abuse by Sir Cyril was also said to have taken place at Cambridge House Children's Home, a privately-run care home which closed in 1965.

-snip-

Twelve men have so far accused Sir Cyril of abusing them in the 1960s, police have confirmed.

Mr Danczuk said: "We now know from other victims (of Cambridge House) that indecent assault is what he would have been prosecuted with but his abuse went on from there.

"There is no doubt about it from the witnesses that have come forward that rape would have been included in the allegations against him, absolutely.

"That is what is alleged by people who were at Knowl View, which is a special school within Rochdale local authority area, and that is where it is alleged - and it is openly out there - that he raped children."
A Greater Manchester Police (GMP) spokesman said eight victims originally came forward in the 1960s, with two more coming forward in 1999 and a further two making claims following recent media coverage.

The CPS has admitted Sir Cyril, who was a Labour councillor in the 1950s and 60s, should have been charged with sex crimes more than 40 years ago.

Although he faced no action following inquiries in 1970 and the 1990s, the CPS said procedural changes meant a prosecution would have been pursued today.

A high-ranking friend of Cyril Smith tried to warn off police investigating claims that he had been sexually abusing boys, a report reveals.

A senior detective investigating the claims against Smith said a magistrate made "veiled threats" to officers.

The detective's 1970 report to the Chief Constable of Lancashire said there was "prima facie" evidence of the MP's guilt.

The Director of Public Prosecution later advised against prosecuting.

The 14-page report by the detective superintendent, which has been redacted, has been seen by the BBC.

It said that Smith would have been "at the mercy of a competent counsel", but also reported that the MP's magistrate "buddy" had warned of "unfortunate repercussions for the police force and the town of Rochdale" should he be prosecuted.

The officer, whose name has been redacted from the report, was investigating allegations of sex abuse made by eight young boys, six of whom who had been at the privately-run Cambridge House care home in Rochdale.

-snip-

Smith was interviewed by the detective superintendent, who reported to former chief constable William Palfrey that "it seems impossible to excuse [Smith's] conduct".

"Over a considerable period of time, while sheltering beneath a veneer of responsibility, he has used his unique position to indulge in a series of indecent episodes with young boys towards whom he had a special responsibility," he wrote.

He said Smith was "most unimpressive during my interview with him".

The officer said: "He had difficulty in articulating and even the stock replies he proffered could only be obtained after repeated promptings from his solicitor.

"Were he ever to be placed in the witness box, he would be at the mercy of any competent counsel.

"Prima facie, he appears guilty of numerous offences of indecent assault."

The officer reported that he interviewed the magistrate who told him in his "personal opinion" he "sincerely hoped that this matter is not prosecuted before the court".

"In my opinion, as a Justice of the Peace, it is not court-worthy," he told the officer.
"The prosecution can do no good at all and the backlash will have unfortunate repercussions for the police force and the town of Rochdale."

He also told the officer it was "no secret" that he and Smith "are buddies, and not only politically".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-28330779
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-20568253

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27047442
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28141531

[DanaC]

Notice the Rochdale connection - along with Rotherham that is the other hotspot town for the childgrooming cases involving asian men and young girls. That said, in Rochdale where the grooming took place around 2008/9 the men responsible were prosecuted and it became a matter of fierce public debate.

Rochdale is and was a place of serious racial tension, and one of the results ofthat case was that the BNP (British National Party) made a good deal of political capital out of the ethnicity of the offenders. It became the main tranch of their political campaigning in that area. Which may partly explain the higher level of concern amongst the Rotherham authorities over the race issue.

Not that that excuses them in any way whatsoever.

Also - I haven't even touched on the other scandals involving prominent figures within the entertainment industry - most notably Jimmy Savile and allegations that he was part of a much wider ring of abuse - involving hospitals, secure schools, Broadmoor secure pyschiatric hospital and other places. Bear in mind that Savile had 'friends' in very high places.

The government recently did an about turn and announced a full scale and wide ranging enquiry into abuse at the highest levels - then they announced the person to head up that enquiry. Lady Butler-Schloss - an eminent former high court judge with a history of looking into abuse. The problem with that though, was that not only had she been implicated in trying to reduce damage to the catholic church during an abuse enquiry (telling a victim not to mention a bishop because 'the press would love a bishop' but also her late brother was one of the people suspected of having been involved in abuse.

She withdrew from the enquiry two days after being named to head it up and they are still trying to find someone else to take her place.

[tw]

It is not disgusting. It just is. A problem that exists because many largest institutions in the world all but endorse it. And because the outrage is so muted. Need we mention the Catholic Church protection of pedophiles - by the hundreds?

This problem exists because major institutions are not even prosecuted for sexual misconduct. Even the Pope has apparently said one thing and practices another. Even football players can beat the crap out of their girlfriends, fiance, or wife. And get a paltry two game suspension.

The DA for Philadelphia - Lynn Abraham - took Archdiocese files that proves the Church knew about and was all but protecting pedophiles. She even published the names. Other adjacent archdiocese have similar lists. And no other prosecutor subpoenaed those archdiocese. An overwhelming response even in the Cellar was almost a yawn. Pennsylvania's legislature refused for over ten years to pass legislation to protect children from sex and to enable prosecution of pedophiles. Opposition was mostly from the "Appalachia of Pennsylvania" regions. Where was the outrage? Rotheram is but another symptom of a muted public response.

[Undertoad]

We all bring our own world view to the table, when faced with the big news of the day, don't we? "This is how this relates to what *I* believe!"

There may be a little of everything in the mix. Cultural tendencies. Racial biases. Underprotection of children. Poor policing. Poor management of policing. Overapplication of political correctness. Groupthink that excuses the behavior. Groupthink that encourages the behavior.

This is like aircraft accidents, where there are often multiple causes; we can all think about the correction we might have made, the correction we are thinking about and worried about. But there can still be a combination we aren't prepared for.