Investigators who examined police failings in the Rotherham grooming gangs scandal were told not to investigate senior officers and no one lost their jobs, a whistleblower has said. The Times has the story.
No officers lost their jobs and only those in lower ranks were investigated for misconduct despite findings that police had failed to investigate the sexual exploitation of at least 1,400 young girls by gangs of men of predominantly Pakistani heritage.
The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) carried out Operation Linden, which found that police did not make crime records even when rapes and sexual assaults were reported, did not question older men found in the presence of young drunk girls and viewed vulnerable children as troublesome problems instead of victims.
The watchdog, which has rigorously defended its investigation, concluded in 2022 that there were systemic failings at South Yorkshire police, which enabled industrial-scale child sexual abuse between 1997 and 2013.
A whistleblower has told the Times that Operation Linden did not delve deep enough, standards of investigation were poor and there was “no desire” by the IOPC to properly uncover the reasons behind the failings.
“We were actively told not to pursue senior officers,” the whistleblower said. “It was just largely incompetent. There was just no passion or desire within the IOPC to understand what went wrong in Rotherham and find out why those girls were let down.
“We were told to focus on junior officers who handled the complaints from individual victims. But this was happening across the country, where lower-ranked officers were ignoring CSE [child sexual exploitation].
“I thought it was important to know why that was. Whether this culture was sanctioned at higher up levels. But I was told ‘you cannot pursue senior officers, suggesting they should have known what was going on’.”
The IOPC carried out 91 investigations into police failings, covering 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants. It examined 47 officers and found that eight had a case to answer for misconduct and six for gross misconduct.
None lost their jobs, the most severe sanction was a written warning and some other officers received “management advice”.
Worth reading in full.
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Just like with Hillsborough, this needs to be pursued as long as it takes, until all those victims get the justice they deserve.
No matter how deep this goes.
Starmer needs to realise this could bring his government down if he continues to ignore the calls for a proper independent inquiry – warts and all.
I wonder how many senior officers were part of these gangs. At the very least, this is conspiracy on a shocking scale.
I tend to think probably not involved per se KLF, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised at who was on the take, directly or indirectly with ‘favours’ and promotion ladders etc being slipped their way ..
Yes, you’re probably right. I was allowing my outrage to get the better of me!
If I were you, klf, I’d trust my instinct.
It is quite possible there were some senior officers in on it.
No more than counted on the fingers of one hand, perhaps… I hope.
It’s a grim business.
Grim and shocking, but even at that not surprising.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Do you seriously think (former Minister) Sajid Javid’s brother – Bas Javid (a senior Police Officer in Birmingham and the Met) – wasn’t aware of these Rape Gangs?
They are both ethnic Pakistani so they would have been familiar with “the culture” which creates them and Bas Javid was a senior Police Officer in a cities which have large ethnic-Pakistani “communities.”
I find it very hard to believe that both of them weren’t very well aware of the nature and scale of the crimes.
Bas Javid is now Director General of Immigration Enforcement! You really couldn’t make it up.
… or local councillors, Labour MPs, local bigwigs, judges, magistrates …
And Tory councils, MPs and Tory government too.
Watch Red Riding, it’s set against the background of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. High & low level police corruption, racial issues, corruption councillors.
I lived in Leeds & Bradford throughout this period. The series captures the era brilliantly well. It couldn’t be made today.
Creeps gonna creep. Any ladies using taxis take note as I doubt this dodginess is restricted to the one area. In fact I know it’s not as I’ve read of Uber drivers kidnapping lone female passengers;
”Ladies especially might want to be aware when getting taxis.
Early this morning my sons girlfriend ordered a taxi on the Bolt app for my son to get to work. When the taxi came matching the one that came up on the app, there where three other men sat in the back!
The guy driving after seeing my son stood there, decided he wasnt a taxi after all and drove off! So, we’ve got a taxi, full of blokes expecting the passenger to be a young woman which to me is alarming in the least.
This was reported to Bolt who’s reply was “its a bit of a bummer that the taxi driver acted unprofessionally and would look into it “…
I want to ask this taxi driver, Khurram, why he’s rocking up with three other blokes in the back of his cab expecting to pick up a young lady passenger for a start.. absolutely fuming!’
https://x.com/CaliforniaFrizz/status/1879132043373641843
The reason it’s safe to say this widespread sex abuse of underage girls is still ongoing is that 1) Many perpetrators are still out there. They either got off or the case didn’t go to court in the first place. 2) No police were sacked over their complicity in this national scandal but nor was anybody else. So even if some people did move from their jobs, how many, including police officers on these forces in the 50+ towns/cities where rape gangs operated, are still serving police officers? 3) I know it’s still going on because the same predators are still being imported, because **no lessons have been learnt**. These stings by paedo hunters get uploaded all the time. 99.99% Pakistani and Afghans;
”Meet Muhammad from Pakistan who groomed a 14 year old girl online. He thought he was meeting up for sexual activities.
He sent her pornagraphic videos & said “the innocence of little girls excited him.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1879102098895425901
“I didn’t know the rules”
Or ‘well it is OK where I come from’.
A fish rots from the head.
The more junior Officers would have been either following direct Orders; complying with “the guidance” or simply conforming to the culture set in place by their Police Chiefs.
I expect every Police Chief in the country was aware of the Rape Gangs and they, too, were either following direct Orders; complying with “the guidance” or simply conforming to the culture set in place by their Political Masters.
That sounds familiar, Auschwitz?
Didn’t the Brown government tell Chiefs of police to ignore the issue?