Sir Cliff Richard
Discussion
The abuse was widespread - not only in care homes. I can remember a handfull of miserable lessons learning to swim in a pool at a local school for 'problem' kids and thinking that if the pool is this cold, no one could possibly care about the kids who attended. And coincidentally: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/cruel-head-sexua...
Chim said:
Derek Smith said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshi...
After a certain level, victims become merely numbers.
Very much this, forget all the bum grabbing and tittle tattle being investigated at huge cost. You can also put aside the tinfoil hats. This is simply astounding, massive levels of abuse of the most horrendous kind going on under the noses of the council and police and nothing was done. I would suggest that operation Yewtrees efforts could be far better employed here than trying to persecute, sorry, prosecute DLT for grabbing someones arse in the 70'sAfter a certain level, victims become merely numbers.
There was one victim, I think this was on YouTube, who described hearing someone coming up the stairs at night, then hearing the door to the dorm open and then praying that they didn't stop as his bed. The chap said that he would feel relieved if someone else was picked, thanking his god for the mercy shown, and then would suffer feelings of guilt when he heard the screams, and the whimpering when the lad returned. Poor b
d.The poor chap was still beating himself up dozens of years later. How awful is that? He's probably been told by everyone he's opened up to that this would be the norm for any kid, and the majority of adults.
I agree that these offences should have a considerable proportion of the available resources dedicated to it but then the police have suffered considerable criticism over the Savile case and others of inactivity and their changed response has been a reaction to the media campaign.
Don't forget that many such enquiries start with serious offences being alleged. When these are found not to be proveable or CPS bin it for other reasons, then the police might well be left with a number of less serious offences, all with plenty of evidence. What should they do then? Ignore it?
They can't do that because if the press or TV get hold of it then there will be an expose of the practices.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
The police are much more answerable to public opinion nowadays, more so than they have ever been. Some media outlets thrive on sensationalism.
There was one case I know about where a senior officer was in the frame. However, there were circumstances surrounding the case that were mitigation. Many of the more responsible media outlets, the vast majority in fact, ran with a simple report. A couple ignored the mitigation and emblazoned limited information all across their pages, proving how corrupt the police are.
I've just checked a news outlet, entirely at random of course, and discovered that the DM is running with the shame of <500 officers being suspended for suspected corruption over the last five years. Just off the top of my head, and given that some of the suspensions were before Cameron started his systematic dismantling of the police service, there were 148,000 police officers at any one time. (Less than) 100 officers per annum are suspended (not convicted you notice). That give a very low percentage.
Reasons to be cheerful or reasons to follow the right in politics and attack the service?
So with this type of journalism, the police have to expect that if they ignored offences because they were minor, they would be beaten up by editors.
I'm told, and from two different sources, that the police now pass much more to the CPS for decisions, despite knowing full well they will be binned. The officers are angry that the police function is being undermined by the press, but then there is little option.
carinaman said:
So we care about what goes on with ISIS in Syria and Northern Iraq while turning a blind eye when equally barbaric practices are going on in Rotherham? It's like that child soldier stuff in Africa we all get hand wringy about.
We're a nation of deluded PC hypocrites.
It's like the 50mph motorway limits around Sheffield or Brum; they don't affect the nice, middle class, bien pensant politicians and policy makers, so the problems fail to exist. Until, of course, there is a knock-on effect - a backlash, or tipping point.We're a nation of deluded PC hypocrites.
I mentioned horror stories earlier: if you read nothing else, then take in my bold and put yourself in the place of these kids.
Executive Summary from the Independent Inquiry CSE in Rotherham
No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the full Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013.
In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.
This abuse is not confined to the past but continues to this day. In May 2014, the caseload of the specialist child sexual exploitation team was 51. More CSE cases were held by other children's social care teams. There were 16 looked after children who were identified by children’s social care as being at serious risk of sexual exploitation or having been sexually exploited. In 2013, the Police received 157 reports concerning child sexual exploitation in the Borough.
Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.
Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover-up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them.
In the early 2000s, a small group of professionals from key agencies met and monitored large numbers of children known to be involved in CSE or at risk but their managers gave little help or support to their efforts. Some at a senior level in the Police and children's social care continued to think the extent of the problem, as described by youth workers, was exaggerated, and seemed intent on reducing the official numbers of children categorised as CSE. At an operational level, staff appeared to be overwhelmed by the numbers involved. There were improvements in the response of management from about 2007 onwards. By 2009, the children's social care service was acutely understaffed and over stretched, struggling to cope with demand.
Seminars for elected members and senior officers in 2004-05 presented the abuse in the most explicit terms. After these events, nobody could say 'we didn't know'. In 2005, the present Council Leader chaired a group to take forward the issues, but there is no record of its meetings or conclusions, apart from one minute.
By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.
In December 2009, the Minister of State for Children and Families put the Council's children’s safeguarding services into intervention, following an extremely critical Ofsted report. The Council was removed from intervention thirteen months later.
The Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board and its predecessor oversaw the development of good inter-agency policies and procedures applicable to CSE. The weakness in their approach was that members of the Safeguarding Board rarely checked whether these were being implemented or whether they were working. The challenge and scrutiny function of the Safeguarding Board and of the Council itself was lacking over several years at a time when it was most required.
In 2013, the Council Leader, who has held office since 2003, apologised for the quality of the Council's safeguarding services being less than it should have been before 2009. This apology should have been made years earlier, and the issue given the political leadership it needed.
There have been many improvements in the last four years by both the Council and the Police. The Police are now well resourced for CSE and well trained, though prosecutions remain low in number. There is a central team in children's social care which works jointly with the Police and deals with child sexual exploitation. This works well but the team struggles to keep pace with the demands of its workload. The Council is facing particular challenges in dealing with increased financial pressures, which inevitably impact on frontline services. The Safeguarding Board has improved its response to child sexual exploitation and holds agencies to account with better systems for file audits and performance reporting. There are still matters for children’s social care to address such as good risk assessment, which is absent from too many cases, and there is not enough long-term support for the child victims.
The HO holds the copyright. See the website for restrictions.
Executive Summary from the Independent Inquiry CSE in Rotherham
No one knows the true scale of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Rotherham over the years. Our conservative estimate is that approximately 1400 children were sexually exploited over the full Inquiry period, from 1997 to 2013.
In just over a third of cases, children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known to services because of child protection and neglect. It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.
This abuse is not confined to the past but continues to this day. In May 2014, the caseload of the specialist child sexual exploitation team was 51. More CSE cases were held by other children's social care teams. There were 16 looked after children who were identified by children’s social care as being at serious risk of sexual exploitation or having been sexually exploited. In 2013, the Police received 157 reports concerning child sexual exploitation in the Borough.
Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well.
Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers. At an operational level, the Police gave no priority to CSE, regarding many child victims with contempt and failing to act on their abuse as a crime. Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the Police and the Council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham. The first of these reports was effectively suppressed because some senior officers disbelieved the data it contained. This had led to suggestions of cover-up. The other two reports set out the links between child sexual exploitation and drugs, guns and criminality in the Borough. These reports were ignored and no action was taken to deal with the issues that were identified in them.
In the early 2000s, a small group of professionals from key agencies met and monitored large numbers of children known to be involved in CSE or at risk but their managers gave little help or support to their efforts. Some at a senior level in the Police and children's social care continued to think the extent of the problem, as described by youth workers, was exaggerated, and seemed intent on reducing the official numbers of children categorised as CSE. At an operational level, staff appeared to be overwhelmed by the numbers involved. There were improvements in the response of management from about 2007 onwards. By 2009, the children's social care service was acutely understaffed and over stretched, struggling to cope with demand.
Seminars for elected members and senior officers in 2004-05 presented the abuse in the most explicit terms. After these events, nobody could say 'we didn't know'. In 2005, the present Council Leader chaired a group to take forward the issues, but there is no record of its meetings or conclusions, apart from one minute.
By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.
In December 2009, the Minister of State for Children and Families put the Council's children’s safeguarding services into intervention, following an extremely critical Ofsted report. The Council was removed from intervention thirteen months later.
The Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board and its predecessor oversaw the development of good inter-agency policies and procedures applicable to CSE. The weakness in their approach was that members of the Safeguarding Board rarely checked whether these were being implemented or whether they were working. The challenge and scrutiny function of the Safeguarding Board and of the Council itself was lacking over several years at a time when it was most required.
In 2013, the Council Leader, who has held office since 2003, apologised for the quality of the Council's safeguarding services being less than it should have been before 2009. This apology should have been made years earlier, and the issue given the political leadership it needed.
There have been many improvements in the last four years by both the Council and the Police. The Police are now well resourced for CSE and well trained, though prosecutions remain low in number. There is a central team in children's social care which works jointly with the Police and deals with child sexual exploitation. This works well but the team struggles to keep pace with the demands of its workload. The Council is facing particular challenges in dealing with increased financial pressures, which inevitably impact on frontline services. The Safeguarding Board has improved its response to child sexual exploitation and holds agencies to account with better systems for file audits and performance reporting. There are still matters for children’s social care to address such as good risk assessment, which is absent from too many cases, and there is not enough long-term support for the child victims.
The HO holds the copyright. See the website for restrictions.
The last paragraph mentioning funding and finances reminds me of comments made in 2005 by former DC Shirley Thompson who was told to drop stuff relating to William Goad, probably a more prolific child defiler than Cyril Smith or Jimmy Savile:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/424...
Then like now, money is used as an excuse? A decade on from the BBC Panorama about Goad, the establishment were still doing much the same in Yorks?
'Lessons will be learned'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Child_Matters
They all need a good kicking come the election, regardless of their political colours.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/424...
Then like now, money is used as an excuse? A decade on from the BBC Panorama about Goad, the establishment were still doing much the same in Yorks?
'Lessons will be learned'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Every_Child_Matters
They all need a good kicking come the election, regardless of their political colours.
Edited by carinaman on Tuesday 26th August 16:18
After the failed attempt to prosecute Smith by the Rotherham juvenile offences unit, it was disbanded. All that expertise lost. Not only that, who would join any new one knowing that if you did a good job, the file would be binned?
So protecting the victims of Smith has probably meant more victims. Who would have thought?
This 1400 - or more than 1400 according to the report - are on the conscience of those who did sod all about Smith.
So protecting the victims of Smith has probably meant more victims. Who would have thought?
This 1400 - or more than 1400 according to the report - are on the conscience of those who did sod all about Smith.
Edited by Derek Smith on Tuesday 26th August 17:13
And yet Derek, we had someone in SP&L with the PH ID EngineerX saying they were thinking of joining the police to make a difference and a few told them not due to the cuts. Who would want to take pay from the police if it involved keeping quiet about organised child abuse? Meanwhile we have James Patrick being disciplined for telling the truth at a PASC in parliament and former police officer Mark Williams-Thomas making that documentary on Savile, that led to the lead on Max Clifford, for £130K.
The justice system is just another part of Broken Britain.
The justice system is just another part of Broken Britain.
Digga said:
carinaman said:
So we care about what goes on with ISIS in Syria and Northern Iraq while turning a blind eye when equally barbaric practices are going on in Rotherham? It's like that child soldier stuff in Africa we all get hand wringy about.
We're a nation of deluded PC hypocrites.
It's like the 50mph motorway limits around Sheffield or Brum; they don't affect the nice, middle class, bien pensant politicians and policy makers, so the problems fail to exist. Until, of course, there is a knock-on effect - a backlash, or tipping point.We're a nation of deluded PC hypocrites.
Breadvan72 said:
Wow. Only on PH could someone compare institutional child abuse to motorists being inconvenienced by speed limits.
I am not so sure. Will the fuss about this stuff in Rotherham, that's been hushed up in much the same way Baroness Butler-closed-Shop said that the Press would love to bash a Bishop, create as much press and public furore as Huhne and his missus swapping points?Evading GATSO points bad, covering up and ignoring organised exploitation of minors not so bad?
The Motorist is public enemy No. 1, when in reality it should be the child molesters and the Great and the Good in the Establishment that look the other way? It's like a myopic driver taking out a motorcyclist at a T junction 'Sorry, I didn't see you/it'?
Ah yeah, don't forget the slope on the bridge. Saying smoething ill judged or prejudiced on TV is worse than sex with minors and sharing them around like marbles or football stickers?
Edited by carinaman on Tuesday 26th August 16:52
Not wanting to sound like some sort of pretend moderator but might this thread best be saved for the Cliff saga itself? FWIW Rotherham and the wider issues are being discussed on the resurrected abuse gang thread.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Einion Yrth said:
Qwert1e said:
Derek Smith said:
The fact that he's old is no reason to wipe the slate clean.
Yet the Lockerbie bomber, convicted of murdering 270 people, was released from jail on "compassionate" grounds and then lived for another three years.carinaman said:
Breadvan72 said:
Wow. Only on PH could someone compare institutional child abuse to motorists being inconvenienced by speed limits.
I am not so sure. Will the fuss about this stuff in Rotherham, that's been hushed up in much the same way Baroness Butler-closed-Shop said that the Press would love to bash a Bishop, create as much press and public furore as Huhne and his missus swapping points?Evading GATSO points bad, covering up and ignoring organised exploitation of minors not so bad?
The Motorist is public enemy No. 1, when in reality it should be the child molesters and the Great and the Good in the Establishment that look the other way? It's like a myopic driver taking out a motorcyclist at a T junction 'Sorry, I didn't see you/it'?
Ah yeah, don't forget the slope on the bridge. Saying smoething ill judged or prejudiced on TV is worse than sex with minors and sharing them around like marbles or football stickers?
Edited by carinaman on Tuesday 26th August 16:52
Breadvan72 said:
I think that you're losing perspective. Consequences to Clarkson of Slopegate? Nil. Huhne was about a politician caught in a lie, not about speeding points.
I've seen your point and will think about it. But nobody in Rotherham is culpable? Meanwhile when you sped in your Range Rover you were guilty. The NIPs got to you, fathers that tracked down their daughters being abused and tried to rescue them were dealt with by the police.Conspiracies about cover ups? Files locked away in drawers?
Low hanging fruit is easy to pick. Being lazy and incompetent is easy. In addition, a culture of harshness and "these kids don't really matter" surrounded many care homes. Of course some people in Rotherham are culpable.
I still think that mentioning motorway speed limits as a scandal that somehow compares to the Rotherham scandal is just daft.
I still think that mentioning motorway speed limits as a scandal that somehow compares to the Rotherham scandal is just daft.
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 26th August 17:17
Proportionality and perspective. How dangerous was you getting carried away with the Buick V8 in your Spen King masterpiece in a 30 limit compared to those within the authorities in Rotherham that failed to do their job? They've just had some chap from the Council on PM he said he was part of the solution rather than the problem and mentioned 'systems'.
In my book sex with minors is more serious than an SP30. 'Victimless crimes'? 'undesirables'? It's a bit like policing by postcode isn't it?
In my book sex with minors is more serious than an SP30. 'Victimless crimes'? 'undesirables'? It's a bit like policing by postcode isn't it?
Breadvan72 said:
Low hanging fruit is easy to pick. Being lazy and incompetent is easy. In addition, a culture of harshness and "these kids don't really matter" surrounded many care homes. Of course some people in Rotherham are culpable.
I still think that mentioning motorway speed limits as a scandal that somehow compares to the Rotherham scandal is just daft.
I can only agree with you. The two crimes are utterly different in their seriousness. This business at Rotherham is genuinely a National disgrace. Comparing this to any other crime is not productive. These crimes were individually desperately serious on every occasion. And there are apparently literally thousands of cases. Quite outside comparison with any other minor crime. Which does not mean that the minor crimes do not matter. But there is a world of difference.I still think that mentioning motorway speed limits as a scandal that somehow compares to the Rotherham scandal is just daft.
Edited by Breadvan72 on Tuesday 26th August 17:17
I do wonder if the spectre of state sponsored political correctness has gone so far, that an unintended consequence has been to allow events such as these and others on the west of the Pennines to take place. I don't use the words lightly, however it is a travesty if gangs of criminals have escaped attention simply because they're made up from ethnic minorities and the authorities have been afraid to act because of it. The only message that could send, is a negative one.
This is only amplified, when events are tackled as they are now, and race relations become strained.
Shame on those with no backbone.
This is only amplified, when events are tackled as they are now, and race relations become strained.
Shame on those with no backbone.
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