Sex  abuse of children was rampant in English town

It isn’t uncommon in which children are sexually abused in cities and towns. This problem exists everywhere. But in the town of Rotherham, England, the sexual abuse of children is rampant and for some time, it was out of control.  Between 1997 and 20134, as many as 1,400 children were being sexually abused.

In the 2011 census, the population of Rotherham was 257,280 and is made up of approximately 51% females and 49% males. 93.5% of people living in Rotherham were born in England. Others country of birth were 1.1% Pakistan, 0.9% Scotland, 0.3% Wales, 0.3% Zimbabwe, 0.2% India, 0.2% Ireland, 0.1% Northern Ireland, 0.1% Iran, 0.1% South Africa.

Who was abusing these children? The vast majority of the victims described the perpetrators who molested and/or raped them as being Asian men however they also said that the majority of the men who molested and/or raped them were Pakistanis. Pakistan is not part of Asia. It is part of the Indian subcontinent, It is conceivable that the children merely thought that Pakistan was part of Asia. 

Teachers reported seeing children as young as 11, 12 and 13 being picked up outside schools by cars and taxis, given presents and mobile phones and taken to meet large numbers of unknown men in Rotherham or other local towns and cities. Many of the children came from dysfunctional families, had parents with addictions and who also suffered domestic or sexual abuse as a child.

The majority of victims believed the perpetrators to be their friends who gave them gifts, alcohol and drugs. Some of the victims still maintain they were not groomed or abused but that could be because they were infatuated with their new friends.  Some of them had serious mental health problems.

Five of the perps were Umar Razaq, Adil Hussain, Razwan Razaq, Zafran Ramzan and Mohsin Khan who preyed on their victims over several months and threatened them with violence if they refused their advances. They wrere all British-born Packistanis. These perps attacked four girls in play areas, parks and the back of their cars. One of the man referred to his female victim as as 'white bitch' when she resisted  while a second perp smirked when he admitted to his victim;  said to his victim,  "I'v used you and abused you." The perps gave them gifts and also introduced their victims to the perp's friends. The girls were abused so many times, they began to believe that this was becoming a way of life for the girls.   

Victims were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated. Girls as young as 11 had been raped by large numbers of men.  Victims were doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, terrorized with guns, made to witness brutally-violent rapes and told they would be the next if they complained to anyone.

The spotlight fell on Rotherham in 2010, after Laura Wilson, 17, was murdered for bringing shame on the families of two Pakistani men who had used her for sex. She had been groomed by a string of British Pakistanis before she was stabbed and thrown into a canal to die for informing her abusers’ families of the sexual relationships. Her killer, Ashtiaq Asghar, who was 18 at the time, was given a life sentence and will serve a minimum of 17-and-a-half years after he pleaded guilty to murdering Laura in October 2010.

One young girl later told an inquiry that ‘gang rape’ was a usual part of growing up in the area of Rotherham where she lived. One child declined her initial offer to give a statement after allegedly receiving a text on her cellphone from a perpetrator threatening to harm her younger sister.

What were the police doing all this time? NOTHING. The police treated many of the child victims with contempt. In two cases,. fathers had tracked down the whereabouts of their missing daughters and tried to remove them from the houses they were kept in; only to be arrested for their efforts by the police.  On one occasion, a married father-of-two,  Arshid Hussain was even caught with the half-naked schoolgirl under his bed but documents revealed that police arrested her  and let him go. In another shocking case, reported in 2012, a 13-year-old girl told police how she had been groomed and raped by an Asian sex gang. She wrote a harrowing letter to herself at the age of 14 addressed to her alter-ego Michelle, in which she wrote, “I feel like the Asians really hate me even when they say they love me.” The girl, who told police in 2003 about the rape that took her virginity and the time five men queued outside a bedroom to demand sex from her.  She then said, “They took all my dreams and my life away from me.” Still the police were not moved to explore this problem more closely.

 The first of these reports of child abuse was effectively suppressed because senior police officers did not believe the information given to them.  The other two were subsequently completely ignored. Fears had also been raised by schools over the 16 years but the alerts went un-investigated. Town Councillors seemed to dismiss previous reports as a one-off problem which they hoped would go away.

Shaun Wright, the current Police Commissioner for South Yorkshire is Shaun Wright, who was widely criticised for failing to tackle sex abuse in Rotherham during his five-year stint in the council's children and young people's department, said he is more determined than ever to lead a Police Force that effectively roots out the evil criminals who carry out such disgraceful abuse. He is still the commissioner of police. He should have been fired.

Council chief executive, Martin Kimber said he did not have the evidence to discipline any individuals working for the council despite the report saying there had been blatant collective failures by its leadership at the time. He should have been fired. He did however take some action against thgose officers who failed in their duty to protect some of the victims. He said, Officers in senior positions who were responsible for safeguarding the children's services throughout the critical periods fell short of today's standards do not work for the council anymore."  The police are under the jurisdiction of the council. Tbe leader of the council of Rotherham, Roger Stone quit on September 26, 2014 in light of the findings. A subsequent scathing inquiry report said there had been a “blatant” failure of leadership from politicians and council officials in Rotherham over the sexual abuse of at least 1,400 children over a period of 16 years.

In August 2013, four women launched legal action against Rotherham council over ‘systematic failures’ to protect them from ‘sexual abuse by predatory men when they were children’ according to their lawyers. One girl, known only as ‘Jessica' claims she was abused daily as a 14-year-old by a 24-year-old man after social services failed to accept the fact that she was a victim of grooming for illegal sexual purposes.

I have said it in the past that the sexual abuse of children is truly one of the best kept secrets. But the secret in Rotherham was not secretive to the police and the members of the city council. It was staring them right in the face. However, if you prefer to keep your eyes closed and put your fingers in your ears, then the secret will continue to be a secret. That why these child molesters and rapists got away with their detestable crimes for so long.