For years, police and authorities turned a blind eye for for of being branded racist
A story of rampant child abuse—ignored and abetted by the police—emerged out of the British town of Rotherham in Yorkshire in August 2014. Until then, its scale and scope would have been inconceivable in a civilized country.
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Rotherham teenage mother Laura Wilson, was brutally murdered by her Muslim lover, Ashtiaq Ashgar, for exposing their secret relationship to his family and bringing shame on the traditional Pakistani Muslim family. Ashgar had sworn Laura to secrecy because he was just using her for sex while his family were planning an arranged marriage for their son with a girl from Pakistan |
Its origins, however, lie in two related factors, firstly what one Labour MP called “not wanting to rock the multicultural boat” and secondly, the fear by police, council authorities and social workers of being branded as racist.
The Labour council of Rotherham stands accused of ignoring child sex abuse on an unimaginable scale for 16 years.
Children (almost entirely white British girls) as young as 11 were trafficked, beaten, and raped by large numbers of Pakistani Muslim men in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, the council commissioned review into child protection revealed.
At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, the report found.
Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated, it said.
And shockingly, more than a third of the cases were already known to agencies.
But according to the report’s author: ‘several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist’.
The landmark report exposed widespread failures of the council, police and social services.