The Rotherham 1,400 children plus – WHO is responsible?

[Isitmebut]

The Rotherham situation, where the authorities appear to have done NOTHING to protect children in care, goes back 16-years, as it appears there was a largely ethnic element involved and ‘the powers that CONTINUE to be’ in a job, were afraid in that political climate, to be seen as ‘racists’, but why?

I can remember posting when anyone even daring to mention the affects of immigration on housing, jobs and local services were called ‘racist’, sometimes whole posts/threads were deleted on media boards (even the Daily Mail) - while the government of the day, not held to account by the media on their side, were free to continue a ‘multicultural’ agenda they adopted in their first few years they never sought at the ballot box.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2354713/BBC-chief-admits-We-deep-liberal-bias-migrants--changed.html

But as this article points out, the fear of being accused a racist, affected even household conversations.
“Are we all racist now?”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10860492/Are-we-all-racist-now.html

And the problem with secret sofa government policies, where local authorities and media compliance is key to continued electoral success, is that you can’t be SEEN to raise ethnic issues OR plan ahead for the numbers in homes, healthcare or schools – especially in a 2010 General Election manifesto, in electoral damage limitation mode.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

The 2000’s seem to be a time when our public sector/local government numbers increased enormously, but seemed to both have THEIR OWN POLITICAL agendas, and failed so many vulnerable people, especially children in and out of care.

For no one in Rotherham to take responsibility for what happened to the 1,400 children (we know about), is a national disgrace – that is not good enough.

Out of all the awfulness of this I ask myself "what were the authorities thinking off by denying/ignoring the situation?" What on earth was going through the heads of all of those people when they told the girls and their families to go away?

It is astounding that such a huge number of people could be so bloody useless (and get away with it).

This scenario was known by the authorities years ago but for political reasons it was better for them to ignore it. The investigation by The Times reporter Andrew Norfolk forced an independent investigations the results of which was published yesterday. Thank God we still have a free press otherwise the politicians and the council leaders would still have been suppressing the facts.

In 2004 the TV programme Dispatches first bought this problem to public attention with their programme Edge of the City but was forced to pull it after it was accussed of being racist.

"In 2004, Channel 4 withdrew Edge of the City, its controversial documentary made by Annie Hall that depicted parents trying to stop groups of young Asian men grooming white girls as young as 11 for sex. It had been seized on by the BNP as a party political broadcast.

Colin Cramphorn, the then Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, joined groups such as Unite against Fascism in calling for the documentary to be withdrawn. Channel 4 complied, saying that the issue was not censorship but timing because of the proximity with the local and European elections. But many argued at the time that the delay in transmission had strengthened the case of the BNP.

After the film was withdrawn, one of the mothers sent Annie Hall a text message: "It's a real shame when votes come before young girls' lives."

This is so shocking and such a nightmare for the victims and their families. Yorkshire Police are looking pretty bad - Rotherham, Bolton, hillsborough and Jimmy Saville. There seems to be a culture of cover ups.

I really hope the perpetrators and those that ignored but knew are brought to justice.

'At the top (political) level, not losing votes or alienating the pakistani community was obviously an issue.'

The media tells us that it was partially to do with a PC attitude among some authorities where they were scared of being called racist, but even though there is a PC attitude, I find it hard to believe that that attitude could ignore such crimes.

I wonder if the silence or seeming coverup may have had something to do with not encouraging BNP support, since they were campaigning about this issue.

I can't believe that the Pakistani community would have been alienated by the apprehension of these criminals.

'The main finding of the report is that the victims were routinely treated with contempt and disregard by pretty much all the services they were in contact with.'

It seems almost institutional rather than just being about misguided PC individuals. They couldn't all have shared the same disregard etc. They must have known that some of their jobs etc would be on the line if it ever came out so surely some would have done the right thing and exposed it all.

Why didn't they? I don't believe it is because individuals were afraid of being caled racist, I think it is more institutional.

I do not know if the BNP campaign influenced anything, but looking at some of the facts, it tends to look as if the motives behind the system failure is POLITICAL, but I’d suggest that in Rotherham at least, it was not to GAIN the Pakistani votes..

For those that point the finger at the Pakistani etc Elders in not doing more and believe the systems motive in covering up all this abuse was a conspiracy between the two, the demographic breakdown of religion would not support this. Around 90% are Christian and No Religion, while every other is around ££5 and below,

So we are back to THE SYSTEM, where many of those that would have knew at first hand of these cases and/or received the reports warning of the abuse in 2002, 2003 and 2006, prior to the last one in 2010, have been PROMOTED.

So is this all down to multi-local services card carrying apparatchik ‘back scratching’, like the Co-op Bank, where those in charge of limited capability, are given jobs with serious responsibility and chose the path of least resistance TO GET AHEAD????

Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Shaun Wright, was responsible for Children’s Services from 2005 to 2010 and apparently while resigning after the 2010 report, tells us that he did not see the 2006 report, or copies of the two previous ones, so WHY NOT if not a systemic cover up?

Commissioner Wright stop as the Labour candidate and was elected to his post on a 14.5% turnout, by over 51% of the votes, with the nearest rival polling over 15% and that was an English Democrat candidate.

Labour have moved very quickly to distance themselves from Commissioner Wright by expelling him from the party, and no doubt will now blame a Conservative policy of ELECTED Crime Commissioners that can not be fired by politicians, that was meant to negate political interference in the police doing their jobs on behalf of ‘the people’.

The problem NOW is that ‘the party machine’ that no doubt hide local authority incompetence and got Wright elected to his Crime Commissioner job, CANNOT INVESTIGATE their own ‘club’.

Home Secretary May will have to appoint outside police forces to investigate Rotherham and others, but where do you find a regional police force, whose trade union has tried to/and covered up attempts to oust Conservative ministers from government, not in THAT 'BACK SCRATCHING CLUB?

I know that there were some documentatries a few years ago that were surpressed due to the racial element, so people who are claiming its a side issue are naive at best.

Where are the parents of these scum (especially the fathers), where did these men get their views on women from, what did the parents think their sons were doing at night?

Where are the Pakistani community leaders condemming these crimes - we need to firstly address the way women are treated in certain communities. The under age marriages, the way women are treated as 2nd class citzens. The men rule and the sons when they come of age.

Until we change this and until the community comes out and stands side by side with the government to stamp this out it will continue.

'I know that there were some documentatries a few years ago that were surpressed due to the racial element'

But why was the racial element suppressed and who did it?

I doubt it will be just some individuals, it is more likely to be institutional and possibly political. But why?

Because poor women and girls are expendable Claig, that's why.

I think we have gone PC mad tbh. I worked with a lady a few years ago who was Asian and wore the headscarf. I work in a very client facing organisation and we need to be firm both with clients and internally. She had real issues with working with men, if a man asked her to do something she didnt question and it caused immense issues.

My manager tried to move her to a better suited role but she wasnt keen. She thought we should make allowances for her and her cultural beliefs.

The culture in certain communities is not that women are equal, they need to be looked after/controlled/ told what to do. They need to bow down to the family wishes to have an arranged marriage. In some cultures very young girls are forced to marry men far far older then them. Its horrible and we need to show that certainly in this country these views are not tolerated

It has br all to do with not wanting to be seen as racist

At the top (political) level, not losing votes or alienating the pakistani community was obviously an issue. But at the frontline it wasn't

Utterly incredible - I don't know if you'rve read the full report, but it shows quite clearly that "not wanting to be seen as racist" WAS a factor, and that this created uncertainty at the front line about how to act

I don't think anyone's pretending that this was the only factor involved, but to suggest that it had nothing to do with it is extremely worrying and is, for me, a major part of the problem

As I said, I find it extremely insulting to the wider Pakistani community for anyone to assume that action against such evil would somehow create problems, and look forward to seeing a mass outcry from community spokesmen on the subject

Equally, I find it interesting that this thread has only reached two pages so far, given the condemnation seen on here - quite rightly - when it's felt that an ethnic minority has been the victim of some awful crime

Really good post handcream , the racial cultural element is impounded by mothers who view these girls as 'shameful white woman leading men astray' and as far as i can see no real figures are coming forward and again taking 0 responsibility, I explained about the racist victim blaming comment a Pakistani woman made on local news last night, I understand people dont want to focus on the cultural issue but it does exist whether we like it or not.

I too would like to see a mass outcry from the Pakistani community.

But we havent - why is that?

I explained about the racist victim blaming comment a Pakistani woman made on local news last night

Yes, you did - and again, it's interesting to see there have been absolutely no comments made about that

Claig …… it comes down to political/racial/immigration bias, look at that first link within my OP.

Like it or not, the government of the day had an agenda, and quite a few of their supporters within the media either shared those beliefs, or chose to under report on the problems, as they generally tend to do as share the same political/social aims – as defined in this case by my last link within my OP.

Seriously, even on the Daily Mail boards, a paper reporting on such issues and being labelled immigration/race alarmist (at best), there were reports of posts/threads touching on immigration influences affecting British society being removed, and their answer was ‘on legal advice’ of their solicitors monitoring the boards – as the country had gone overly PC and P.C. with ‘make a law everyday’ Blair PM and enforce via the likes of Police Commissioner Blair.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blairs-frenzied-law-making--a-new-offence-for-every-day-spent-in-office-412072.html

I think JustTheRight has a good point

"It has bugger all to do with not wanting to be seen as racist (which implies they were desperate to intervene but had their hands tied - not true)."

We are being told it is about that, but are we to believe that 1400 children were abused and raped, and some dowsed in petrol and threatened and their families threatened and that none of the authorities could do anything for fear of being called racist. It doesn't add up.

There is more to it and I wonder if it will really come out because it may end up being political. The PC line may be used to imply that staff were petrified of being called racist, but that is an insult to the people working in our services. It must be more than that.

I will comment on it - the community should hang their heads in shame at what has happened.

Blaming the victims is totally unacceptable and I suspect goes some way to explaining why there hasnt been a mass outcry from the community themselves.

They see it as generally the fault of the girls for throwing themselves at their sons who of course couldnt help themselves. Boys will be boys, no mention of the violence, the grooming, the choosing of the most vunerable girls. The threats to their families.

Look at yourselves - what have you taught your sons to treat girls in such a way. They dont treat Pakistani girls like this. Why??

For those of you asking about where is the outcry from the Pakistani community you might find this post about this topic from another thread by another post (have permission to repost this from her) interesting.

one of the big things that often get left out of the narrative on the asian grooming gangs was that it was an asian muslim Chief Prosecutor, Nazir Afzal, who led the first successful case against the Rochdale gang. it opened the way for other prosecutions to go ahead around the UK. He is a pakistani heritage, a practising muslim and one of 13 Crown Chief Prosecutors in the UK, he's also led prosecutions on gender based violence. when a man said to him “Nazir, why are you giving these racists another stick to beat us with?” His response: “The community should carry their own stick.” and the year after he was made chief crown prosecutor for the north west, he started on the asian grooming gangs first in 2012.