Rotherham what can we do?

[batgirl1984]

I live in Rotherham. Once the media coverage stops and everyone has calmed down from the strong emotions and moral outrage, what can we actually do to protect our children? (All the children of our town, not just mine). In years we can choose not to reelect Shaun Wright but what can we do to challenge the misogyny that means those trying to protect children from being raped are ignored? The women this happened to will need support, how do we make sure it stops now? Has anyone got any experience of successfully preventing this?

I think you need to read these threads Claig www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2138791-Establishment-Paedophiled-Part-2-Warning-potential-triggers part 1 is linked in the first post. This is a tiny, tiny part of the jigsaw of abuse that children have suffered for decades whilst every Government has done nothing. This goes from the very,very top and www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-i-3848987 . www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10952138/Member-of-Edward-Heaths-government-boasted-he-could-cover-up-a-scandal-involving-small-boys.html lots of other links in this article.
Be careful how much you read in one go, it can take a while to sink in before it hits you.

Yes, I haven't read it all because it is so horrific.
But I think the establishment paedophile cases are different to the one in Rotherham. In the establishment ones, we have had retired police officers saying that they were told to drop cases and stop looking into them. We know that in Savile's case, files were removed form local investigating police forces. Those cases are coverups that go right to the top, to protect important people.

I think Rotherham is probably different. I think lots of people knew about it and covered it up, but I don't think it was done to protect high-up establishment figures.

Those protected in Rotherham don't seem like high-up figures but in the context of the local council, things like local business associations are part of the council licensing systems and naturally have dealings with councillors.

Yes

Do you understand then Claig?
A taxi driver picks up a local Councillor, the councillor asks the driver to make a fraudulent invoice for the journey, everytime, or gets the driver to drop him off at the local drug dealers or has a conversation on his phone that is clearly the other woman. Or simply over hears from other customers some gossip about the councillor. Somebody gets suspicious and try's to stop any taxi driver renewing his licence, taxi drivers share information and blackmail the Councillor. Or none of the above but know who's bent and pays off the right people with some of the money they're making. There are many possible scenarios when you think about it.

I think that is not what it is about, but I could be wrong. I think that some councillors possibly were corrupt, but I can't believe that they all were and all the other public services involved.

I think it may come from somewhere in the political administration and may have been played down for reasons that were political in nature and were possibly about not losing white votes to other parties.

Either way the whole thing is shocking and disgraceful and many more people need to pay a price over this.

The police and social services need to act now - immediately - to detect and stop active criminals who are raping girls today. The report author says it is still happening now.

MPs and councilors need to be on the case, pressing police and SS to act and keep acting. SS could start by ditching the taxi drivers who are known to be racists but who are still employed to take girls to school.

And at the same time we need to root out anyone who colluded in this - police chiefs, SS, council leaders - and hold everyone involved to account.

Those who attacked and decried former MP Anne Cryer when she tried to raise this in Bradford years ago should make public apologies as well as sorting out what the hell is going on there now.

Someone on the news made the point that officials keep parroting 'most child abusers are white' although it's clear we don't actually know anything about demographics as the police refuse to record these appalling crimes. They don't record complaints. So how the hell do we know?

I wouldn't assume this is confined to the north BTW, Oxford is already known and given the level of complacency and the nature of the taxi trade I'm sure it will be going on elsewhere.

Can't link from tablet but there's a story on BBC online about a rapist taxi driver allowed to keep his licence in Milton Keynes thanks to a reference from the Mayor. Same ethnicity as it happens.

Could the issue be funding? Police don't have the time and funds to put in to the detection of these gangs. SS don't have the time and funds to riffle through the mess, to find counselling for the girls. Imagine the volume of girls and their family needing psychological help to get over the way they were treated and then to be let down on top by the state services who should have helped. I gather it is quite a large chunk of the residents of the town as well. This will put a lot of pressure on local services to support these families.

No Gimme, they had the will to arrest a lass for being drunk and warn Dads off.

Spot on Gimme

When you have a 2 year waiting list in most places for child mental health services they are hardly going to go looking for new customers.

Its all about money and ignoring any demnds on your budgets.

So why not just actually deal with the first complaint effectively so there isn't a huge list of young people in need of these services?

Because they didn't want to acknowledge the scope of the problem. You can't acknowledge and ignore - you have to treat. And treating is not free.
So to save money you turn a blind eye. And all your 'partners' i.e. the Police, Social Services etc are all in cahoots with your decision to turn a blind eye as they know that doing so saves them money too.
It's the way public services operate.

If someone high up deems the girls to be undeserving of protection the attitude will spread down and across.

Yes, I get that, but when the first victim reported this problem to the police and there were maybe a dozen victims in total who would need all these services it would not have been a huge expense. In ignoring the first victim and the many subsequent victims they have ended up in a situation where the victim number is monumental and so cost will be massive. Why finally admit it now, after the 3rd report?

I'm such a slow writer, mine was a reply to wet.
And exactly Gimme if you've already been told to ignore it once you'll ignore it again.

I guess there will be some lower down the ranks doing as they are told like robots and some who will have been fuming for ages that the party line is to look down on these girls and not help them or their family. What can a pc/sw do if the one above them tells them to not get involved?

Im also from Rotherham bat girl, did grow up go to school in this time too? Even in the midst of the uproar people still don't really get the pandemic nature of the crimes, there was a few taxi firms that were basically organised paedophile rings, drove up outside schools at lunchtime ...there was no real 'escape' even the 'lucky' ones like me will have had near misses, I was once 14 in a taxi being harassed for my phone no. Off .the driver after being asked if I made porn on it ..fully aware of how old I was, the child locks were put on and told not to dare give a wrong number as he would ring me in the car..and having picked me up from home, knew where I lived, only escaped as I assume the manager at the clinic (physiothereapy) spooked him.