Politiets internetterforskning gransker 10 offiserer ved politikammeret i South Yorkshire i forbindelse med Rotherham-skandalen.
I august kom det frem at politiet og andre relevante institusjoner gjennom 16 år systematisk hadde ignorert seksuelt misbruk av 1.400 barn. Den nåværende granskningen kommer etter at en varsler fortalte BBC at hun regelmessig hadde videreformidlet detaljer om antatte barnemisbrukere til overordnede i politiet, men at de ikke foretok seg noe i sakens anledning.
Anklagene er mange. Politiet skal ha mistet bevis i en voldtektssak. En overordnet skal ha hevdet at et barn hadde «samtykket 100 prosent» hver gang hun ble misbrukt. I et tilfelle skal en navngitt mistenkt ha truet en familie og aktivt oppfordret offeret til å prostituere seg, men det later ikke til at politiet gjorde noe med saken. Man unnlot å etterforske en sak der en ung jente ble funnet full i baksetet på en bil og en mann hadde uanstendige bilder av henne på mobilen sin.
Misconduct allegations
An officer is alleged to have argued that a child had been «100% consensual» every time they were abused
A named suspect threatened a family and was actively involved in encouraging the victim to engage in prostitution, but there appears to have been no police activity around the offending
Evidence was lost in relation to a report in 2003 that a victim had been raped on four occasions
Failure to progress an investigation into a report from a 14-year-old girl that she had been raped
Failure to adequately investigate an incident in which a young girl was found drunk in the back of a car and a man had indecent photographs of her on his mobile phone
Failure to adequately investigate naked images of a young girl and possible evidence of group offending
Allegations surrounding the police response to information supplied in 2001 highlighting concerns regarding child sexual exploitation issues in Rotherham
A lack of police action in response to two commissioned written reports about sexual exploitation in 2003 and 2006
En talsperson for South Yorkshire-politiet uttaler at politistyrken vil samarbeide med internetterforskerne og er oppsatt på å assistere den uavhengige granskningen for å få sakens fakta på bordet.
«We will fully co-operative with the investigation into the force’s handling of child sexual exploitation and anyone found to have not acted appropriately will be held to account.»
The controversy that followed the report led to a series of high-profile resignations, including Rotherham’s strategic director of children’s services, Joyce Thacker, and South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Shaun Wright, who had been the councillor with responsibility for children’s services between 2005 and 2010.