A long £6m investigation into multiple police failings during the Rotherham grooming scandal “lets down victims and survivors” by failing to identify any individual accountability, a police and crime commissioner has said.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Wednesday published what it described as its overarching report from Operation Linden, the name given to a series of investigations it carried out into how South Yorkshire police responded to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation between 1997 and 2013.
It is estimated that more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham across the 16-year time span.
The report concludes that the force failed to protect vulnerable children. The IOPC carried out 91 investigations into police failings covering 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants. In total, 47 officers were investigated, with the IOPC concluding eight had a case to answer for misconduct, and six for gross misconduct.
Not one officer lost their job as a result of the process and the most severe sanction was a written warning.
South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner, Alan Billings, said “a great deal of time and money has been spent for few new findings or accountability”. He added: “I am disappointed that after eight years of very costly investigations, this report fails to make any significant recommendations over and above what South Yorkshire police have already accepted and implemented from previous investigations some years ago.
“It repeats what past reports and reviews have shown – that there was unacceptable practice between 1997 and 2013 – but fails to identify any individual accountability. As a result, it lets down victims and survivors.”
Operation Linden was, the IOPC said, “one of our largest, most complex investigations” to date, second only to its inquiry into failings over Hillsborough – also South Yorkshire police.
The new report outlines in grim, “uncomfortable to read” detail the repeated police failings in their handling of allegations in Rotherham. It found that time and again police officers were not fully aware of, or able to deal with child sexual abuse and exploitation offences. Officers repeatedly lacked empathy, with some seeing children as “consenting” to their exploitation.
One parent concerned about a missing daughter said they were told by an officer “it was a ‘fashion accessory’ for girls in Rotherham to have an ‘older Asian boyfriend’ and that she would grow out of it”.
Another parent was told by an officer investigating the rape of his 15-year-old daughter in a Rotherham park that the incident would teach the child a “lesson”.
Steve Noonan, the director of major investigations at the IOPC, accepted that survivors would be disappointed by outcomes against individual officers. But he said his team quickly realised that they were investigating systemic failures.
The inquiry was estimated to have cost £6m, he said, adding: “We cannot put a price on making wholesale changes to the system. Survivors told us that they did not want this to happen to anyone again and the changes that have been made and still need to be made … we believe will deliver real change.
“This is about making sure that we protect those who are the most vulnerable. We look after them and support them and we don’t criminalise them.”
A number of recommendations were made by the IOPC last year and the report said it was encouraged by South Yorkshire police’s response, believing it demonstrated “its commitment to taking action so that the issues in this report are never repeated”.
David Greenwood, a solicitor representing 80 Rotherham survivors, said the report showed “how the system of police complaints has provided zero accountability and needs reform”.
Tim Forber, the deputy chief constable of South Yorkshire police, said the force accepted the IOPC findings, which closely reflected those highlighted by Prof Alexis Jay in 2014. The Jay report revealed political and police failings that shocked Britain.
Forber said that for police, it “brought a stark reality of our failings in handling child sexual exploitation. We let victims down. We failed to recognise their vulnerability and failed to see them as victims, for that I am deeply sorry. They deserved better from us.
“The brave accounts of these girls caused a seismic change in policing crimes of this nature for South Yorkshire police and the wider police service.”
Forber said much had changed at the force. “Whilst I am confident we are a very different force today, I will not lose sight of the fact that we got it wrong and we let victims down.”
