Council to be sued in child sex abuse scandal

A number of women have instructed solicitors to sue Rotherham Council for systemic failures to protect them from sexual abuse by predatory men when they were children.

The women have instructed Yorkshire solicitors, Switalskis, to investigate claims following the publication of a report into child sexual exploitation by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee earlier this year.

In June 2013 the Home Affairs Committee report noted that those abused were generally vulnerable girls aged between 12 and 16 and that a disproportionate number were looked after by local authorities.

The report looked at localised grooming, a model of child sexual exploitation in which a group of abusers target vulnerable children.

The group typically makes initial contact with victims in a public place. The children are offered gifts and treats.

The children sometimes identify one offender as a “boyfriend”, and might regard the sexual abuse by multiple offenders as “normal”. The gangs sometimes use younger men or boys to make the initial approach.

In summary, the report noted that:-

• the abused child might see the situation as a genuine relationship and the groomer as a “boyfriend”

• the abuser typically plays on the child’s insecurities, making them feel “special” or “loved”

• the child might nonetheless feel ashamed of the sexual activity itself

• ancillary activities such as the consumption of drugs or alcohol, further increasing their reluctance to come forward

• the grooming might extend to befriending the child’s family or carers, so the child feels unable to tell them about the situation.

In the conclusions to the report the Home Affairs Committee criticised Rotherham Council for being “inexcusably slow” to realise that the widespread, organised sexual abuse of children, many of them in the care of the local authority, was taking place on their doorstep.

The report said that this was due to a “woeful lack of professional curiosity or indifference” and to dismissing “the victims - children as young as 12 - as ‘prostitutes’.

And added: " That it took so long for anybody, at any level from the Chief Executive downward, to look at reports of young girls with multiple, middle-aged ‘boyfriends’, hanging around takeaways, drinking and taking drugs, and to think that it might be worth investigating further, is shocking.”