Multiple victims of predominantly Pakistani-Muslim child rape grooming gangs in Rotherham have claimed that they were also sexually abused and exploited by local police, some of whom also engaged in efforts to cover up for the grooming gangs.
Five female victims of the infamous grooming gangs in Rotherham have said that they were simultaneously being victimised by the very police who were supposed to protect them. The alleged abuses by the police are said to have occurred in the mid-1990s and the early 2000s against young girls, the BBC reports.
One such victim, whose name has been withheld, alleged that she was systematically sexually abused by hundreds of grooming gang members from the time she was just 11 years old in 1997. In a report to the police, she alleged that Police Constable Hassan Ali and another unnamed officer of the South Yorkshire Police also raped her in the back of a police car.
“The first time, he literally said: ‘You do it for the other officer. So you’re gonna do it for me,’” she said of her rape by Ali, who died as a result of a car crash in 2015 and thus avoided prosecution.
She described how the police officer would call on grooming gang members to threaten her if she refused his demands for sex, saying: “I would rather be raped once, or give one man oral sex, than to be taken somewhere where I know it’d be 15… 20 guys one after another. That was just easier.”
After becoming pregnant and being forced to have an illegal abortion, she said that social services and the police contacted her. However, she said that she felt “destroyed” after seeing that one of the officers sent to investigate her case was one of her abusers. She claimed that he later ripped up her statement to the police in front of her and that no further action was ever taken.
PC Ali died by being hit by a car on the very same day he had been placed on restricted duties due to an investigation into misconduct relating to the abuse scandal, and consequently was never arrested. Three other former officers were arrested last year on suspicion of rape and police misconduct. However, none have been charged so far.
The allegations have thrown into question the ongoing investigation into police involvement in the Rotherham grooming scandal, given that it is being led by the very same South Yorkshire Police (SYP) force which has been accused of having officers who engaged in sexual exploitation of victims.
The SYP investigation is being conducted under the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) police watchdog, which previously conducted a £6 million, eight-year inquiry into the Rotherham grooming gang scandal. At the conclusion of the investigation, no police officers were fired, prosecuted, or otherwise meaningfully punished.
Professor Alexis Jay, whose landmark report estimated that 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham by mostly Pakistani Muslim men between 1997 and 2013, said that the revelations about police involvement in the grooming gangs should disqualify the South Yorkshire Police from leading the investigation, given the likely conflicts of interest.
Saying that she was “shocked” that the SYP was investigating itself, Prof Jay argued that it should either be conducted by another police force or His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which often conducts performance assessments of police forces.
“In far too many cases, the priority for the institution, of whatever kind, is to protect their reputation rather than prioritising the welfare of children and the devastating effect that sexual abuse can have,” she said.
David Greenwood of Switalskis Solicitors, which collected the victim testimony concerning police abuse and which plans to bring a suit against the South Yorkshire Police, added that he does not have faith in the SYP not to have officers who are “burying evidence or just not finding evidence deliberately,” given their connections to the accused.
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