Senior police officers failed to protect girls from criminals training in Rotherham because they prioritized other crimes to attack the Home Office, a leaked report has revealed.
South Yorkshire Police (SYP) are focusing on car crime, burglary and robbery as the Home Office's focus in the 2000s, according to police investigations.
The findings are contained in a damning report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) which was completed in June 2022, but has never been published.
They may raise new calls for a national inquiry into self-correction that will shed light on historical wrongs.
The report, seen by the Telegraph, explains: “Throughout the 2000s, Home Office regulations were very limited and officers were mandated to deal with car crime, burglaries and robberies as a priority which were dealt with later.”
The report followed the complaint
It said officials “cited national key performance indicators as one of the reasons why CSE was never prioritized, as it was not something they were assessed on in terms of performance”.
The IOPC report followed a complaint by Jayne Senior, a youth services manager who was instrumental in publicizing the plight of young white girls who were sexually identified by men of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rotherham.
His complaint – that senior officials had failed to do their statutory duty to protect children from gangs over a decade – was upheld by police.
However, when South Yorkshire Police were presented with the report's findings, they dismissed them and no action was taken.
Call for a national inquiry
Last week, the Government announced plans for a nationally based domestic inquiry into gangs training, the first of which will take place in Oldham, reversing an earlier decision by the Home Office not to support the inquiry.
But Ms Senior said the Government's plans “do not go far enough”. Instead, he called for a full national investigation, as he believes senior officials and other professionals who fail to correct themselves have never been treated properly.
He told The Telegraph: “The national inquiry needs to go further – it needs to look at which experts knew about this, who was involved, who covered it up.
“Most of these senior officials have retired or are doing other jobs – they have never been arrested.”
The IOPC report, entitled Operation Amazon, states that the former SYP police said that the issue of child sexual abuse “was not brought to their attention” and they “reject any assertion that national policing objectives” are an obstacle to addressing the issue.
But the report found that some of the “highest numbers” who went on to receive long prison sentences for girls, were known to South Yorkshire police.
The report states that since “early 2001, the names of CSE perpetrators and their victims” were discussed in meetings.
The police failed to act on this information, the report said, adding that some “perpetrators” were interviewed in 2001-2 but “appeared to be dismissed”. The men “continued to abuse the minor girls” until they were convicted 15 years later in 2016, it added.
'They wanted to silence me'
Ms Senior said that when she was shown the findings of Operation Amazon in 2022, she felt under pressure from the IOPC not to speak publicly about its findings, including being told that senior police officers could sue her if she did.
“I think they wanted to silence me, which they have been trying to do since day one. They no longer wanted the reputation of South Yorkshire Police to be tarnished,” he added.
A source within the police said that their discussions with Ms. Senior regarding the publication of the report were aimed at conveying the legal problems she may face and the impact this may have on her.
Ms Senior said that when she lodged a complaint with South Yorkshire Police, she initially refused and was told that if she continued to lodge complaints she would be branded an “aggressive complainant”.
'Industrial scale abuse'
Georgina Halford-Hall, chief executive of Whistleblowers UK, said: “This landmark IOPC report only goes half way to providing answers. It fails to hold anyone responsible for the undoubted failure that allowed the abuse of children on an industrial scale.”
He said the national investigation should be conducted by a new, independent body, the Ombudsman's Office, which will protect whistleblowers like Ms Senior from being “disgraced for doing the right thing”.
Georgina Halford-Hall says the report 'fails to hold anyone accountable for failure'
On Saturday night, Oliver Coppard, the mayor of South Yorkshire, called on police watchdogs to publish the findings of Operation Amazon.
“My job is to make sure the people of South Yorkshire trust the work of South Yorkshire Police and until and unless we know exactly what happened, that's very difficult for me to make sure,” he said. Channel 4 News.
Asked why Operation Amazon was never published, an IOPC spokesman pointed to Operation Linden, a separate investigation into self-correction in Rotherham, which was published in 2022.
“The welfare of survivors has been our priority throughout Operation Linden,” they said. “Any release of information into the public domain was carefully coordinated so as not to adversely affect their welfare and security.
“Similar to other investigation reports, the report of our investigation focused on senior positions in the army could not be published due to personal information and information included in it,” said the spokesperson of the department.
“That's why we issued one comprehensive report on Operation Linden, which included 91 separate investigations, with findings and recommendations.
“In the publication we received in 2022 we made it clear that South Yorkshire Police failed to protect vulnerable children and young people at the time and should have done better in responding to reports of child sexual abuse. Power is admitting those mistakes and focusing on learning from those mistakes. “
A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: “The Terms of Reference for any IOPC investigation are set by them.
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