CSE solicitor claims police force covered up abuse

The IOPC has released more details of its investigation into senior officers at South Yorkshire Police

A police force's failure to act on intelligence that teenage girls were being sexually exploited in Rotherham has been described as a "cover-up" by a solicitor representing many of the survivors.

David Greenwood made the claim after it emerged the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) had concluded there was "systemic organisational failure" at South Yorkshire Police (SYP) over the scandal.

The police watchdog also said there was no indication any senior officer "committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner that would justify disciplinary proceedings".

The force said it was "committed to ensuring that the organisation and officers of today are the best they can be at preventing harm".

On Friday, the IOPC published more details about its Operation Amazon investigation which, in 2022, upheld a 2017 complaint that "senior officers failed in their statutory responsibilities to protect children".

The IOPC said the complaint was upheld "on the basis that over a number of years it appeared that South Yorkshire Police had actionable intelligence which senior officers could and should have addressed and taken responsibility for, but there was no coordinated response".

It said: "It was our view that this was a systemic organisational failure, as opposed to the failings of individuals.

"We could not identify a named individual who had responsibility for these matters, and therefore this could not be viewed as a conduct issue."

The IOPC said it instead blamed "a collective failure of the senior leadership team in their statutory responsibilities to protect children".

Mr Greenwood said the IOPC had "stated officially what many following this scandal have known for years - that South Yorkshire Police were provided with numerous reports of child sexual exploitation, yet failed to allocate resources to disrupting the perpetrators of this serious crime".

He said this failure meant "gangs of men were able to abuse children unchallenged by police in Rotherham".

"The police were passed information from social services, education, (youth worker) Jayne Senior and parents, yet they failed to respond to the dangerous threat."

Mr Greenwood rejected the IOPC's conclusion of "systematic organisational failure", adding: "In truth, the police intentionally ignored these crimes.

"I would describe this as a cover-up."

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion said she would be taking up the findings with the new Policing Minister Sarah Jones.

She also urged the new National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into allegations police officers took part in historical abuse in the town to consider "police cover-up".

No senior officers were implicated in the IOPC's investigation

The IOPC published the additional information about Operation Amazon after some of the original whistleblowers in the Rotherham grooming scandal raised concerns that senior officers had not been investigated.

The original conclusions formed part of the Operation Linden report, published in June 2022, which covered 93 independent investigations of complaints and conduct matters in relation to SYP's handling of reports into non-recent child sexual abuse and exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

In a statement on Friday, SYP said: "Operation Amazon was one of 93 strands of Operation Linden, the outcome of which was published in 2022.

"At the time, SYP accepted the vast majority of the Operation Linden findings but disagreed with the decision to uphold the Operation Amazon complaint on the basis that the finding did not name any officers who had failed in their statutory duty.

"The force acknowledges and respects the IOPC's decision.

"South Yorkshire Police has accepted and apologised for the failure to safeguard vulnerable young people in Rotherham against CSE in the 1990s and 2000s."

Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North