Rotherham abuse report 'broke taboo' - author

Prof Alexis Jay (pictured in 2014) said her report had been the first time many victims of child sexual exploitation were believed

A damning report which uncovered the extent of child sexual exploitation in a South Yorkshire town "broke the taboo in public discourse" around the issue, its author has said.

Prof Alexis Jay's investigation in 2014 found that at least 1,400 children were abused in Rotherham over 16 years while authorities and the police failed to act.

On the tenth anniversary of the findings, Prof Jay has told BBC Look North that her work marked the first time many of the victims had been believed.

However, she added that society still had "a long way to go" to properly deal with the crime and its consequences.

Prof Jay's report, published on 26 August 2014, found that between 1997 and 2013 girls as young as 11 had been systematically raped, trafficked and intimidated, mainly by men of Pakistani heritage.

It said there had been "blatant" collective failures by Rotherham Council's leadership and a failure by South Yorkshire Police to prioritise the issue.

Meanwhile, the report also stated that senior managers had "underplayed" the scale of the problem.

In just over a third of cases, the victims were previously known to social services because of child protection and neglect issues.

Prof Jay's report estimated 1,400 children in Rotherham had been abused over 16 years

Speaking to BBC Look North a decade after the publication of her report, Prof Jay said the figure of 1,400 victims had been a "conservative estimate". Other women also came forward afterwards because of the publicity generated by her report.

Prof Jay said in the course of her investigation she spoke to women from Rotherham's Pakistani community who had been victims themselves.

"They sought me out to talk about it. They were angry, hardly surprisingly, that one of the stereotypes by the police and others was that child sexual exploitation didn't happen to girls of their background," she said.

"They said this was not the case and that it was hugely under-reported. Some of them were frightened to report it because of possible consequences within their own community."

'Awful crime'

Despite the scale of the abuse, only 54 people have been convicted for grooming and abusing children in Rotherham over the timescale covered by the report.

Asked if she was disappointed by this, Prof Jay said it was "difficult to judge" the exact number of people responsible.

She said: "These were groups of mostly men, but not only men, who organised child sexual exploitation over several years and of course it's under-reported.

"But it would be very difficult for someone in my position to estimate the number of perpetrators that there were."

However, Prof Jay said she believed the publication of her report in 2014 did at least "break the taboo in public discourse around child sexual exploitation".

"At last, the victims were not being blamed," she said.

But she added: "There is a long way to go in relation to this issue and there's a great deal society needs to do to face up to this awful crime."

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