Rotherham abuse scandal: How we got here

Prof Alexis Jay found that 1,400 children were sexually abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Police officers in Rotherham were not equipped to deal with the widespread child sex abuse that plagued the town for more than 15 years, according to a new report. The long-awaited findings from the police watchdog are the latest in a series of inquiries into a scandal that has cast a shadow over South Yorkshire.

Operation Linden was a series of investigations carried out by The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) looking at South Yorkshire Police's response to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The watchdog has found that systemic problems meant the force failed to recognise the scale of the problem.

It echoes Prof Alexis Jay's 2014 report that found 1,400 children in the town were targeted by grooming gangs during the period.

BBC News looks at what prompted her report and what happened after its publication.

What happened in Rotherham?

In September 2012, The Times published an article revealing that a confidential 2010 police report had warned thousands of child sexual exploitation crimes were being committed in South Yorkshire each year by networks of Asian men.

Offences went unprosecuted despite police and child protection agencies in Rotherham having had knowledge of these crimes for decades, the paper said.

Rotherham Borough Council, South Yorkshire Police and other agencies set up a child sexual exploitation (CSE) team to investigate the issues raised in the article.

The council would go on to commission an independent inquiry to be led by Prof Alexis Jay.

Her report, published in 2014, found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual abuse and she detailed how girls as young as 11 were raped, trafficked, abducted, beaten, and intimidated by men predominantly of Pakistani heritage.

Council leader Roger Stone resigned immediately following its publication, and was followed within the next six months by the chief executive Martin Kimber, children's services director Joyce Thacker, and her predecessor, the Police and Crime Commissioner Shaun Wright, who had previously headed department between 2005 and 2010.

It also led to the council being taken over by government-appointed commissioners in 2015 after a report found it was "not fit for purpose".

What is Operation Linden?

Operation Linden was launched in 2014 by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to examine how South Yorkshire Police had responded to complaints of child sexual abuse, after publication of the Jay Report.

It undertook 91 investigations between 2014 and 2018 covering 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants, its final investigation took place in 2020.

Of those complainants 44 were survivors of abuse and exploitation.

The IOPC said it had investigated the conduct of 47 officers, of which eight were found to have a case to answer for misconduct and six had a case to answer for gross misconduct.

In many cases, the officer had retired and, due to legislation in place at the time, could not face disciplinary action.

However, five of these officers received sanctions ranging from management action up to a final written warning.

A sixth faced a misconduct hearing arranged by the force earlier this year and the case was found not proven by the independent panel.

Of the 164 allegations the IOPC looked into where an officer's conduct was not under investigation, it upheld 43 complaints.

IOPC Director of Major Investigations Steve Noonan said it had been "an extremely complex piece of work - the second biggest operation we have ever carried out."

In addition to examining officers' conduct, it has also made 13 recommendations to organisations including South Yorkshire Police and the College of Policing.

Among those are a recommendation the the voices of survivors of abuse be used in training for officers dealing with child sexual abuse and for a review of the law relating to offences committed by young people who are being groomed and exploited.

What is Operation Stovewood?

Following the publication of the Jay Report, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police asked the National Crime Agency (NCA) to lead an independent investigation into allegations of abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Dubbed Operation Stovewood, it is the single largest investigation into non-familial child sexual exploitation and abuse in the UK.

There are around 40 separate investigations taking place with around 200 officers, many based in South Yorkshire, working for it.

The NCA said to date 20 people have been convicted of offences identified by the operation, with more than 150 arrests, and it expects that figure to continue to rise.