Senior police officers failed to protect girls from gangs in Rotherham as they prioritized other crimes to hit Home Office targets, a leaked report has revealed.
South Yorkshire Police (SYP) focused on vehicle, burglary and theft crimes as these were targets of the Home Office in the 2000s, according to a police watchdog investigation.
The findings are contained in a damning report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) that was completed in June 2022 but never published.
They are likely to make new calls for a national inquiry into grooming, which would shed light on the historical shortcomings.
The report, seen by The Telegraph, explains that: “Throughout the 2000s, the Home Office's performance targets were highly prescriptive and police officers were mandated to tackle vehicle, burglary and theft crimes as a priority, which they then were assessed.”
Report followed complaint
It said officials “cited national key performance indicator targets as one of the reasons CSE was never a high priority because it was not something they were assessed on in terms of performance”.
The IOPC report followed a complaint from Jayne Senior, a youth services manager who was instrumental in publicizing the plight of young white girls who were victims of sexual grooming by men of mainly Pakistani origin in Rotherham.
Her complaint – that senior officers failed in their legal duty to protect children from gangs over a 20-year period – was upheld by the police watchdog.
However, when presented with the report's findings, South Yorkshire Police rejected them and no further action was taken.
Call for national inquiry
Last week the government announced plans for nationally backed local investigations into 'grooming gangs', the first of which would take place in Oldham. This reversed an earlier decision by the Ministry of the Interior not to support such an investigation.
But Ms Senior said the Government's plans “don't go far enough”. Instead, she called for a major national investigation because she believes senior officers and other professionals who failed to care for victims have never been properly held accountable.
She told The Telegraph: “A national inquiry must go further – it must look at which professionals knew about this, who was complicit, who covered it up.
“Many of these senior officers have now retired or are doing other work – they have never been held accountable.”
The IOPC report, titled Operation Amazon, says former SYP officials claimed the issue of child sexual exploitation was “never brought to their attention” and they “reject any claim that national police performance targets” were a barrier to approach to the issue.
But the report found that some of the 'high-profile figures' who later received long prison sentences for grooming girls were known to South Yorkshire Police.
The report says that from “as early as 2001, perpetrators of CSE and their victims” were discussed at meetings.
Officers failed to take action on the information, the report says, adding that some “named perpetrators” were discussed in 2001-2002 but “apparently dismissed.” Those same individuals “continued to abuse young girls” until they were convicted some 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 pressured by the IOPC not to talk publicly about the findings, and was also told that senior police officers could charge her if they did did.
“I think they wanted to silence me, and that's what they've been trying to do from day one. They did not want further reputational damage for South Yorkshire Police,” she added.
A source at the police watchdog said their discussions with Ms Senior about publishing the report were aimed at conveying the legal issues she could face and the impact this could have on her.
Ms Senior said that when she made a complaint to South Yorkshire Police, she was initially rejected and told that if she continued to make complaints she would be classed as a “vexatious complainer”.
'Abuse on an industrial scale'
Georgina Halford-Hall, CEO of Whistleblowers UK, said: “This groundbreaking IOPC report is only part of the journey to answers. It fails to hold anyone accountable for the failures that undoubtedly enabled the abuse of children on an industrial scale.”
She said a national investigation should be carried out by a new, independent body, the Office for Whistleblowers, which would protect whistleblowers like Ms Senior from being “scapegoated for doing the right thing”.
Georgina Halford-Hall says report 'fails to hold anyone to account for failures'
On Saturday evening, Oliver Coppard, the mayor of South Yorkshire, urged the police watchdog to publish the findings of Operation Amazon.
“My job is to ensure that people in South Yorkshire have confidence in the work of South Yorkshire Police and until and unless we know exactly what is going on it is incredibly difficult for me to reassure them ”, he said. Channel 4 News.
When asked why Operation Amazon was never published, an IOPC spokesperson pointed to Operation Linden, a separate investigation into nursing in Rotherham, which was published in 2022.
“The well-being of survivors was our top priority during Operation Linden,” they said. “Any release of information into the public domain was carefully coordinated so as not to unnecessarily or negatively impact their welfare and protection.
“Like the other investigative reports, the report of our specific investigation, which focused on senior officers within the force, could not be published due to the highly personal information and data it contained,” the spokesperson added.
“That's why we produced one umbrella report for Operation Linden, covering 91 separate studies, detailing our findings and recommendations.
“When publishing our findings in 2022, we made it clear that South Yorkshire Police failed to protect vulnerable children and young people at the time and should have responded better to reports of child sexual abuse. The force has recognized these shortcomings and the focus remains on learning from those mistakes.”
A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said: “The terms of reference for any IOPC investigation are determined by them. The decision on whether to publish the report is entirely a matter for the IOPC.”
