Rotherham police chief ‘admits to ignoring child abuse over race fears’

The admission emerged in a leaked document from the almost-completed child abuse inquiry.

A senior police officer admitted his force ignored the Rotherham child abuse ring for fear of increasing ‘racial tensions’, it has been reported.

The admission was made after the police watchdog upheld six complaints against South Yorkshire Police by a former child victim, according to The Times.

The chief inspector is said to have described the abuse as ‘P*** shagging’ that had been ‘going on’ for 30 years in a document quoted by the newspaper, adding: ‘With it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out.’

The victim, now an adult woman, was reportedly abused over several years from 2003.

The watchdog is said to have told her it was ‘very clear that you were sexually exploited by Asian men’ and upheld a complaint that officers ‘took insufficient action to prevent you from harm’.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which replaced the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) part-way through the five-year investigation into the scandal, has reportedly been unable to identify the chief inspector.

Some of leak’s contents indicate sexist attitudes may have influenced the police’s alleged inertia as well as the fear of being seen as racist.

The girl’s father told The Times a fellow high-ranking officer had to confront the policeman after he spoke about his daughter ‘as though she [had been] an adult doing it of her own free will’.

The girl had been missing for weeks, but the officer told her father ‘that in his day they used to call them “P*** shaggers”‘ and that others in the force saw her as a ‘naughty kid, a teenager playing up’, he continued.

The final report has not yet been published.

The IOPC’s director of major investigations Steve Noonan said: ‘We are continuing to make significant progress with Operation Linden and we have completed more than 90% of the enquiries we have identified so far.’

‘A small number of investigation reports still need to be completed and our investigation into the actions of the former senior command team at South Yorkshire Police during the period of our investigation continues and is progressing well.

‘Our priority throughout the investigation has, and always will be, the welfare of the many survivors of child sexual abuse we have been engaging with.

‘As their individual cases conclude we provide them with a personal update on our findings.’

An over-arching report covering all of Operation Linden’s findings will be published when the probe winds up, he added.

The newspaper says South Yorkshire Police had accepted the IOPC’s findings and added that the chief inspector’s comments were ‘not something we tolerate in today’s force’.