Mags GarganRotherham abuse scandal: it’s not all about race. It’s about criminal ineptitude says Tim Stanley
You might read the title of this and think, “Oh no, here comes one of those liberal apologias for political correctness.” You’d be wrong. The 1,400 children estimated to have been abused in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013 were indeed let down by racial over-sensitivity – and we shouldn’t shy away from that. Prof. Alexis Jay’s report clearly states that:
a) councillors did not deal directly with the Pakistani community to address the fact that the overwhelming majority of offenders were Asian males and
b) staff kept quiet for fear of being perceived as racist. It’s not unreasonable to infer that perpetrators may have been caught had there been proper community engagement. The council’s political correctness betrayed the children in their care.
But there’s a risk that in embracing the “death by multiculturalism” narrative, we make two mistakes. The first is to encourage the idea that sexual abuse is fuelled exclusively by Asian immigration when, in reality, it is something found across all races and backgrounds.
My own faith, Catholicism, has been associated with an eerily similar scandal – full of the same examples of abuse of authority, wilful ignorance of the facts and elements of ethnic politics (recall that some northern Irish Catholics refused to report abuse to the Protestant RUC).
Any community hermetically sealed from the rest of the population can operate like a closed shop, refusing to engage with the authorities.
Second, we risk overplaying one aspect of the failure in Rotherham and thus overlooking others of equal importance. Police treated claims made by abused children “with contempt”. When fathers attempted to rescue their children from what they believed to be abusive situations, they were arrested.
Ignored
Three separate reports were often ignored or not acted upon. Prof Jay found that: “Over the first twelve years covered by this Inquiry, the collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant.
“From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham. This came from those working in residential care and from youth workers who knew the young people well. Within social care, the scale and seriousness of the problem was underplayed by senior managers.”
In the early 2000s, a small group of professionals from key agencies met and monitored large numbers of children known to be involved in [abuse] or at risk but their managers gave little help or support to their efforts.
Some at a senior level in the police and children’s social care continued to think the extent of the problem, as described by youth workers, was exaggerated, and seemed intent on reducing the official numbers of children categorised as [abused]. At an operational level, staff appeared to be overwhelmed by the numbers involved.
The logistical challenge faced in Rotherham feels like a poor excuse for claims of ignorance. The key phrase in the report comes a little later: “nobody could say ‘we didn’t know’”.
It is understatement to say that the police and social services “failed” the children of Rotherham. “Betrayed” might be a better word – which is why some are now calling for the police chief to resign. To add insult to injury, culprits on the council or in the police force are not named in the report. Staff may have moved on to other councils, spreading their grisly incompetence across the country.
Many social workers are angels – doing amazing work in awful circumstances. A significant number, unfortunately, are rubbish. Almost criminally so.
Abuse missed
You may recall the case of Baby P – a child whose bruising from abuse was missed by care and health workers, leading to his death at just 17 months. He had broken ribs, a broken back, missing finger nails and had swallowed a tooth after being punched. Baby P tops the list of names of children whose distress was “missed” by social services: Balthous Galtricia (the mother who was cleared to care for her knifed her to death), Deraye Lewis (social workers were tipped off that he was at risk from his mother’s boyfriend before said animal beat him to death) or Sean Denton (left in the care of his drug abusing mother). Incidentally, the killers of these children came from all races. Evil is an equal opportunity employer.
The social services system is in need of overhaul, but there is also a moral question to be asked here.
While some of the systemic problems in Rotherham can be blamed on underfunding and understaffing, or put down to political correctness gone mad, the reality is that individuals either failed to see or chose to ignore evidence of abuse.
What was wrong with those people? Why did they refuse to do their jobs, or why did they put keeping those jobs before standing up for the children they were supposed to look after? If guilty, those individuals ought to be culpable.
Sadly, given the record of public service discipline in the UK, many will probably get away with everything they did.
*Dr Tim Stanley is a blogger and historian. This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.