Professionals blamed Oxfordshire girls for their sexual abuse, report finds.
The Guardian - Sandra Laville
© Getty Images Professionals blamed Oxfordshire girls for their sexual abuse, report finds.
Police and social services blamed vulnerable girls who were being subjected to sexual torture and abuse for years by older men in Oxfordshire for putting themselves at risk, an independent report into the failure to stop their exploitation says.
The serious case review into why professionals ignored multiple warning signs and failed to act rigorously to stop years of rape, torture and extreme sexual violence against six girls, said police and social services were gripped with the mindset that they were “very difficult” girls who had come to harm as a result of their own actions. The report said there were grounds for believing around 370 girls had been sexually exploited in Oxfordshire in the last 15 years.
Maggie Blyth, author of the serious case review into the failures of Thames Valley police and Oxfordshire social services, called on the government to research why the perpetrators of such child abuse – which has been seen in Rochdale, Rotherham, Derby, Bristol and Oxfordshire – were predominantly from a Pakistani and/or Muslim heritage. She also called for the government to examine whether its guidance on the age of consent fed attitudes that made it easier for perpetrators to abuse victims, in a culture were children are given contraceptives before the age of 16, and young girls are over-sexualised.
Such was the nature of the sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by the girls – who had all spent time in care and were aged 11-15 – that it was likened to torture. The abuse took place in Oxford, in a guest house, in parks and churchyards, and the girls were plied with drugs and subjected to gang rape and sexual atrocities for more than eight years.
Blyth said what the children were subjected to was “indescribably awful”.
“The child victims and their families feel very let down,” she said. “Their accounts of how they perceived professional work are disturbing and chastening.”
Blyth said that from 2005-10 there was sufficient knowledge about the girls, drugs and prostitution and their association with adult men to have generated a rigorous and strategic response from police and social workers.
© Thames Valley Police/PA Members of a paedophile ring (clockwise) Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Kamar Jamil, Assad Hussain, Zeeshan Ahmed, Bassam Karrar and Mohammed Karrar who were sentenced for charges involving vulnerable…
This knowledge included many “worrying” warning signs over a number of years involving more than one girl, multiple alleged perpetrators, who were usually Pakistani, and a strong association with children in care. But this was not passed on to the highest levels of management or acted upon until 2011, when police and social services finally started to piece together the organised grooming and sexual exploitation.
Blyth said key failings by police and social workersincluded:
- A culture of denial.
- Blaming the girls for their precocious and difficult behaviour.
- Blaming the girls for putting themselves at risk of harm.
- Failing to recognise they had been groomed and violently controlled.
- An attitude of pessimism about the prospect of criminal investigations being successful.
She said the girls’ stories were shocking. There was “remorseless drama, chaos, violence, drink, hard drugs, violent and utterly unloving sex, and of not being able to escape”.
In graphic descriptions of how they were failed, the victims and their parents were quoted in the report. One parent said: “The social worker was very abrupt. She said it was my duty to look after her.” Another parent added: “There were lots of meetings. I got very angry and said it was a load of bullshit, no one was doing anything.”
Blyth said victims were blamed and treated unsympathetically when they reported to police or social services. One victim said: “Why would a 13-year-old make it up?” Another girl said: “They did not look at me as a child. In my head I was older, but really truly I wasn’t.” Another said: “(A police officer) tried to get people to listen. But she was banging her head against a brick wall.” One described how she was treated as the criminal. “I was put in a secure unit because I kept going missing – I thought I was being punished.”
The review said social workers appeared to tolerate the under-age sex, and both police and social workers lacked any curiosity and were confused about what constituted a crime.
Blyth said that, as in other parts of the country, police did not use tactics available to them, including disruption, surveillance and rigorous intelligence gathering. Instead they relied solely on victims’ testimony, which was rarely forthcoming and not maintained.
She highlighted that five of the seven men convicted of exploiting the girls were of Pakistani heritage and the victims were all white British girls, but found no evidence that the agencies had not acted because of racial sensitivities. However she recommended that the government carry out research into why a significant proportion of those found guilty for child sexual exploitation in the UK were of Pakistani and/or Muslim heritage.
Blyth said she found no evidence of willful professional neglect or misconduct, but highlighted a “worrying lack of curiosity and follow through”.
She said the professionals involved could not grasp the fact that the girls’ ability to say “no” had been completely eroded as a result of the grooming process. There had been simliar failings and mindsets of victim blaming in Rotherham, Derby, Bristol and Rochdale.
But Blyth stopped short of calling for senior managers to be made accountable. She said it was “highly improbable” that all of the failures in Oxfordshire and across the country were a result of inept, uncaring and weak staff and leaders who had to go. Instead she blamed a lack of understanding about child sexual exploitation and organisational weakness.
***** But its OK as long as We don't offend em init Bucky? Who will say this is just SPAM...ffs!! Wake Up!!
