Summer Induction Project (Rotherham Child Abuse Scandal)

Following a report published on the 26th August by Professor Alexis Jay, revealing over 1,400 cases of child sexual abuse between 1997 and 2013, Rotherham has been plastered over the media for the past two weeks, and rightly so, a story as big as this deserves a lot of attention from the media as everyone tries to figure out exactly what happened and how it wasn't prevented.

The media has mainly focused on those apparently responsible for this scandal such as Rotherham council and the South Yorkshire police department. Rotherham council has been represented as a council of fools who care more about themselves than any of the victims, this has led to a great deal of hatred towards the council as a whole not just to the few members within the council who were particularly responsible such as Martin Kimber who has now stepped down as council chief executive. It seems that the specific council members are being used as ammo to attack the council itself. This is incredibly unfair, as the council as a whole actually does a good job with it's other responsibilities, the representation is somewhat accurate in that it was the council who are responsible for this mess but not the whole council, which the media seems to pushing towards.

Another focus on the media has been on the South Yorkshire police department, they seem to be represented as being terrible at their jobs and not really doing much, they manged only 9 prosecutions of child abuse over the 16 years. This has been a fairer representation by the media as they have made clear the man who is responsible, Shaun Wright, the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner has been in the spotlight the most. However, Commissioner Wright still refuses to step down despite the fact that he has been represented as incompetent and remorseless, this is a fair representation but perhaps it has gone too far with Wright now receiving death threats.

The Pakistani community has been a focus of the media, with the majority of the acts having been committed by Pakistani males, it has came to light that religious leaders were 'contacted by agencies about the abuse' but they 'discussed it at the mosque' rather than going to the police. Some articles do not mention that the Pakistani community was involved whilst others blame them completely for this scandal. This is an incredibly unfair representation, although the acts have been predominantly committed by Pakistani males, others were involved too and this has not been made clear enough in the media.


I find the issue disgusting and I am actually quite horrified that nothing was done to prevent it regardless of the information the police or Rotherham council received. Over 1,400 children were abused between 1997 and 2013 and more than 30% of these victims were already known to social services. There were 157 reports concerning child sexual exploitation made to police in 2013 alone and yet only 9 prosecutions were made over the entire time. In fact, in autumn of 2009, Rotherham’s child services were rated as ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted because they felt the safety of children cannot be assured. This was met by the mister of state serving the council an improvement notice but this was lifted in January 2011 with no real evidence of improvements. Matters were made worst in 2012 when The Times published an investigation 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. Yet still in January 2013, Council chief executive Martin Kimber blames "systematic failures" as he apologised to victims and their families, this is simply outrageous and sickening, the fact that a man can stand there and blame systematic errors simply because they have not done their job properly and hundreds of children have been sexually abused due to this.

Another audience to this scandal would be the Rotherham city council, who have all admitted that there are simply no excuses for the scandal. However, they could have reacted very differently, claiming that it wasn't there fault and that they carried out their job to the best of their abilities despite what has happened. Mr Kimber has also stated no council employees will face disciplinary action, as there is not enough evidence, this shows that if they wanted to the council members could deny anything they are accused of. Some of the members have refused to comment on the matter and some have simply tried to blame other members for their mistakes. Everyone seems to be horrified at the scale of the scandal, the difference between the audiences is where you place the blame.