Policing and Crime

Debate between Seema Malhotra and Sarah Champion

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I rise today not so much to deliver a speech, but to ask the Minister for help because I do not know what else I can do as an MP to get justice, to get prosecutions and to get accountability when it comes specifically to grooming gangs exploiting children.

I am incredibly grateful for the hard work of South Yorkshire police. The frontline officers have been exemplary in both listening to and supporting victims, survivors, parents and the broader community. However, we must also accept that there is reputational damage to South Yorkshire police from past failings. They have yet to be recognised in full, and they have yet to be resolved. I want a line drawn under this so that our police force can have both the respect and the trust that it needs, and I need the Government’s help to be able to do that.

Five years ago, almost to the day, on 4 February 2015, I had a meeting with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. I presented him with a five-point plan for tackling this scourge, and I will read my introduction to that:

“From my experience in Rotherham I am convinced that we need a national strategy to tackle organised child abuse. Criminals do not observe local authority or police force boundaries. Locally, there are neither the resources, or expertise, to tackle organised child abuse, by which I mean gang-related child sexual exploitation, institutional abuse, paedophile rings and prolific abusers.”

Sadly, I could be reading that today—indeed, I am—because the situation has changed very little. I am incredibly glad and grateful that the Government have introduced relationship education—one of the things I am proudest to have campaigned on.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. I pay tribute to her work in her constituency on these difficult, complex and devastating issues, and in seeking justice for those who have been groomed. Paedophile rings behave in ways that we cannot imagine, and people continue to pursue those who are victims in their rings, even once they have gone to jail. Resources must be made available to deal with that issue far more comprehensively than is currently the case.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend is right, but the difference between paedophile rings and grooming gangs is that for the former, the police have the research and understanding to know what the motivators are. A police force can look at patterns of behaviour or get ahead of the abuse because they see those patterns, and then they can disrupt it. Sadly, for all the promises that the Government made, we still do not have that research about grooming gangs. That is something I asked for, and something I would like the Minister to reassure me about.

I sent a letter to the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid)—I have been working on this for a while—and on 6 December I received a reply:

“Thank you for your letter of 3 September to the Home Secretary seeking an update on Home Office activity to understand the characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation…In your letter you emphasise the need for research and the importance of sharing relevant findings with agencies tasked with protecting vulnerable children and young people and disrupting offenders…I recognise that the Home Office is uniquely placed to provide some of this insight, protecting operationally sensitive information where it is appropriate and necessary. Officials will consider the most appropriate approach in sharing this work and will advise Ministers, including the Home Secretary, in due course.”

I hope that officials have now advised the Home Secretary about a matter that is pressing, up and down our country.

The Government have committed to publishing a national child sexual abuse strategy that will look at all forms of abuse, but I am talking specifically about research that is used to disrupt grooming gangs, which should be published imminently. Will the Government make a commitment on timing, and say how that information will be shared nationally? How will police forces, local authorities and the voluntary sector be resourced so that they can use that data to disrupt such behaviour?

I turn now to the historical failings of our police forces. Two weeks ago, the Mayor of Greater Manchester published a report into Operation Augusta, which was about trying to disrupt a grooming gang and seek justice. The headlines from that report are shocking. It found that police and social services failed the girls, and that police resources were insufficient to deal with the issue. The girls were seen as prostitutes and as somehow complicit in their own abuse. Greater Manchester police dropped an operation that identified up to 97 potential suspects, and at least 57 potential victims. Eight of those men went on to rape girls. As recently as 2018, the chief constable refused to reopen the dropped operation.

The following week, the Independent Office for Police Conduct released a report into one strand of its investigation into the handling of past child abuse cases by South Yorkshire police. I wrote to our chief constable, and stated:

“The report’s conclusions make profoundly disturbing reading. South Yorkshire police failed the child multiple times, and by doing so, led her to be exposed to long-term horrific abuse. It is particularly concerning that the report upholds a complaint against a senior officer and that it has not been possible for this officer to be identified.

As I am sure you would agree, I do not believe it is possible for Rotherham to have confidence in its police force whilst officers found to have failed so badly, and with such catastrophic consequences, are not held to account for their actions. I would therefore welcome your assurances that every effort will be made to identify officers involved, and that any possible misconduct will be both investigated and action taken, including where appropriate, disciplinary action.”

I have still not received a satisfactory response to that, although I hope I will receive one. This not a witch hunt; this is about restoring confidence in our local police force. This is about victims and survivors feeling that they have had closure, and that what they went through will never happen to anybody else. I ask the Minister: please, let us look at transparency and accountability in our police forces.

I ask all hon. Members present, including the Minister, to ask their police forces for information about the caseloads of officers who are dealing with child sexual exploitation, compared with those dealing with other crimes. How many dedicated child sexual exploitation officers are qualified in the professionalising investigation programme—PIP2—and what is the ratio of uniformed police officers to detectives assigned to CSE investigations? What is the retention rate of investigating officers on CSE cases, and what is the average level of experience among officers assigned to CSE investigations? I say to all of you: if you think you do not have child exploitation in your patch, you have. Ask those questions and make sure that your force is properly resourced to protect everyone in your constituency.