Rotherham Council Accused Of 'Jaw Dropping' Spin Over The Child Abuse Report
So This Is How Rotherham Council Tried To Spin Claims It Failed To Prevent 'Appalling' Abuse
Jack Sommers— The Huffington Post UK
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The council at the centre of a scandal over the "appalling" abuse of children that it failed to prevent has been accused of "jaw dropping" spin over the report that exposed it.
Rotherham Council posted a press release about the independent inquiry into it and South Yorkshire Police's failure to prevent 1,400 children falling victim to sexual abuse over 16 years.
It didn't emphasise how children had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, and made to witness brutally-violent rapes.
Instead, it plucked a line from the report to say: "Services to protect young people at risk from child sexual exploitation in Rotherham are stronger and better co-ordinated across agencies today than ever before, an independent inquiry has found."
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The council's press release as it appeared in their online news section
It then acknowledges there were "a variety of historic and serious child protection failings within the authority".
Those failings were so severe the council leader Roger Stone resigned over them yesterday and the position of Shaun Wright, the police and crime commissioner who was a councillor in charge of children's services when the abuse was happening, is looking untenable.
The spin was picked up and tweeted by Sun journalist Craig Woodhouse and the reaction from other tweeters was instant and severe.
One referred to it as "jaw dropping" while another suggested the review had been led by PR agent and convicted sex offender Max Clifford.
Another said: "I think that's called damage limitation. Or completely glossing over the contradictory facts of the case."
The council later changed the website so that the press release was entitled, "The Council's response to the Independent Inquiry".
Further down within the press release, it does explore aspects of the review and its findings.
The council will consider it in more detail when its cabinet meets on September 3, it said.
It declined to comment when contacted by The Huffington Post UK.
What the Rotherham abuse report actually says
The Issue Of Ethnicity(01 of06)
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Those on the frontline in fighting child sexual abuse in Rotherham were "acutely aware" of "a general nervousness in the earlier years about discussing them, for fear of being though of racist". Senior people in the council and police conveyed the message that the "ethnic dimensions" of the abuse should be downplayed. But the report also says it was confident that "ethnic issue did not influence professional decision-making in individual cases". Staff had no personal experience of any attempt to influence their decision making over ethnic issues. The failure, by some councillors, to recognise that the 2010 convictions of abusers was part of a deep-rooted problem within the Pakistani-heritage community was "at best naive and at worst ignoring a politically inconvenient truth," the report says. (credit:Imgorthand via Getty Images)
A Lack Of 'Interest' In The Issue(02 of06)
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The council leadership (former council leader Roger Stone pictured) showed "little obvious leadership or interest" in child sexual exploitation, beyond their financial support for Risky Business, an outreach service for children at risk of it. Potential reasons for the lack of interest were "denial it could occur in Rotherham, concern it could damage community cohesion, worry about the reputation risk to the borough". Although the council funded Risky Business, its own Children's Services department regarded the service as "something of a nuisance" and the relationship between the two was tense. (credit:Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire)
Police 'Did Not Believe' Data About The Problem(03 of06)
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There were three earlier reports on the issue from 2002, 2003 and 2006. They all gave stark evidence to police and the council and "could not have been cleared in their description of the situation". But they failed to convince some. The 2002 report was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers at South Yorkshire Police did not believe the data it presented. The other two reports sought to identify links between child abuse and other crimes such as drugs and guns. The police and the council took no action in response to them. (credit:Dave Thompson/PA Archive)
Senior Leaders Didn't Support Staff(04 of06)
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In the early 2000s, a group of people from safeguarding agencies tried, on their own initiative, to meet to monitor large groups of the children deemed to be at risk of abuse. But senior managers with the police and the council's children's social care thought the scale of the problem, described by youth workers, was exaggerated and offered little help or support. (credit:Mykola Velychko via Getty Images)
Council Children's Services Were Understaffed(05 of06)
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From 2009, Rotherham Council's (chief executive Martin Kimber pictured) children's social care service was "acutely understaffed and overstretched", leaving it struggling to cope with demand. (credit:Dave Higgens/PA Wire)
Policies To Improve The Issue Were Devised - But Not Implemented Well(06 of06)
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New policies on procedures on child sexual exploitation were drawn up to help agencies work together, after Ofsted published a scathing report on the council's children's safeguarding services. But the follow-up in ensuring the policies were implemented was weak. Members of the Rotherham Safeguarding Children Board did not check whether the policies were implemented or working well. "Their challenge and scrutiny was lacking over several years at a time when it was most required," the report says. Roger Stone, who led the council from 2003 until his resignation yesterday, apologised for the safeguarding being so poor. The report is less than forgiving: "This apology should have been made years earlier and the issue given the political leadership it needed." (credit:monkeybusinessimages via Getty Images)