LONDON — A new report concluded Tuesday that some 1,400 children were sexually exploited in one northern England town — a damming account of the collective failure by authorities to prevent children as young as 11 from being beaten, raped and trafficked.
Report author Alexis Jay cited appalling acts of violence between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham, a town of some 250,000. The independent report came after a series of convictions of sex offenders in the region and ground-breaking reports in the Times of London that prompted the local council to launch an inquiry.
“The collective failures of political and officer leadership were blatant,” said Jay, a former chief social work adviser to the Scottish government. “From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham.”
Attention first fell on Rotherham in 2010 when five men received lengthy jail terms after convictions of grooming teens for sex. Later, investigations began into why authorities failed to act even after frontline social workers suggested things were amiss.