England: Cops don’t have ‘full understanding’ of child sex abuse, says watchdog

A POLICE watchdog said that forces up and down the country do not have a “full understanding of the nature of scale” of child exploitation, writes Danielle Andrews.

A review of 27 cases of child sexual exploitation (CSE) was undertaken by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS). The watchdog found the most common ethnic group of offenders were white. The next most common ethnic group was Asian or Asian British.

In its report published last Friday (8), HMICFRS said although the police service has taken steps to improve its response to child sexual exploitation over the years, “progress remains slow”, and data collection is “unreliable”.

The inspectorate did not name the forces it involved and added that its sample size “isn’t fully representative”.

It undertook the review to establish how well the police and law enforcement bodies understand and respond to groupbased child sexual exploitation. It found that “the police, law enforcement bodies and the government still didn’t have a full understanding of the nature or scale of these crimes”.

The report added: “The number of high-profile investigations into non-recent cases, at a cost of many millions of pounds, demonstrates the consequences of failing to respond effectively to the first indications of exploitation and abuse. It leads to generations of children being unprotected and the guilty being free to carry on offending.

“It also means that, eventually, the police may need to carry out complex and highly expensive inquiries when some evidence (especially forensic evidence) has been lost forever.

The Jay report in 2014 found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. She detailed how girls as young as 11 were raped, trafficked, abducted, beaten, and intimidated by men predominantly of Pakistani heritage.

When it was published, then Rotherham Council chief executive Martin Kimber said he accepted the report and the recommendations made and apologised to the victims of abuse.

South Yorkshire Police has said it now has a deep understanding of child sexual exploitation and has embedded a child-centred approach.

The force’s police and crime commissioner added that it is now among the best-performing forces when it comes to group-based CSE.

Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Poolman, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “Since the publication of the Jay Report, South Yorkshire Police has worked hard, in conjunction with our partners, to embed the learning that report provided.

“We have developed a far deeper understanding of groupbased CSE and have used this to improve our response. “We have also worked hard to embed a child-centred approach that demonstrates compassion, professionalism and an effective response.”

Dr Alan Billings, the South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, said as the report draws on evidence from a number of unnamed police forces, it was not possible to draw any conclusions from it about the performance of any particular force.

“However, we can be confident that South Yorkshire Police are among the best-performing forces when it comes to group-based child sexual exploitation because the force has been on a considerable journey since the publication of Professor Alexis Jay’s report in 2014 found it had failed so many young women,” he said.

“It has undergone a great deal of reflection, learning and change, and has led the way in understanding this form of exploitation, how it must be tackled and how victims of CSE should be supported.

“Hard lessons were learned and the way they tackle CSE is now very different.”

(Local Democracy Reporting Service)