It has emerged Labour Members of Parliament in the North of England may have conspired to ignore the abuse of young girls by Pakistani grooming gangs because of the "vast reservoirs" of votes the "Kashmiri Muslim" community afforded them, and that crucial detailed evidence about the scandal has "disappeared" from archives.
A local MP has confided the abuse remained unspoken of for so long because "there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that". A culture of intimidation locally may have also played a part.
Although reports about child sexual abuse began to surface relatively regularly in the national press in 2011, a year later when John Healey, a Labour MP local to Rotherham, received a letter from a constituent expressing concern he dismissed it. London newspaper The Times reports today that the man, an engineer, wrote to his MP in 2012 to inform him locals were “deeply disturbed by what . . . is happening in Rotherham”.
The constituent asked whether Healey, MP for the area since 1997 (also believed to be the year the abuses of the 1,400 girls in Rotherham began), would "call for an investigation of all parties at fault", meaning local child protection agencies and police as well as the perpetrators. Healey replied" "I am not sure an inquiry would help the girls and their families, especially if it focuses solely on Rotherham and on Asian men grooming white girls".
A reluctance to focus attention on the perpetrators of these crimes for reasons of "community cohesion" or electoral expediency appears to be a common theme. Former Rotherham MP Denis Macshane who was first elected in 1994 but resigned in 2012 prior to a six month jail sentence for expenses fraud, has admitted his political leanings stopped him from addressing the problem.
Speaking to the BBC, Macshane said he was aware of illegal incest and "the oppression of women within bits of the Muslim community in Britain" but turned a blind eye. He admitted: "Perhaps yes, as a true Guardian reader, and liberal leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard". The Times reports him as having said: "I, like so many MPs, preferred to keep silent on some of the dirty secrets about bad practices in the Kashmiri Muslim community", a community that supplies "vast resevoirs" of votes at election time.
Blaming the abuse on British culture, and linking the Rotherham abuse gangs to celebrity groomers, he said: "Nobody pursued Jimmy Saville, nobody pursued Rolf Harris, nobody pursued Cyril Smith… There is in our country, just a dreadful culture and I wouldn’t pick particular on one ethnic community but it is a real problem, it’s a longer story about the nature of that community, their sexual relations, and the way they treat women".
The first Times report from 2011 which referred to a place in "Northern England" where local sources "are so scared of reprisals that their town must not be named" went some way to explain why the abuser's own community didn’t reveal their activities, which were often conducted in broad daylight.
The article refers to comments by the community sources, who speak of the "widespread view that betraying members of one’s own community to the police would be an even greater sin than child sexual exploitation." White girls are targeted by such men because "if they did it to a Muslim girl, they’d be shot".
As the parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of local agencies and authorities continues questions have been asked of the competency of the very bodies that were supposed to protect the abused. During the questioning of resigning Rotherham chief executive it emerged that an important and detailed piece of evidence, a 2008 report on child abuse has “disappeared” from the council’s archives.
The inquiry continues.
A local MP has confided the abuse remained unspoken of for so long because "there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that". A culture of intimidation locally may have also played a part.
Although reports about child sexual abuse began to surface relatively regularly in the national press in 2011, a year later when John Healey, a Labour MP local to Rotherham, received a letter from a constituent expressing concern he dismissed it. London newspaper The Times reports today that the man, an engineer, wrote to his MP in 2012 to inform him locals were “deeply disturbed by what . . . is happening in Rotherham”.
The constituent asked whether Healey, MP for the area since 1997 (also believed to be the year the abuses of the 1,400 girls in Rotherham began), would "call for an investigation of all parties at fault", meaning local child protection agencies and police as well as the perpetrators. Healey replied" "I am not sure an inquiry would help the girls and their families, especially if it focuses solely on Rotherham and on Asian men grooming white girls".
A reluctance to focus attention on the perpetrators of these crimes for reasons of "community cohesion" or electoral expediency appears to be a common theme. Former Rotherham MP Denis Macshane who was first elected in 1994 but resigned in 2012 prior to a six month jail sentence for expenses fraud, has admitted his political leanings stopped him from addressing the problem.
Speaking to the BBC, Macshane said he was aware of illegal incest and "the oppression of women within bits of the Muslim community in Britain" but turned a blind eye. He admitted: "Perhaps yes, as a true Guardian reader, and liberal leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard". The Times reports him as having said: "I, like so many MPs, preferred to keep silent on some of the dirty secrets about bad practices in the Kashmiri Muslim community", a community that supplies "vast resevoirs" of votes at election time.
Blaming the abuse on British culture, and linking the Rotherham abuse gangs to celebrity groomers, he said: "Nobody pursued Jimmy Saville, nobody pursued Rolf Harris, nobody pursued Cyril Smith… There is in our country, just a dreadful culture and I wouldn’t pick particular on one ethnic community but it is a real problem, it’s a longer story about the nature of that community, their sexual relations, and the way they treat women".
The first Times report from 2011 which referred to a place in "Northern England" where local sources "are so scared of reprisals that their town must not be named" went some way to explain why the abuser's own community didn’t reveal their activities, which were often conducted in broad daylight.
The article refers to comments by the community sources, who speak of the "widespread view that betraying members of one’s own community to the police would be an even greater sin than child sexual exploitation." White girls are targeted by such men because "if they did it to a Muslim girl, they’d be shot".
As the parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of local agencies and authorities continues questions have been asked of the competency of the very bodies that were supposed to protect the abused. During the questioning of resigning Rotherham chief executive it emerged that an important and detailed piece of evidence, a 2008 report on child abuse has “disappeared” from the council’s archives.
The inquiry continues.
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