Rotherham leader's 'life's work' as council seeks abuse inquiry role

Rotherham Council has applied for a formal role in the national grooming gangs inquiry, as its leader described addressing the failures exposed in the borough as his “life’s work”.

Councillor Chris Read said the authority wanted to help ensure lessons from Rotherham were learned elsewhere, while acknowledging it could never undo the harm suffered by survivors.

The announcement at full council on Wednesday, November 4, prompted questions about accountability for officials involved at the time.

Coun Read said the council had applied to become a core participant, a status allowing closer involvement, including opening and closing statements and suggestions for questions and lines of inquiry.

He stressed that this did not mean Rotherham had been selected for a local inquiry.

Reflecting on Professor Alexis Jay’s 2014 report, which exposed failures by the council and South Yorkshire Police to protect children, he said trying to put those wrongs right, deliver justice and prevent further failures had been his “life’s work since then”.

“And while we can never undo the past, heal every injury or correct every injustice as we would want to, I'm proud of the transformation that's taken place since then,” he said.

“Scores of perpetrators are behind bars, hundreds of survivors have received support and help, and our council is a vastly different and better organisation than it was.”

Reform councillor Tony Harrison welcomed the council’s participation but questioned the lack of accountability for police, council officers and councillors involved at the time of the failures.

Coun Read said attempts to hold people accountable had encountered employment law and other legal restrictions.

“That's not to say people can't lose their jobs,” he said.

“I have consistently said there ought to be a serious national conversation about how you set the bar for criminal liability for those things.”

Coun Gregory Reynolds said he had contacted a national Muslim organisation and disagreed with what he described as its position that grooming gangs should be addressed within the wider problem of child exploitation.

He argued that the organisation should have a strategy and said it had issued a letter which imams could decide whether to read.

Coun Rukhsana Ismail challenged the reference to Muslims, drawing applause from some in the chamber.

“I don't understand why Muslims were mentioned, when CSE affects every single culture, every religion, every human being,” she said.

Coun Read acknowledged that the majority of perpetrators in the Rotherham cases examined by the Jay report were men from the Pakistani heritage community.

But he stressed that this was one form of abuse, and that other forms were committed overwhelmingly by men from different ethnic backgrounds and religions.

“We should be clear-eyed about all those things,” he said.

He added that, in his experience since the reports were published, the organised Muslim community, particularly through mosques, had been “unrelentingly supportive” in condemning abuse.

“This is not acceptable behaviour, this is criminal behaviour, this is un-Islamic behaviour, it does not meet our religious standards and we will not tolerate it in our communities,” he said, describing those messages.

Coun Read said the council had been formally approached to assist the inquiry’s initial work.

“We will never, ever be complacent about child sexual exploitation,” he said. “That work will never be complete.”