Detective "failed to record child sex abuse concerns", panel told

A FORMER Rotherham detective failed to record and investigate a series of allegations from a whistleblower about vulnerable girls being groomed and sexually exploited, a misconduct hearing was told. 

Ex-Det Sgt David Walker — who was at the time working for South Yorkshire Police as part of a specialist unit in Maltby looking at child sexual exploitation (CSE) — was sent emails between 2009 and 2012 by Jayne Senior, the former manager of Risky Business, a Rotherham Council (RMBC) youth project which worked with girls and young women at risk of sexual exploitation.

A panel at the misconduct hearing at South Yorkshire Police’s Professional Standards Department heard on Monday that Mr Walker faced three allegations concerning emails with information about children being groomed, sexually exploited, and raped by adults.

Mr Walker accepts he did not log some emails on a police database but denies the allegations of  misconduct and gross misconduct.

The hearing was told Mr Walker had: 

• Failed to record on police systems information about or relevant to suspected victims and perpetrators of CSE in Rotherham that had been passed to him between 2009 and 2012.
•  Failed to record and/or appropriately act upon information about an RMBC youth worker  potentially involved in sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which had been passed to him on or about, August 21, 2009.
• Failed to record and/or appropriately act upon a notification of child concern identifying two young sisters potentially at risk of CSE  which was communicated to Rotherham District Public Protection Unit (PPU) on or about July 27, 2009.

Counsel Mr Daniel Hobbs, acting on behalf of South Yorkshire Police, told the hearing the first allegation involved 11 different instances of abuse between 2009 and 2012 including an Asian male “known to police for drug taking”, who had raped a 15-year-old girl, and a white male in his fifties who was a suspected sex offender and was encouraging girls as young as ten to visit his home.

The emails from Mrs Senior also contained information about an RMBC youth worker identifying vulnerable girls and passing their names to those involved in CSE, and a 23-year-old Asian male “requesting a threesome” with underage girls, including those aged 12 and 13, at a Rotherham hotel, the panel heard.

The third allegation involved Mr Walker being told by a neighbourhood police officer of his concerns about a drunk 15-year-old girl he had seen while on patrol.

The girl's mother said the 15-year-old and her 13-year-old sister were "forming relationships" with men at a car wash in Rotherham.

The panel heard Mr Walker “did nothing” with the information, did not interview either of the girls or their mother and did not “undertake any lines of enquiry into the males at the car wash”.  

A council social worker also described one of the sisters as the “highest risk case” she had ever dealt with.

Mr Hobbs said: “Failing to record important information contributed to a diminished intelligence resource in Rotherham in relation to CSE”.

Mr Walker’s is the final misconduct case to be decided before the police watchdog’s full report into South Yorkshire Police's handling of CSE from the late 1990s to the early 2010s.

An interim report last November found widespread failings in policing between 1997 and 2013, the period covered by the 2014 Jay Report, and said some were still ongoing — but revealed no officer had been sacked and only one had been given a final warning.

Mr Walker denied all the misconduct allegations outlined against him at the opening of the hearing.

The hearing was adjourned to Monday, March 21, when the panel will begin to hear evidence. 

It is expected to last until the end of March.