Rotherham police commissioner accused of hindering ability to safeguard children (original) (raw)

The chairman of Rotherham's Safeguarding Children Board has said the refusal of South Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, to resign over the child abuse scandal is hindering the board's work to protect the town's most vulnerable young people.

Stephen Ashley, who became the independent chair of the board after a 30-year career in the police service, also suggested that the extent of the town's grooming problem was in effect covered up by key players who chose to protect their own reputations rather than work to protect child sexual abuse victims.

Speaking to the Guardian on Friday, he said: "The fact of the matter is that there have been too many people spending too much energy protecting their own reputations when they should have been protecting young children."

He said those involved in what Professor Alexis Jay's report called "blatant failures" to act were too worried about the "reputation of themselves, their town, their forces" and said he believed the extent of child sexual abuse in Rotherham had been suppressed in part due to this.

Ashley, whose last job in the police was as programme director for people and child safeguarding at Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, also said he believed that Wright's "badly damaged" credibility as police and crime commissioner (PCC) would hinder the board's work and that he would now be "carrying that baggage with us and that won't help us moving forward".

Ashley's remarks come as pressure mounts on former Rotherham council executives, including the current chief executive of Liverpool city council, to explain their role in the scandal of 1,400 cases of child sexual exploitation in the Yorkshire town between 1997 and 2013.

Wright has ignored demands from senior politicians, including the prime minister, to quit as PCC as well as from his own deputy, Tracey Cheetham, who resigned on Thursday, saying: "It is vital for people to have confidence in the office of police and crime commissioner and, with this in mind, I believe it would have been the right thing for Shaun Wright to resign."

Other senior council and police leaders have also been asked to explain how so many children were failed in Rotherham under their watch.

In East Yorkshire, Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has written to the East Riding council chief executive, Nigel Pearson, asking him to investigate Pam Allen, the council's current head of children and young people's support and safeguarding.

Allen was director of safeguarding at Rotherham from 2004 to 2009, during the years of ignored warnings about grooming.

The Tory MP said: "If it is the case that she bears a serious level of responsibility for the situation that was allowed to develop in Rotherham, it is highly doubtful whether Ms Allen should be entrusted with a similar safeguarding role in the East Riding, or indeed in any local authority."

On Friday morning Joe Anderson, Liverpool's elected mayor, said he was trying to find out urgently whether there was any evidence Liverpool council's current chief executive, Ged Fitzgerald, was responsible for any failings outlined in the Jay report. Fitzgerald was chief executive of Rotherham council from 2001-2003.

According to the Times, under Fitzgerald's watch in 2002, senior staff at Rotherham council ordered a raid on one of their offices to remove case files and wipe computer files detailing the scale and severity of the town's grooming crisis.

The Times claims that the raid was carried out at the office of Risky Business, a specialist youth service set up to monitor young people at risk of sexual exploitation shortly after senior police and council staff became aware of a Home Office-commissioned research project about prostitution in Rotherham from 2000-2001, which criticised both the police and local authority.

The report was never published, but Fitzgerald told Jay that he remembered police being very angry about it, with others regarding the research as "anecdotal, using partial information and not methodologically sound".

Anderson said: "From my point of view, the issue of his competence is a matter which I can only decide on when I have all of the information I need, which is why I am urgently seeking clarification from Alexis Jay and others at Rotherham about Mr Fitzgerald's role."

He would be asking Fitzgerald in particular whether he had ignored certain reports which criticised police and council while he was chief executive from 2001-2003.

Talking from Spain, where he is on holiday, Anderson said he would be calling for a public inquiry into failings highlighted by Jay's report, but insisted "This is about Rotherham, and their behaviour. It's not about Liverpool. Our child protection and safeguarding procedures are of paramount importance to me and this administration."

Martin Kimber, chief executive of Rotherham borough council, said: "The alleged raid on the Risky Business office is not something that I am aware of and having made appropriate checks within the council, I am unable to find anyone who recognises this series of events as they have been presented to us.

"Similarly, I have been unable to find any reference within the Alexis Jay report to the alleged incident and have no other independent means of corroborating the allegations that are being put forward. If further information is made available which enables me to do so, I would be happy to look into it.

"As I have indicated previously, I intend to contact the current employers of a number of senior managers named in the report who no longer work for the authority to advise that they consider whether the findings have any implications for their current employees and child protection services. I have spoken with Ms Jay and she has confirmed that the conclusions I am drawing with regard to specific individuals are the ones she would expect me to draw."