1,400 Rotherham children 'sexually exploited over 16-year period'

[solidified gruel merchant]

Two questions for Danger Man:

Danger Man, do you think girls in care deserve to be raped?
Do you think western society is too decadent?

[NoSleep]

Goodness me, why are you now obsessively commenting on me on other threads?  Would you like a facebook update, you weirdo?

No thanks, I'm not on Facebook, looser.

I don't hate Palestinians.  Nor do I consider Hamas "Palestinians with power and autonomy". Not sure if you're saying that but would be a frankly weird and hilarious thing for someone to say.

I notice you don't deny the toothlessness of your politics, nor your agreement with Tony "War Crimes" Blair.

[Buelligan]

To be fair to me though,  nobody is as smart as I think I am.

At least we can agree on that.  There is a markedly Gaussian distribution of smarts in humans, so yes, people with your level of intelligence are unusual.

[Danger Man]

Two questions for Danger Man:

Danger Man, do you think girls in care deserve to be raped?
Do you think western society is too decadent?

No. I don't see how 'Are more likely to' becomes 'Deserve to'.

No. My main moan is how corrupt the UK is, not how decadent it is. Though I suppose corruption and decadence are bedfellows.

[Borboski]

No thanks, I'm not on Facebook, looser.

I notice you don't deny the toothlessness of your politics, nor your agreement with Tony "War Crimes" Blair.

Hahah, nice one, great post.

[Danger Man]

I've agreed with much of what you've said in this thread but you've stopped paying attention now:

Your quotes don't cancel each other out.

Some parents made an effort and were stopped by police, some parents didn't make an effort and hoped social services would sort things out. All were let down.

Stephen Nolan on BBC5Live has inexplicably become interesting in the last few weeks and last night held a debate on this topic in Rotherham. After two hours, the message I took home was 'What a mess'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04f8wzq

This is going to make a great David Peace trilogy in a few years time.

[Johnny Yesno]

Your quotes don't cancel each other out.

True, but your criticism of people's parenting skills missed the point that being a good parent likely wouldn't have made much difference here. It also doesn't tie in with what you were saying about children in care, unless you are classing the state as a parent. And it also is ignorant of what it's like trying to control wayward teenagers who have found people to drink and smoke weed with. They can be pretty autonomous if they have mates to go and stay with, but it's still not their fault if they are exploited in this way. Being gang raped is not something young people should have to anticipate in 21st century UK.

[Danger Man]

True, but your criticism of people's parenting skills missed the point that being a good parent likely wouldn't have made much difference here.

Well, at the very least, being a good parent might have stopped the child ending up in a care home and becoming even more vulnerable. In fairness, not everybody's up to the job so you have to expect that some children are going to end up in care.

My 5 minutes research on Google has told me that there aren't actually that many children in care in England but many of them are housed in the likes of Rochdale and Rotherham because most care homes are private and the companies prefer to relocate children to save money.

So we can add 'Thatcher' to the many reasons for this sorry tale.

[Johnny Yesno]

Well, at the very least, being a good parent might have stopped the child ending up in a care home and becoming even more vulnerable. In fairness, not everybody's up to the job so you have to expect that some children are going to end up in care.

Yes, some of them are probably too ill or too dead to make good parents. Those are the worthy cases, though, right?

My 5 minutes research on Google has told me that there aren't actually that many children in care in England but many of them are housed in the likes of Rochdale and Rotherham because most care homes are private and the companies prefer to relocate children to save money.

So we can add 'Thatcher' to the many reasons for this sorry tale.

Now we're getting somewhere. The same fundamental reason why elderly care homes can end up employing abusive staff and fail to notice a problem.

[Danger Man]

Now we're getting somewhere. The same fundamental reason why elderly care homes can end up employing abusive staff and fail to notice a problem.

Well that's it, isn't it? You might argue that the real problem is having a society where it's acceptable to stick children and old people in homes when they should be, if possible, in families. Not that being in a family guarantees safety, obviously, but it seem preferable to sticking people hundreds of miles from where they were brought up just to maximise profits.

[Johnny Yesno]

Well that's it, isn't it? You might argue that the real problem is having a society where it's acceptable to stick children and old people in homes when they should be, if possible, in families. Not that being in a family guarantees safety, obviously, but it seem preferable to sticking people hundreds of miles from where they were brought up just to maximise profits.

You might, or you might argue that being employed in the care sector affords as about as much respect as being a cleaner, with poor pay and conditions. You might argue that if you want a quality workforce in the care sector you need to be prepared to pay for decent salaries, training and, above all, enough employees to start with. But you have to remember that this is trumped by the need for a clear margin between the what the contractor charges and the cost of having the actual work done by someone else, or what's their motivation? And what's their shareholders' motivation? Have a heart.

[soraya]

Good news everyone -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738773/Police-plan-mass-raids-sex-gangs-Day-reckoning-hundreds-child-abusers-180-mainly-Asian-men-targeted-Manchester-alone.html

(Or if you'd prefer: http://www.donotlink.com/bfj4)

Apparently the government are planning on introducing a law against neglecting to report suspected child abuse. If that were already the case,  about 80% of Rotherham would be in jail now.

[Johnny Yesno]

Good news everyone -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2738773/Police-plan-mass-raids-sex-gangs-Day-reckoning-hundreds-child-abusers-180-mainly-Asian-men-targeted-Manchester-alone.html

(Or if you'd prefer: http://www.donotlink.com/bfj4)

Apparently the government are planning on introducing a law against neglecting to report suspected child abuse. If that were already the case,  about 80% of Rotherham would be in jail now.

As Ignatius_S quoted back on page 2:

She says she reported her abuse to the police "three months after my sexual exploitation started".

Emma had saved the clothes she had been wearing during the attacks and handed the items to police as evidence.
"They lost the clothing, so there was no evidence," she said.

After that, Emma said she was told it was "my word against his" and that the case "probably wouldn't result in a conviction, or even get to court".

At the same time, she said, her family were being threatened and intimidated.

"The men were parking outside my house, they were threatening my family, they were ringing my house phone - and they were quite dangerous men as well.

"The police said they couldn't offer any protection, so because of that I decided to drop the charges," she added.
"I was 13 at that point and my sexual exploitation went on until I was 15," Emma said.

Good to see the government are taking steps to address the actual problem.

[olliebean]

Presumably under the new law they'd prosecute her for not reporting it for 3 months.

[Saucer51]

True.

But that doesn't make a 'newcomer' right just because they are new on here.

Is it fair to say that if these children had decent parenting they wouldn't have found themselves in the sights of evil Pakistani taxi drivers?

Well if having hands on parents is all that stops rapists from raping then the problem still remains with the rapist. If you saw a child wandering the street at night looking for his/her missing drunken parents would you think you had the green light to do what you want?
Some of those poor girls were in care, in what seems to sometimes be a very loose form of care. Children in care are vulnerable full stop. Desperate for attention, mistaking affection for love, too naive to realise they were being exploited until it was too late. There was no excuse for Savile hanging around reform schools as he did and there's no excuse for these creatures in Rotherham, Oxford, Manchester etc. It all seems to follow a very grim pattern and I think a lot of "care" MO needs to be shaken up, particularly being able to control any slimeball who comes near the vulnerable for less than philanthropic motives. Some, perhaps lots, of the Rotherham victims came from stable families but still being only fledgling adults were desperate to feel grown up and likely to defy all kinds of parental guidelines. The notion that the authorities did next to nothing in so many cases shocks the hell out of me. Frankly, if I saw an underage kid in bed with a grown man, the urge to string the cunt up by the balls would be overwhelming. It was astonishing that people allegedly walked in on Savile and victim and apparently said and did nothing and here in the Rotherham case we're told the same thing may have happened with the police averting their gaze. But to be fair, I believe there will have been quite a few individual police officers and social workers who were unbelievably angry at the collective impotence of their agencies.

As for race/religion being a factor, I think it's something that should at least be investigated. Do non Muslim females not count to some Muslim males? I have no idea. But similarly, there were probably some Muslimah victims who were less likely to come forward because different cultures or subcultures have different ideas of what equals shame, especially if some females are expected to be virgins until they marry. This is what predators of all hues like: helpless, unspoken-for victims. But it does not excuse the behaviour of the sex offenders. There is never an excuse.

[Danger Man]

As for race/religion being a factor, I think it's something that should at least be investigated.

Basically, white guys commit the most sex crimes in the UK and almost always do the crimes on their own.

Pakistani guys tend to commit sex crimes in groups.

I think the religious/racial differences are seen more in the methods than the victims.

[Mister Six]

Pointing to one aspect of this case and saying 'THIS is the problem! Not that other thing!' discounts the possibility[nb]Probability.[nb]Absolute certainty.[/nb][/nb] that this is a massive clusterfuck caused by catastrophic failures of almost every level of society. If we have even the slightest glimmer of reducing the chances of something like this happening again, serious investigations/analyses of the following must be made:

* The family lives of the rapists. What parents raised boys who behaved like this? How aware were their families of what was going on? Did they know? Were they in denial? Were they trying to save face? Did they just worry about their kid going to prison, and kept quiet because it was better than the alternative?

* The communities that the rapists live in. To what extent did growing up and living in a Pakistani community help this group to flourish, either directly or indirectly? Are there aspects of Pakistani[nb]Not Muslim.[/nb] community life and philosophy (or even just this particular community) that make it easier for something to occur on this scale? In the BBC interview put up by Kenneth Trousers back there[nb] If you missed it:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/fivelive/dailybacon/dailybacon_20140827-1806a.mp3

3`30 in.[/nb] a British Pakistani woman says that she was run out of her town by her community when she tried to confront a relative who was doing the same thing as these men (he is now behind bars, thankfully). She also comments that there is an attitude of venerating boys in families and denigrating girls from non-Pakistani communities that contributes to this; also that the lack of female figures of authority in Pakistani communities adversely affects the issue. Is this accurate? We won't know if people dismiss any connection between the rapists' racial and religious backgrounds and the nature of their crimes.

* The general state of inter-community relationships. Do the Pakistani communities feel that they cannot trust the authorities? Do they worry about abuse being inflicted on them if these crimes are made known? Is there abuse from non-Pakistani communities and how is that affecting them and their attitude to wider British society?[nb]Anecdotal evidence time! I used to work with a few Pakistani lads in a call centre and they were all good sorts, but even though they were all second or third generation British, they would still refer to Pakistan as 'home', which struck me as being a bit off.[/nb]

* The families of the girls who were abused. Did they know what was happening? How did they respond? The news report earlier in the thread says that some parents were threatened with violence by the gangs, but it's not clear how aware they were that they were under threat, or whether those threats were just visited on their daughters. One family eventually left the country to escape it, but what was the gap between them finding out and them leaving the country?

* Similarly, the nature of child care in the UK. Why are the girls that are in care so vulnerable, and why were people tasked with looking after them not capable of doing so, or recognising/responding to what they were going through?

* What the fuck went on with the police. Why were people not taking these reports seriously? How was evidence lost? Was there corruption? Was it 'just' old-fashioned victim blaming? Was it a lack of care because of the girls' lower-class status? Why were parents being arrested when they tried to remove their daughters from the houses that they were being kept in?

* What, similarly, the fuck went on with the child services.

* Under-reporting of/failure to take seriously complaints from non-white victims. This is being looked at as Pakistanis vs whites, but did they prey on black, Indian, Asian or other minorities? If so, did those victims report their crimes or did they feel that they wouldn't be taken seriously? If they did report them, were they taken as seriously as the white girls (which is probably 'not very' in any case by the looks of things).

Those are all things that should be seriously considered by whoever is in charge of investigating that mess. And it's not an exhaustive list - I'm sure there are plenty more I haven't thought of. But trying to pin all of the blame or explanations on one facet of this shit diamond to the exclusion of all others is ridiculous, and helps no one.

[Mister Six]

And FWIW I think similarly exhaustive investigations should be made into all of the other paedophile rings and circles of abuse that have been uncovered of late. Especially the ones concerning wealthy white folk from the upper tiers of society.

[ollyboro]

If Jimmy Savile was alive to see this he'd be wanking in his grave.

[CaledonianGonzo]

His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. "So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male," he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%. "We have come across cases all over the country and the ethnicity of the perpetrators varies depending on where you are ... It is not the abusers' race that defines them. It is their attitude to women that defines them

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/03/nazir-afzal-there-is-no-religious-basis-for-the-abuse-in-rotherham

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

If Jimmy Savile was alive to see this he'd be wanking in his grave.

Leave poor old Jimmy alone. It was the sexy kids' fault:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGuSqSSmyy0

[Mister Six]

His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. "So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male," he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%. "We have come across cases all over the country and the ethnicity of the perpetrators varies depending on where you are ... It is not the abusers' race that defines them. It is their attitude to women that defines them

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/03/nazir-afzal-there-is-no-religious-basis-for-the-abuse-in-rotherham

I think he's being a bit disingenuous there by dividing the available options into 'race' and 'attitude to women' when, surely, 'ethnicity' and 'cultural background' are more relevant. If the issue is a poor attitude to women then you can't ignore the possibility that Pakistani communities are, as a whole, more likely to favour boys during upbringing, and look down on female independence and agency. There's also the possibility - as mentioned by the British-Pakistani woman in the BBC clip a few pages back - that boys from Pakistani communities feel separate from, and in some cases superior to, people from other British communities, and this might affect their attitudes to white (and black, and Indian) girls.

I do agree that the 'night time economy' side of things also plays into the practical reasons for how this played out, but the criminal's acts are not divisible from their upbringing and influences, and in the case of these men, their influences were, to a large degree, growing up in Pakistani communities and Pakistani homes. Trying to deny that this is a factor (among many, many others, as I mentioned above) makes a proper analysis of how and why this happened impossible.

[soraya]

Worth a watch:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04hcg6z/panorama-stolen-childhoods-the-grooming-scandal

In a police interview one victim described being raped at the age of 13. When she tried to resist, her attacker "punched me in the mouth and called me a white bitch". But race had nothing to do with that,  obviously.

[soraya]

There's over 1 million Pakistanis in the UK so it seems a bit unfair to talk about 'attitudes' when 10's of Pakistani men decide to start grooming white girls.

In this vital documentary, the police ask a 14 year old girl to list the names of the men who took part in her abuse. Guess how many she named?

[Johnny Yesno]

Fuck off, soraya.

[soraya]

Fuck off, soraya.

I wasn't asking you, dickhead. However, since you were nice enough to take part, i'll tell you - It was 101! I jumped out of my seat, punched the air and shouted "YES!" when I found out because it meant Danger Man was wrong and I was right.

Winning.

[Johnny Yesno]

Fuck off, soraya.