Fury as Rotherham council boss refuses to say sorry to child abuse victims: Deputy leader shouts 'absolutely not' when asked if he wants to apologise
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941961/Fury-council-boss-refuses-say-sorry-child-abuse-victims-Deputy-leader-shouts-absolutely-not-asked-wants-apologise.html
- Growing outrage over failures to protect 2,000 girls by Rotherham Council
- Former deputy leader of council refused to apologise to the abuse victims
- Ex-head of children's services yelled abuse when questioned by a reporter
- Pakistani gangs abused girls over 16 years but the council failed to act
- Whole cabinet resigned over scandal but many walked into jobs elsewhere
The
former deputy leader of the shamed Labour council that failed to protect
generations of children from sexual abuse last night flatly refused to
apologise to the victims.
There
was growing outrage over the failures by Rotherham council, which
turned a blind eye while Pakistani grooming gangs sexually preyed on an
estimated 2,000 girls.
As
it emerged that a string of those responsible have gone on to lucrative
jobs at other councils – some in charge of safeguarding children – the
Labour former deputy council leader Jahangir Akhtar was asked if he
wanted to apologise to the victims of sexual abuse.
Allies: Former Labour councillor
Jahangir Akhtar - leader of the shamed Labour council that failed to
protect generations of children from sexual abuse - with Ed Miliband
In
response, he shouted: ‘Absolutely not – go away.’ He refused to open
the front door of his £150,000 detached home near the centre of
Rotherham.
Mr
Akhtar, 54, who has previously been pictured standing shoulder to
shoulder with Labour leader Ed Miliband, was forced to ‘step aside’ from
his role as deputy leader following allegations that he had been
involved in a deal to help a relative accused of grooming an underage
girl. He then lost his seat to Ukip at last year’s local elections.
Meanwhile,
Shaun Wright – head of children’s services at Rotherham council from
2005 to 2010 who was forced to quit as South Yorkshire police
commissioner after fierce criticism of his role – yelled abuse when
questioned about the report by a reporter.
At his
luxury five-bedroom house on an exclusive executive estate outside
Rotherham, Mr Wright, 46, told the reporter: ‘I’m not in the public
domain any more – you have no right. Just get off my property. I’m not
talking!’
The
council’s former leader, Roger Stone, who like Mr Wright refused to
co-operate with an inspection into the affair which this week branded
the authority ‘in denial’, was not at his home and failed to respond to
telephone messages.
Rotherham
councillors are facing criminal charges after a shocking report laid
bare how they tried to cover up one of Britain’s biggest child abuse
scandals.
Up
to 2,000 girls were sexually exploited by Pakistani gangs in Rotherham
while they ignored – and in some cases covered up – the abuse over a
16-year period due to an obsession with political correctness.
Shaun Wright - head of children’s
services at Rotherham council from 2005 to 2010 who was forced to quit
as South Yorkshire police commissioner - yelled abuse when questioned
about the report
After
the entire council cabinet was forced to resign, the Prime Minister
said yesterday that the same phenomenon was occuring across the country.
On a trip to Leeds, David Cameron promised that extra resources would be provided to Rotherham council if needed.
But
he added: ‘Let’s not pretend this is a problem of money. It was
mismanagement, political correctness, sexism. This is not a failure of
resources, it was a failure of leadership. We need to tackle this across
other parts of the country too.’
Mr Akhtar has been connected to
numerous aspects of the scandal that led to the council failing to
identify and act on the abuse of girls
Incredibly,
despite the scandal, many of those responsible for the shocking
failures at the Labour-run council have walked into highly paid roles
elsewhere.
The
council’s former chief executive Ged Fitzgerald – accused of allowing
one report warning of child sex grooming to be suppressed and another
ignored – is now earning £199,500 a year as chief executive of Liverpool
City Council. Jackie Wilson – who was responsible for safeguarding
children in Rotherham during the years when widespread sex grooming
crimes were going unpunished – now earns £90,000-a-year as assistant
director for children and families in the neighbouring town of
Doncaster.
Former
deputy council leader Mr Akhtar – described in the report as a
‘powerful figure’ in the town with ‘influence that extended to the
police’ – is a former taxi driver with a criminal conviction for his
role in a violent brawl.
He
came in for sustained criticism in this week’s scathing report by
government adviser Louise Casey, which recorded how ‘members, officers
and others spoke about him with a level of fear’.
‘Some
were concerned when speaking to inspectors that what they said would
get back to him,’ it said, even though he was no longer on the council.
He
has been connected to numerous aspects of the scandal that led to the
council failing to identify and act on the abuse of girls.
His
cousin, Arshad Hussain, was named as a ‘boyfriend’ by up to 18 girls
who spoke to social workers as part of the Risky Business outreach
group, aimed at youngsters who were at risk of being lured into
prostitution.
The
married father-of-five was accused in a report in The Times last year
of helping to arrange a deal where Hussain returned one of his young
alleged victims who had gone missing from home to police.
Did insiders steal file on grooming scandal?
Police
are investigating claims that a report detailing the child sex abuse in
Rotherham was stolen as part of a council cover-up.
The
theft is alleged to have been part of a conspiracy orchestrated by
council insiders desperate to conceal the scale of the problem of sexual
grooming gangs in the town.
The
stolen file was reported by a Home Office researcher working with
Rotherham Council’s youth service in 2002. She claimed senior managers
at the authority were ‘indifferent’ when she told them she believed as
many as 270 girls were being groomed for sex.
But
after sending a draft version of her report detailing the abuse to the
council and Home Office on a Friday, she returned to her office the
following Monday to find all the files had gone and computer records
wiped.
Significantly,
there were no signs of a break-in, and the door had been locked and
key-coded – meaning only a limited number of council workers would have
had access.
Professor Alexis Jay revealed details of a possible break-in in her report last year
The
extraordinary raid from within the council’s offices is likely to form
part of a criminal probe into an alleged attempt to cover up the scale
of child sexual abuse by members of the town’s Pakistani community,
which could see councillors and council officers facing the threat of
jail.
The
Home Office worker behind the report was allegedly later suspended for
supposedly including confidential data in her report, then ordered to
water it down after being reinstated. She refused to change a word.
Incredibly, the report was never published, and it would be more than a decade later before the truth was finally acknowledged.
It
is thought that if it had been published it could have potentially
prevented the abuse of hundreds of girls over the years that followed.
Details
of the break-in were first raised following last August’s report by
Professor Alexis Jay, which stated that the researcher’s draft report
contained ‘severe criticisms of the agencies in Rotherham involved with
child sexual exploitation’ but that she had been subjected to
‘personalised hostility at the hands of officials’.
She
concluded: ‘Had this report been treated with the seriousness it
merited at the time, by both the police and the council, the children
involved then and later would have been better protected and abusers
brought to justice. These events have led to suspicions of collusion and
cover-up.’
The unnamed researcher subsequently gave evidence to a private session of the Home Affairs Select Committee.
In
their report of the meeting, MPs revealed the researcher had handed
police the names of five people who had access to the room where her
missing files had been kept, but they failed to act on the information.
When asked why not, David Crompton, current chief constable of South
Yorkshire Police, told MPs his officers ‘could not find’ any police
reports about the documents being removed.
At
the time, committee chairman Keith Vaz said: ‘The proliferation of
revelations about files which can no longer be located gives rise to
public suspicion of a deliberate cover-up.’
The
researcher had been based within Risky Business, the council’s
specialist youth service, which is praised in both the Jay report and
this week’s damning inspection by Louise Casey for being the only part
of the authority to help vulnerable teenage girls, only to be
effectively closed down for flagging up ‘uncomfortable truths’.
Yesterday
the council said it had set up an external review to ‘establish the
facts of the matter’. Home Secretary Theresa May has said the Home
Office was ‘looking at the files to ascertain exactly what happened’.
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