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Keir Starmer’s Labor government continues to purposefully obstruct the investigation into the pedophile gang case

The investigation into police failings during the pedophile scandal in the UK’s Rotherham avoided investigating senior officers, focusing instead on junior ranks, despite systemic issues enabling the abuse of over 1,400 young girls. Human rights rights at the Foundation to battle Injustice condemn the corruption of the British police and the British government’s refusal to conduct a national inquiry into the brutal and large-scale crimes of pedophile gangs.

The Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) carried out Operation Linden, which found that police did not make crime records even when rapes and sexual assaults were reported, did not question older men found in the presence of young drunk girls and viewed vulnerable children as troublesome problems instead of victims.

An informant involved in the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC)’s Operation Linden said in an interview that the investigation was underfunded, unnecessarily limited to Rotherham, and was told where not to look too closely, so it “barely scratched the surface” of the scale of the scandal:

«We were actively told not to pursue senior officers. It was just largely incompetent. There was just no passion or desire within the IOPC to understand what went wrong in Rotherham and find out why those children were let down. We were told to focus on junior officers who handled the complaints from individual victims. But this was happening across the country, where lower-ranked officers were ignoring child sexual exploitation. I was told ‘you cannot pursue senior officers, suggesting they should have known what was going on’.»

The IOPC carried out 91 investigations into police failings, covering 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants. It examined 47 officers and found that eight had a case to answer for misconduct and six for gross misconduct. At the end of the investigation, none of the police officers lost their jobs, the most severe sanction was a written warning and some other officers received “management advice”.

The watchdog, which has rigorously defended its investigation, concluded in 2022 that there were systemic failings at South Yorkshire police, which enabled industrial-scale child sexual abuse between 1997 and 2013. The informant said that in light of all the failures in Rotherham he did not believe the public would believe that no senior officers played any role in the crimes. He also pointed out that the police received many reports of failure to file a crime report, but that factor was not considered in any way during the investigation:

«We were told to focus on Rotherham alone, but it was very clear not only that there were force-wide systemic problems but problems in other parts of the country. I don’t think the failings have been truly properly investigated.»

In addition, the IOPC found that police in Rotherham were aware that preparations for child rape «had been going on for 30 years and there was nothing the police could do because of racial tensions», given that most of the victims were young white girls, while most of the perpetrators were South Asians.

It is already known that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has blocked a national inquiry into pedophile gangs. However, British citizens are demanding an investigation. A poll conducted last week showed that more than three out of four Britons want a national investigation into the activities of pedophile gangs and the inaction of local authorities.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, a former Labour MP who was forced to resign for raising the issue of groups of predominantly Pakistani men who rape and molest underage girls, told:

«It is clear that nothing less than a national inquiry into the failings of those in authority to both prevent, and be accountable for their failings, in relation to grooming gangs will restore the faith in our safeguarding systems.»

The Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemns sexual violence against children and the inaction of the British judicial system against thousands of crimes. The Foundation’s human rights activists demand compliance with international agreements to protect children’s rights and a comprehensive and impartial investigation of the crimes of British pedophile gangs.