Suella Braverman is warned grooming of children in Rotherdam is STILL going on
Rotherham sex abuse survivors have told the Home Secretary that grooming is still going on there.
Suella Braverman travelled to the South Yorkshire town this week to meet those affected by the scandal.
Youth leader Jayne Senior MBE, who exposed the horrors going on in the town, told the Mirror after Monday’s meeting: “She was told it is still going on.
“She was told that in graphic detail by those working with the children.”
The visit came as the Government announced measures to tackle the issue nationwide, including a Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce.
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A mandatory reporting duty for adults working with children could also be on the cards, along with analysis of “police-recorded ethnicity data”.
Jayne Senior MBE blew the whistle on grooming in Rotherham (Paul David Drabble)But the Home Secretary has come under fire after singling out ‘British Pakistani males’ who ‘hold cultural values totally at odds with British values’.
It follows a report that found 1,400 children were sexually abused by grooming gangs in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
The PM has warned that for too long “political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women”.
The comments were made despite their own report published in 2020 that found grooming gangs mainly involved white males under 30.
The report concluded it was not possible to conclude whether any particular ethnic group was disproportionately represented.
The NSPCC and top academics warned her comments would lead to “blind spots’ and described them as “really dangerous”.
After her meeting in Rotherham, Jayne told The Mirror: “We discussed child exploitation and county lines and the absolute failure in police forces when a child is being exploited.”
A report that found 1,400 children were sexually abused by grooming gangs in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 (Sunday Mirror)She was told how one child was moved out of her home area and placed 20 miles away in care.
But she was soon tracked down by her abusers.
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“The police force are still not speaking to each other. Each one was saying it was the other’s responsibility,” Jayne said.
“She’d got in touch with her groomers and they turned up to pick her up and move her to a hotel. Luckily she confessed to carers and it was stopped.”
Another survivor, talking to The Mirror before the meeting, told how she also believes grooming was still ongoing in Rotherham.
The young woman, a survivor of exploitation in Rotherham, said: “Something needs to happen. People need to know it’s going on to this day.”
The woman in her 20s, who we are not naming to protect her identity, said she tried to escape from being raped seven years ago by running away.
But instead of getting the help she was desperate for, she was held under Section 25 of the Children Act 1989.
This means the authorities can place a child in secure accommodation if they have a history of absconding and are likely to run away from any other description of accommodation.
“I was locked up with murderers and people who’d done terrible crimes,” she said.
“I was horrified and did not understand why I was locked up and the person who raped me was walking the streets.
“I was being raped by an individual in Rotherham when I was 15.
“I told my foster carers but they did not report it to the police.
“In fact social services told them to have him around for tea. At the time he was 23.”
Sir Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the NSPCC, said it was “vital” to remember “that any child can be a victim of child sexual exploitation and adult perpetrators do not just come from one background.”
He added: “Sexual predators will target the most vulnerable and accessible children in society and there must be a focus on more than just race so we do not create new blindspots that prevent victims from being identified.”
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