Time for change?
Without any shadow of a doubt one of the most pathetic explanations of why a council failed to act and protect children as young as 12 years old from rape you could ever witness.
With Champion the towns new MP and Stone sat in the public seats, Kimber and Thacker tried miserably to defend the indefensible.
The apology came nowhere near the full and frank omission that this council failed so many vulnerable children.
Having the paper records of who knew what and when may inform the debate, it will not explain why when provided with intelligence from children on who was abusing them the council used the politically correct words, community cohesion to influence their inadequate response to protecting these children.
Champion in her media interviews took the party line, that was history, lessons have been learned, the council is moving on, really, so why have only 13 RMBC counillors taken the opportunity to sign up to child exploitation briefing sessions?
Have Cllrs Gerald Smith, Ken Wyatt, Simon Currie, Ian Barron and Richard Russell signed up to the briefing sessions?
So why did RMBC allow children to be abused?
Could it be that because certain aggressive councillors abused their position to intimidate any officer/care professional who even suggested that this crime in Rotherham was linked to Pakistani men were labeled as a racist and subsequently children in Rotherham were failed by the services that should have protected them.
A member of the HASC raised the role of taxi drivers; tell me RMBC just how robust have you been in policing the conduct of Private Hire companies and their drivers to stop child sexual exploitation?
Kimbers weak and ill informed response tells me that because of community cohesion and the influence of certain aggressive councilors the council has not and will not be taking any action against taxi companies.
There is something morally bankrupt with this council, it’s time for change!
Cerberus
Thanks Cerberus for that precise report and questioning of this completely disgraceful affair in which many members of RMBC , elected and appointed, have not explained themselves.
Where are the explanations and accounts from Mahrouf Hussein himself – the member responsible for and remunerated for “Community Cohesion” ?
Where is the “Leader” Roger Stone ? Still hiding in the town hall and being ferried to and from the doorstep so as to limit contact with the public indefinitely ?
Where is “Deputy Leader” JahanghIr Akhtar and his taxi driving colleagues who are reported as connected to this situation ?
And while I’m asking … WHERE’S MY MP KEVIN BARRON’S RESPONSE TO ALL THIS ????
Meanwhile, RMBC Press Office posts a colourful sunrise over Boston Castle – Hussein’s ward – on Twitter…
Diversionary tactics like this don’t work, RMBC !
Reblogged this on maltbyblogger and commented:
Thanks Cerberus for that precise report and questioning of this completely disgraceful affair in which many members of RMBC , elected and appointed, have not explained themselves.
Where are the explanations and accounts from Mahrouf Hussein himself – the member responsible for and remunerated for “Community Cohesion” ?
Where is the “Leader” Roger Stone ? Still hiding in the town hall and being ferried to and from the doorstep so as to limit contact with the public indefinitely ?
Where is “Deputy Leader” JahanghIr Akhtar and his taxi driving colleagues who are reported as connected to this situation ?
And while I’m asking … WHERE’S MY MP KEVIN BARRON’S RESPONSE TO ALL THIS ????
Meanwhile, RMBC Press Office posts a colourful sunrise over Boston Castle – Hussein’s ward – on Twitter…
Diversionary tactics like this don’t work, RMBC !
They learned lessons, they apologised, they’re moving forward, oh where have we heard that so many times??
But much more important to them – they’re still in their jobs that they’ve been doing so badly for so long and the big fat salaries are being paid into the bank every month.
What was the point of the cabaret? – no point at all, as usual.
Yes change is long overdue but sadly the opportunity was missed in the recent by-election. Thacker and Kimber – “Do they Get It” – Oh yes they do – peddling like hell and convincing nobody. Their main concern is saving their jobs with the inflated salaries. What a total embarrasment, wonder how they will feel watching their absolutely inept performance.
Poor vulnerable children of Rotherham.
A lesson perhaps for Chumpion in obfuscation!
Rothpol use all you have to bring this lot to their knees.
Thacker said “Prevention is actually the key issue for me.”
So she knows who is responsible but prefers to talk rather than encourage prosecution.
You could’nt make it up.
Joyce Thacker and her cosy little team of senior management underlings are responsible for it all. She takes her £120,000 a year (for what exactly?) while overseeing front line staff sacked, the abuse scandal, the adoption scandal and the NEET scandal. Quite a lot of scandals and still she keeps her job and denies responsibility.
The truth will come out but not if RMBC have their way. The history of the non elected directors and executives at RMBC is to cover up,ignore, deny, use semantics and avoidance then protect the senior management (themselves) at all costs. Forget the RMBC internal investigation: it simply was damage limitation. There are good people in the Young People’s and Social and Community Services in the Borough.- let them speak without threat, bullying,’come back’ and intimidation publicly. Call in the Government watchdogs now!.
Joyce love – you are out of your depth – go now and forgo your pay off for failure. It won’t be long before RMBC hits the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Before the recent scandal of child grooming by Asian men, many of whom are taxi drivers, emerged there was a case of an adult woman being raped by a taxi driver in a taxi she had hired in the town centre to take her Dalton. She reporteed the matter to the police informing them that the taxi company was “Gold Star,” and that her assailant was Asian. The owner of the company told the police that it could not have been one of his drivers and that some one had probably stolen a magnetic plate with the company logo on and was using it illegally on their car! I don’t believe anyone was caught for that crime either! If any females in my family need a taxi I am very particular about who conveys them.
How easy it is to blame everything on historic ignorance and “systemic failures”. Hogwash Mr Kimber! I’m sure you mean well but you are just deflecting blame from yourself and colleagues. I’d like to point out that people – many of them very well paid and supposedly well qualified – are the ones who put systems in place, set priorities and make decisions. They are the ones who must co-operate with other agencies. They are the ones who must be proactive in rooting out wrongdoing and supporting child victims. Systems can’t do that. People can but haven’t. These are individual failings by officials and councillors, not by systems.
Whatever happened to accountability? I’ve spent most of my career in service to the community in one part of the public sector or another. I was taught that individuals are personally accountable for the quality of the service they deliver and for the integrity of the decisions they make and, if they aren’t cut out for the job or make consistently poor decisions, they should give it up. I still believe that. Accountable officials such as Stone and Thacker should resign or be dismissed. Accountable councillors such as the children’s safeguarding leads during the relevant period should resign from public life and apologise to the victims and the local community for failing in their primary responsibilities.
Mrs Thacker says prevention is top priority. Well, that would be a start, but the abuses appear to be ongoing if the police are right. The council talked of a high-profile awareness campaign. Where is it? It’s just not good enough to keep saying that things have improved. Whatever the council think they’ve done to respond to this monstrous problem is clearly failing. Until they accept that what they did in the past AND what they are doing now is NOT ENOUGH, the children of Rotherham will continue to be the victims of these gangs.
All credit to Gareth Dennison’s report “Lack of Prosecutions Criticised by Select Committee” page 7 this week’s Advertiser. An accurate an unbiased account of what was said at the committee hearing.
But what a feeling of little less than revulsion I felt after turning onto page 90 to read the District News. Below the Maltby and Treeton reports, a picture of Joyce Thacker in between the head boy and head girl of Wath Comprehensive School, the Chair of Governors and Head Teacher completing the picture.
Thacker apparently was the guest speaker at the school’s Y13 annual presentation evening, held recently.
Joyce Thacker should have been sacked along with Kimber long ago, not now posing with children and school representatives whose colleagues and peers have been so appallingly let down by her and her department.
Bad show Rotherham Advertiser for having this picture in this week.
Hope Wath Comprehensive School choose their guest speakers more wisely in future.
Isn’t it strange that the culture among senior executives in the UK is to justify their huge salaries by bleating that they carry such “heavy responsibilities” and are therefore worthy of their hire – until it all goes belly-up, of course. Then, lo and behold! It’s “systemic failures” and no one is to blame and no-one is responsible. Strange that!
By the way, please pay me a paltry £25k a year and I will sort it…and I will sort the hospital while I am about it…But we couldn’t possibly have someone in post who actually cares and has a moral compass – too revolutionary! I post this because I think we should not let this thread drop. We await Mr Longley’s news with eager anticipation…