From Chris Longley MBE
Here is what I understand to be the latest information about the Home Affairs Select Committee investigation into systemic child sexual abuse, rape and trafficking.
The website of the Home Affairs Committee says that their Report into these dreadful matters is in preparation but gives no date for publication. The events in Rotherham are a part of their investigations. No doubt the Rotherham events will figure in the Report when it is published.
The following link will take readers of this blog to the written evidence pages of the Home Affairs Committee.
Readers will see that items 23 and 24/24a are submitted by Shaun Wright Police and Crime Commissioner of South Yorkshire and by Martin Kimber the Chief Executive of Rotherham MBC. I believe these to be recent additions.
Readers who are aware of the crimes committed against young children in Rotherham over an extended period will form their own views of the content of these submissions when they have read them.
What is however very clear is that the Home Affairs Committee have not listed as evidence any of the minutes, agendas or reports submitted to the Rotherham Children’s Safeguarding Board during 2005/6 to 2009/2010. I presume this means that the Committee did not receive them, despite a direct instruction in public from the Chair of the Committee – the Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP – to Martin Kimber and Ms Joyce Thacker of RMBC at their oral evidence session to provide them.
I await with interest what the Committee decides to do in the light of their Chair’s instruction being ignored.
There presumably is therefore no timeline available to the Committee that can show what Councillor Wright knew, when he knew it, what advice he received or what decisions he took during that period when he was in the Safeguarding Board.
As a matter of interest I remain unaware of any occasion on which ex-Councillor Wright has told anyone in public the answers to these questions I list above. If anyone is aware, and has a credible record of what he said, I would be grateful if that record could be shared in the public domain. You will gather I am none the wiser as a result of reading either ex-Councillor Wrights letter or those from Martin KImber in his role as CExec of RMBC.
I have therefore applied to Rotherham MBC for these Rotherham Safeguarding Board documents to be made available to me as any member of the public may do. RMBC have twenty days to reply to me. I am told my request has been referred to the wonderfully named “Information Governance Team”.
I await their reply with great interest and I will inform this blog of the outcome.
Kind regards
Chris Longley MBE
PS I have written also in the stongest terms to the Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP pointing out that his Committee has not recorded that it has received information it instructed should be provided by witnesses. I again ask myself at what point does non co-operation become contempt.
Full story: Exposing the truth on child exploitation in Rotherham
Rotherham Politics 
Chris – we really appreciate your efforts to shed light on these events and how they were “addressed” or not – thanks. One of the victims of the Oxford abuse was on five-live today and it made harrowing listening. What is also disturbing is that she mentioned London, Coventry and Manchester in addition to what we already know about Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford and Shropshire and other places…There is a clear, endemic and systematic pattern of both abuse and failure to protect emerging across the country. Serious questions need to be asked. Please keep asking them.
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Absolutely Simon, and well done Chris for sticking with it. Light needs to be shone on this shocking and disgraceful issue, here in Rotherham and elsewhere, so we can prevent it ever happening again. As a community, we need to be confident that all the guilty parties have been brought to justice, and that no cover-up ever happened. While doubt lingers, whispers in the shadows will nourish those groups who would seek to politically prosper from the horrors inflicted on our children.
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If you have nothing to hide why not publish the minutes, correspondence etc involving Shaun Wright?
It looks as if this is a further move in the attempt to cover up the scandal of child abuse in Rotherham.
Empty words from the Chief Executive and the very lazy PCC.
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As I have posted before I made a complaint to the Chief Exec of Rotherham Young People’s Services about practice in this department. Basically manipulation of figures, young people at risk being ignored deliberately and the roles of our beloved Mrs T (Not Thatcher – I hated her).
Regarding complaints ( even with evidence) don’t expect RMBC Chief Execs to investigate openly: they are up to their neck in it.
.I will reveal more when it goes to the Ombudsman. (Or further)> I will write to Mr. Vaz too now.
I will publish when I can – bear with me. But I will [publish – just in the process of taking it further.
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Thanks Sally, for standing up and being counted!
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PS: The Chief Exec is amazing at avoidance, semantics and just ignoring matters. At least he’s good at something.
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From Chris Longley MBE
Thank you to everybody who has spoken today for your support. I am very grateful and heartened.
I am also very grateful to Rothpol for continuing to give publicity to these grave matters when other local media outlets do not.
The dreadful events in Oxford remind us that all those children in Rotherham who suffered in similarly awful ways deserve to know what those in power did to prevent their suffering. Stopping that search for what happened in those years is not an option.
Kind regards
Chris Longley
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Chris, we are grateful to you for your continued interest!
Rothpol and it’s readers and contributors are quite determined that this issue will not be dropped, until everyone is doing their jobs properly in South Yorkshire!
How will we know when this has happened? Prosecutions would provide concrete evidence and reassure us that lessons have been learned!
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Having read our dear PCC’s evasive letter, I must take issue with his comment, “Whilst prosecution is important, it is not the only successful outcome for the victim.” This appears to be the cop-out clause. I believe prosecution is ultra-important to the outcome. It is the only way to stop these disgusting people carrying on their evil practices. It is Wright and others evasiveness which has caused this situation. Talk about burying your head in the sand!
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What is most telling is the protection offered by the PCC to the chief constable. The law is not principally about the ‘most successful outcome for the victim’. The purpose of the law is the maintenance of the Queens peace, the protection of life and liberty. The position of PCC should give Mr wright the power and independence to force the police to consider those obligations or be removed.
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From Chris Longley MBE
I am very grateful for the support the Rothpol blog and its readers offer. If I may, I will make a comment on one of the recent entries.
My comment concerns the new Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, David Crompton QPM. He cannot be held responsible for actions (or inactions) which predated his appointment. He may have to describe and account for them, but that is very very different.
I have read carefully all that the new Chief Constable has written on the matters of child abuse in Rotherham, and all of it is good. His written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee is at the same llnk I gave yesterday:
Click to access 121016%20LCG%20written%20evidence.pdf
and it makes good reading for those of us who wish children to be protected from systemic abuse. Time will be a judge on the outcomes of his actions,
But I have no doubt whatsoever that the Chief Constable is driving into place a system of child protection across South Yortkshire that is a paradigm shift upwards from anything that was in place before he was appointed. His insistence on a far more active role for the Crown Prosecution Service does him great credit, and the creation of District teams in each of the four districts is a similar advance. It is an open invitation to the Social Services Departments of the four South Yorkshire Councils to “up their game” that I and many others will hope they accept. Prevention has moved to the centre spotlight, and about time.
As an aside, I also have no doubt that previous Chief Constables should have much to answer for in these dreadful matters, but I would ask people to be careful they do not damage the interests or the authority of the current Chief Constable in his efforts at reform.
I was appalled that the Home Affairs Committee made a mistake along those lines when they heard oral evidence from the Chief Constable and one of his colleagues late in 2012. Their criticisms were shallow and unjustified; their anger was directed at the wrong person. We should be careful we do not make the same mistake and shoot the good guys.
I realise that what I am saying here is not fashionable, but the facts deserve at least an airing before any rush to judgement begins. This is the same principle that is behind my seeking the truth of “what ex-Councillor Wright knew, when he knew it and what did he do?” in these dreadul matters. Only then can a view be taken of his actions. If this sounds cautious, so be it.
But the new Chief Constable does deserve a decent chance to get things in order because the children of South Yorkshire deserve that too. He’s making a good start from what I have read and seen.
Kind regards, and many thanks for your support
Chris
Chris Longley MBE
Kind regards
Chris Longley MBE
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The Yorkshire Post is guilty of the most blatant act of political censorship.
Please note the comments section of this article as of last night.
Now look at the comments from yesterday.
The comments of Chris Longley and myself have been deleted !
Oh dear, Is Johnston Press in the local Politician’s Pocket ?
Good job that web site captures are taken in a timely fashion !
= = =
Chris Longley says:
October 26, 2013 at 8:49 pm
From Chris Longley MBE
People in glass houses should never throw stones.
This is a note about the current position on the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
I now have all the Rotherham Child Safeguarding Board Agendas, Minutes and Reports about Child abuse, trafficking and rape that cover the period 2005/6 to 2009/2010.
I now have the current circulation listing for these papers, and it includes the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People.
I now have all the papers submitted to the Rotherham Cabinet Member for Children and Young People (the title varies) over the same period of time, 2005/6 to 2009/2010.
I also have – as I have reported previously – the details of the special responsibility payments made to the then Rotherham MDC Councillor Shaun Wright who held the post of Cabinet Member for Children and Young People between 2005/6 and 2009/2010.
I am examining these papers in detail and I am preparing the timeline of what was known, when it was known and by whom it was known.
I am sure this will strengthen the case – overwhelming as it already is – for a fully independent Judicial Inquiry into the systemic abuse, trafficking and rape of children that went virtually unchallenged in Rotherham between 2005/6 and 2009/2010.
Kind regards to all
Chris
Chris Longley MBE
Reply
Warren Vale says:
October 26, 2013 at 10:06 pm
Keep up the good work Chris and God bless you for doing it.
patrizia says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 27, 2013 at 1:19 am
Dear Chris,
Could you arrange for all those documents to be made available online ?
Have you been on the internet and seen the stuff on sonia sharp ?
Have you identified all those who are associated with Common Purpose ?
Why can’t sheffred give his real name – what does he have to hide ?
Another prediction : – the PCC will be a political gatekeeper to ensure that all blame will never fall upon his political party, and its no use scapegoating the current Chief Constable, the blame lies with his two predecessors..
I look forward to reading your report.
patrizia
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So there we have it – yet again, the local politicians are controlling the press
– oh, and guess what, Hacked Off and their Common Purpose cronies are calling for their own version of press control !
Now we can a perfect example of what will happen if Common Purpose gets its way !
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