An open letter to the people of Rotherham

My fellow Rotherhamsters!I know that isn’t the correct term for the citizens of Rotherham, and I don’t want to be like Sheldon in “The Big Bang Theory” who moved to a new town intending to persuade residents to change the term they used to refer to themselves. Still, I hope you won’t mind me using it, as I have often been told I look like a hamster and it amuses me. I must ask your forgiveness also for classing myself amongst your number despite having only just moved here. I shall not conceal the fact that ,until last month, I had never set foot in Rotherham, though you have been in my thoughts and prayers every day since I read the Jay report.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Giles Humphry. You won’t have heard it, unless you take an unusually keen interest in the politics of Kenya, where I have a minor reputation as the journalist who exposed a scandal that the local journalists didn’t want to touch. On Monday (2nd March) I moved to Rotherham with the intention of helping those fighting against the rape gangs.

Quite a few people have asked me why I would take the drastic step of moving to a town with which I formerly had no ties, so I shall take this opportunity to explain. The short answer is that I read the Jay report. I was brought up to believe that men don’t cry and I don’t remember shedding a tear from the age of 11 until the day my father died fourteen years later. Nonetheless, it is without the slightest shame that I record that after reading Jay I wept for three days and nights without eating or sleeping. It wasn’t only the scale of the atrocities that shook me, that 1,400 victim total that we now know to be a considerable under estimate. Nor yet was in the depth of the depravity, the girls gang raped every day for years from as young as eleven, or even younger according to some reports. Rather it was the scale of the official complicity, the social workers, police officers and councillors who not only knew but actively aided and abetted. Of all the revelations that tumbled out in the wake of Jay perhaps the most horrifying was that senior social workers had been paying council tax payers money to men whom they knew were raping those charges to transport their victims to and from gang rape assignations.

Since Jay was published I have discovered that what has been revealed about the official complicity is just the tip of the iceberg. In the aftermath of the report I made strenuous efforts to reach out to those in Rotherham who had been working to expose this scandal. As a result I made contact with a man whose name will be held in honour when our councillors are buried in unmarked graves but who for the moment I shall call citizen Winston Smith. This man has gathered together a small group, let us call them the Citizen’s Accountability Project, who over the course of many years, have been collecting information on the rape gangs. They know how the rape industry is organised, who controls the rape gangs, and how they have controlled the powers that be. They have been the source of some of the media reports on this subject, but they have much more which they have yet to publish.

Why don’t they just tell all? Even if they did you would not read a word about it. This scandal has been covered up for more than two decades due to the fact that, contrary to received opinion, we do not have free speech in this country. Laws covering official secrets, data protection hate speech and libel have all been used to cover up for the rape gangs and the paedophile rings. The libel laws are particularly useful to those who, like the Rotherham rape barons, have a well oiled machinery of witness intimidation and would be able to prevent anyone that they chose to sue for naming them from producing their witnesses in court. Nevertheless, the Citizens Accountabilty Project has accumulated a vast quantity of evidence and is currently considering the way forward, for example whether to go to the National Crime Agency.

Meanwhile, I have been in touch with others about the possibility of forming a militant wing of the project that would organise legal and non violent direct action against the rapists and their enablers and protectors. A range of options are under consideration. These include such measures as helping to bring private prosecutions against rapists and enablers, bringing civil suits against them and their front companies, naming and shaming the rapists who have fled to Pakistan (a country with which we have no extradition treaty), publishing the testimony of their victims and exposing the fugitives to their families and new neighbours. We are also looking at other ideas such as trying to organise a pool of women drivers willing to provide lifts to at risk girls so they do not have to use taxis. And, of course, we shall agitate against the routine bailing of rape suspects to flee or intimidate witnesses and the persistent flagrant leniency in the sentencing of sex offenders. However, my new friends do not have the slightest hope of implementing such an agenda unless others are willing to help. It is to that end that I have have moved to Rotherham.

On a lighter note I am loving my new home already. I have rented a nice little house with a garden in a quiet neighbourhood, for a price that wouldn’t get you a garage in London. The friendliness of the people is also a refreshing contrast to the capital where, if you are caught smiling on the tube, people start moving away from you in case you are a dangerous madman. At present I know few people, though I am hoping that the rest of you will clutch me to your bosoms like a natural born Rotherhamster. But if anyone does not like it they can lump it, because I am staying. I will be buried in Rotherham. This is my town now.

For those who like to probe motive, I have never been a member of any political party or movement. I have always been too lazy to be an activist. That being so and as one who was, until now, a stranger to this town, I have no axe to grind with respect to the affairs of Rotherham other than this. My conscience will not let me rest until the rape industry has been shut down and those who have survived its horrors have justice. And that axe, I can assure you all, I will continue to grind until it is sharp. Please send all enquiries and death threats to gileshumphry@yahoo.co.uk.

Sincerely yours,

A new Rotherhamster

http://www.gileshumphry.com