Mahroof Hussain OBE | Rotherham Politics

In the week that the public of Rotherham found out just how incompetent its civic leaders were you would have thought that the Director in charge of Children Services in Rotherham Joyce Thacker would have been focused on ensuring our children remained safe and that scarce resources were being used appropriately.

Not for Joyce Thacker, the Advertiser reports that she will be asking South Yorkshire Police to start an investigation into who leaked the documents to the Times, a great pity she is not more interested in investigating the grooming gangs who abuse children.

This is the week that Rotherham parents found out that Stone, Wright, Lakin, Hoddinott and Kimber all knew that if you dropped your daughter off at Meadowhall to go shopping with her friends there were young boys who would befriend them and gradually over time groom them ready to be introduced and sexually abused by their uncle and his mates.

They also withheld vital information on what signs parents should look out for, they failed to warn parents about the dangers of Clifton Park.

The abuse in Rotherham was not a one off isolated incident, the leaked documents show that the crimes go back years, they also show that hundreds of children have been at risk and they decided to close ranks, stay silent and let children be abused, as recent as three months ago Hoddinott made the biggest mistake of her life by imposing a media blackout on the crimes.

Despite the numbers of children identified at being at risk the Police have only had one successful prosecution, you have to ask yourself why, incompetence by the police, the children are plebs?

The advice on how to spot grooming given by RMBC in the Advertiser falls well short of the information parents and communities need to combat this evil menace, RMBC will now draw up its defences, blame the Murdoch press and blame parents.

The Rotherham Taxi association and Taxi company owners have questions to answer, what are they doing to stamp out this crime?

It took a national paper to draw the crimes out into the open, for over ten years the Rotherham Advertiser remained silent, and they are as culpable just as Stone and his Council are.

The other victims in all of this are the innocent members of the Pakistani community who contribute to our town in so many positive ways.

You can hope that RMBC will change, that it will publish information for parents and it will take a more robust stance with these criminals, sadly given their track record until there is a change at the top and Stone, Kimber and Thacker goes it will be business as usual.

Cerberus

Don’t miss: