‘We’re forgotten children. We’re dirty little secrets. That’s how they look at us.’ Shockingly, the brave woman who uttered these words is not referring to the mainly Pakistani-heritage men who raped her and other young girls in Rotherham, South Yorkshire over the course of several decades. She is talking about her town’s police officers. Five women have this week gone public with their allegations that the very people who should have been protecting vulnerable girls and arresting their abusers were not only complicit in silencing victims and appeasing perpetrators – they raped, threatened and violently attacked grooming-gang victims, too.
