Child sexual abuse: Extensive failures in tackling grooming, says report
Police and councils are still failing to properly identify and investigate child grooming gangs, a report warns.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said officials often denied the scale of the issue, thinking incorrectly that it was “on the wane”.
Data such as the ethnicity of abusers and victims was not collected and could have helped identify offenders.
… The report said that in some cases authorities might be potentially downplaying the scale of abuse over concerns about the negative publicity.
It said local authorities “don’t want to be labelled another Rochdale or Rotherham” – referring to high-profile grooming gangs.
