Jayne Senior has called for a national inquiry into the scandal (Image: Getty)
The youth worker who blew the whistle on Britain’s says a National Inquiry is needed – but only if it results in action being taken against people in position of power who turned a blind eye to the mass rape of children.
Jayne Senior MBE, who first exposed the “industrial-scale abuse” taking place in also branded it “sickening” that gangs of abusers are back walking the streets whilst previous recommendations to ensure their ordeals can never happen again have failed to be implemented.
Jayne said: “It’s a total nightmare for these victims. Rotherham is a small town and it is inevitable that they are going to come face to face with their abusers who have come out of prison whilst they are still waiting for answers as to why it was allowed to happen. It’s sickening!”
The campaigner spoke out as it emerged that three members of one of Britain’s most depraved child grooming gangs are already back on the streets with another two due to have a parole hearing in the coming weeks.
Just seven years after the six-strong gang was put behind bars for a total of 81-and-a-half years for sexually abusing two girls aged just 12 and 13 in Rotherham most of the paedophiles are either free or on the brink of being released.
The South Yorkshire town was plunged to the heart of the child sexual exploitation (CSE) scandal that resulted in a number of vile gangs being snared as part of a £100m National Crime Agency investigating the abuse and trafficking of up to 1,400 girls.
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Rotherham Child Abuse Scandal (Image: Getty)
That was launched following the 2014 publication of the independent report by Professor Alexis Jay into abuse into the town which revealed how council chiefs, social workers and police failed to investigate the gangs – who were predominantly of Pakistani descent – for fear of being seen as “racist” and instead branded the vulnerable victims as “slags”.
Yesterday Professor Jay said a new national probe was not needed because recommendations she made had not been implemented.
But Jayne, who exposed the scandal whilst heading the council’s Risky Business youth project working with vulnerable females in the town, believes an enquiry might finally bring those complicit in covering up the scandal to be brought to book.
She said: “I do think there needs to be a national enquiry, however just doing an enquiry into child sexual exploitation across the UK – what is that going to actually do and achieve?
“We need to garner all the information and then expand on previous recommendations which really only touched on CSE.
“But it needs to go much further than that. We need to now stop talking and look at the professionals who were complicit or who completely ignored what was going on. We have never seen anybody professional or in a position of power lose their job or get sacked over this. Instead what we do see is these people moving onwards and upwards into better paid jobs and better careers.”
As many as 1,400 girls were found to have been abused in the town (Image: Stock)
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The whistleblower was also sceptical about Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s announcement of mandatory reporting regulation making it a criminal offence for an adult not to report child abuse if informed.
She claimed that the Labour administration was “panicking” over what to do and said following her own experiences cannot believe the plan will work.
She added: “Over the period that this was happening in Rotherham I reported what was going on to five different chief executive officers at the council, the magistrates, the elected members, the leader of the council, all the South Yorkshire chief constables over that period and all their assistants, police inspectors, the Home Office and Ofsted. I followed all the mandatory reporting guidelines yet nothing happened and I have no confidence it would be any different today. They are clearly panicking over what to do.”
However Jayne is critical of those now trying to gain party political capital and revealed how she warned the then Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman that grooming was still going on in Rotherham.
She added: “She was told in graphic detail by those working with the children that it is still going on and I also handed her an important document. Nothing happened.”
Rotherham in South Yorkshire (Image: Stock)
As pressure for the government to implement an enquiry intensified yesterday it emerged that some of the worst perpetrators in Rotherham have already been released on license.
Tayab Dad, Amjad Ali, and Matloob Hussain were handed jail sentences of between 10 and 13 years for rape and sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 between 1999 and 2001.
Accomplices Nasar Dad and Mohammed Sadiq have been referred to the Parole Board and will be listed within the next few weeks.
If freed it would mean Basharat Dad, the ringleader caged for 20-years, would be the only member left in prison following their convictions at Sheffield Crown Court in February 2017 for sexually exploiting the girls, who were plied with drugs and alcohol before being abused.
Brothers Basharat Dad, then 32, Nasar Dad, 36, and Tayab Dad, 34, were convicted of 16 offences between them with Basharat convicted of six counts of rape, five of indecent assault and one of false imprisonment.
Nasar was jailed for 14-and-a-half years for one count of rape, inciting indecency with a child and false imprisonment and Tayab was given 10 years behind bars for rape.
Matloob, 42, and Mohammed Sadiq, 40, were both found guilty of sexual intercourse with a girl under 13. Hussain and Sadiq were both jailed for 13 years.
The sixth gang member Amjad Ali, 38, admitted having sex with a girl aged under 13 and was jailed for 11 years.