News / Society

Report slams UK police on failure to halt youth abuse

Monday, 02 March 2015 12:28 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 02 March 2015 12:28 PM ]

This file photo shows police in Oxford, northwest of London. © AFP

Another damning report into failures of British police at halting sexual abuse and trafficking will reveal that hundreds of youths have been sexually exploited by gangs of men in Oxfordshire in the past 15 years.

According to a Monday report by the UK-based daily Guardian, the more than 300 victims, mostly females, come predominantly from the city of Oxford, raising concerns that the grooming and abuse of vulnerable young people by gangs of adult men is not merely limited to inner cities.

The report, due to be published Tuesday by Oxfordshire safeguarding children’s board, will harshly criticize Oxfordshire’s police and social services “for not doing enough to stop years of violent abuse and enslavement of six young girls, aged 11-15, by a gang of men,” added the Guardian article.

“Such was the nature of the abuse, suffered for more than eight years by the girls, it was likened to torture. All of the victims had a background in care,” it said.

According to the daily, the report will censure Thames Valley police for not believing the young girls, for treating youth as if they had chosen to adopt the lifestyle, and for failing to act on repeated pleas for help.

Additionally, the Oxfordshire social services, which had the responsibility for the safety of the girls, will be equally condemned for knowing they were being groomed but failing to protect them despite convincing evidence that they were at risk.

The report cites one social worker testifying at a trial as saying that nine out of 10 of those responsible for the female victims were aware of what was happening to them.

The report will further point out that more than 300 young people have been subjected to grooming and abuse between 1999 and 2014 in Oxfordshire alone.

Meanwhile, efforts to quantify the scale of abuse is identical to the work of the Jay report into child sexual abuse in Rotherham, which found that 1,400 young people had been subjected to grooming and abuse between 1999 and 2013.

MFB/HSN

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