Five women who were sexually assaulted as children by Asian gangs in the UK have accused police officers in Rotherham of also allegedly abusing them during that period.
Britain’s notorious “grooming gang” scandal has continued to fester after five victims talked to the BBC to testify about additional alleged abuse by officers who were involved in the investigation of the cases.
One victim alleged she was raped when she was 12 years old by a serving South Yorkshire Police (SYP) officer in a marked police car. He allegedly threatened to hand her back to her abusers if she did not comply.
“In a world where you were being abused so much, being raped once [by a police officer] was a lot easier than multiple rapes [by the gang] and I think he knew that,” she told the BBC on July 29.
Another victim who said she was raped by hundreds of Pakistani men over several years, testified that two police officers also allegedly participated.
She alleged one officer tracked her down and picked her up in a police car repeatedly.
“He knew where we used to hang out, he would request either oral sex or rape us in the back of the police car,” she alleged to the BBC.
He allegedly would contact the grooming gang directly to threaten her when she refused. She said she preferred the abuse by one over that by many men.
She recounted that after a grooming gang forced her into an illegal abortion, a youth worker reached out to social services and the police on her behalf. Her trust was shattered, though, when one of the officers allegedly involved in her abuse appeared to conduct her interview.
A few days later, the same officer allegedly ripped her statement up in front of her and threw it in the bin, she said, and no further action was taken.
One of the women was said to have witnessed a police officer allegedly having sex with girls in exchange for money and drugs.
Three of the women said they were also allegedly beaten up by police officers as young girls.
The witnesses, who were part of a group of more than a dozen other women, have made their allegations as part of a class action lawsuit against the SYP.
Another group of women prepared similar statements but decided not to follow through, as many said they had lost all confidence in the British judiciary.
South Yorkshire Police has said it now has a dedicated team of detectives working on the cases, who are pursuing all lines of inquiry.
At least 1,400 children were abused by men in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 – a landmark report by Professor Alexis Jay found in 2014.
Jay told the BBC on July 29 she believed the criminal investigation should be run by an independent police force or His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.
“I’m sure that the full truth in terms of the level of corruption and the extent of it in Rotherham has yet to come out,” he added.
The Rotherham grooming scandal has come under renewed scrutiny after international attention on the case, in part led by US billionaire Elon Musk.
While the UK Government initially refused to reopen investigations, Prime Minister Keir Starmer bowed to pressure and commissioned an inquiry into the alleged rape gangs.
A recent report by Baroness Louise Casey found that police and council leaders had covered up the scale of Asian grooming gangs because they feared being termed racist.
She found that asylum seekers and foreign nationals have been involved in a “significant proportion” of live police investigations.
COMMENT: There is no doubt that a man of Musk’s influence has landed a heavy blow on the British prime minister by accusing him of being a ”rape genocide apologist” who belongs in prison, writes @ConradMBlack. https://t.co/yx27JXPpwI
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 8, 2025
