Rotherham: Ex-policeman describes the political and religious edifice that undermined grooming gang investigations

By Robert Harris

From a GB News report today (‘Ex-policeman blows whistle on politicians and mosques who influenced grooming gangs investigation – Rotherham police scared to act over fears of Asian councillors’) by Adam Chapman, a retired police officer describes the intensity of the involvement of councils and mosques (indirectly) in the suppression of investigations in Rotherham into regional grooming/rape gangs, largely of an Muslim-Asian ethnicity that principally targeted socially disadvantaged white non-Muslim underage girls, where local Labour councillors, many of whom were identified as being of an ethnicity somewhat vaguely described as ‘Asian’, that were very closely involved with the affairs of local mosques, would, in turn, pressure the police force in such matters, where closer structural ties were introduced under Labour with local council management during the 2000s.

This witness (identified here with the fictional name ‘Darren Jones’) echoes the worries of others that operated during this era, citing accusations of racism as a chief concern for the police. He acknowledges that greater assistance was provided by the police to the local Muslim community over that of other groupings, such as the Catholic community. The report leads to serious questions about the extent to which the religious leadership (and the broader community) was involved in the suppression of such concerns, and the extent to which this conduct was deemed to be acceptable within said community since sustained public outcry by the British public has largely been the means that rightly pushed this deeply concerning matter to the forefront of social concern in Britain today. It has, for example, been noted by Mr. Aman Bhogal, a Sikh former MP, that there is ” a situation where in Rotherham, one in every 57 Pakistani men were prosecuted for child sexual offences.”and such a worrying statistic would not include the many that have not been convicted.

“At the time of the abuses, “because of the Asian influence in Rotherham, there were a lot of people not touched because they were just absolutely sh**t scared, for want of a better word, of daring to question any sort of Asian activity, because at that time Rotherham council was heavily populated by people of the Asian community”, he claims.

Jones does not suggest that anybody covered up a “particular name or any information” but claims local Labour councillors, who were heavily involved with the mosques, would lean on police officers to look the other way.

“The Labour councillors would go into the mosques and be on the board of mosques. They would talk to the elders to ensure the message was passed down to all the family units that they should vote for them. It was a way of controlling what’s happening,” he alleged.

Jones explains how this impacted police conduct, outlining how Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) were introduced around 2004 under the Labour government as part of a wider effort to improve community policing.

Key objectives would include strengthening local engagement between the police and communities, and local politicians would help facilitate this.

“We were co-located in council buildings and working in partnership with the council’s management structure, if you like,” he said.

On the one hand, this integration “was a brilliant system. It worked very well”, he says, adding: “If you needed someone to get you into organisations, it just opened a few back doors.”

But there was a dark side to this relationship, Jones says.

“”The mayors and other elected people at that time were very influential over what was happening in the police. They would put a lot of pressure on the commanders and the chiefs, and certainly, the Muslim ear would get a greater listen to. If they ever want anything, it would be immediate. They [the police] didn’t want any flack from councillors.”

The retired officer added: “We always say the police are independent of political intrusion, but they’re not.”

He cites concrete examples of how this would play out on duty.

If something happened at the mosque or within the Asian community, it would provoke a “knee-jerk” response from the police, Jones claims.

He understood this to a point as “there’s a lot of racially motivated sort of activity in crime”, but claims “it would take precedence over a lot more important things”, noting that other communities, such as the local Catholic church, did not receive the same level of treatment.

“They’d [the Mosques] would have these minority group boards where they’d come forward, and there would be some key people on there that would direct things.

“They had a louder voice than white British people. That’s the long and short of it.”

While acknowledging the force’s historic failures, lessons have been learned since then, Jones is keen to stress. […]”