part 2
euronews.com
Among the worst cases were gangs operating in the northern towns of Rotherham and Rochdale, but a number of others have been exposed around the country over the last decade-and-a-half in numerous towns and cities: Oldham, Oxford, Telford, Peterborough, and several others. Ministers and members of the opposition have acknowledged that similar gangs may still be operating.
The Rotherham case has lodged particularly deeply in national memory, thanks both to its sheer scale and to a public investigation conducted by Alexis Jay, a professor of social work.
Her searing government-ordered report, published in 2014, detailed how an organised gang active in the town abused girls as young as 11, trafficking them across numerous towns and sometimes picking them up from children's care homes in taxis without any effort to hide what they were doing.
The total number of minors abused across the various places gangs have been exposed is estimated by authorities to have run into the thousands, and some of the groups are known to have operated for decades.
Worse still, while Jay and others who have investigated found that many people working with the children exploited identified and raised concerns, there seems to have been a pattern of police and senior management staff disbelieving their warnings or simply disregarding them.