There is no political point. These girls were failed to an unimaginable level and in many cases have had their lives destroyed by what happened to them. The pressure on those responsible is a factor but it doesn't exonerate anybody. Don't look back in anger? Some obviously find that easier than others.
Isn’t there? I think there is a great deal of politics involved!
If we accept that the girls have been failed, then let’s analyse how. It’s simplistic just to point fingers at either the police, social workers, civil servants who determine policy, or the politicians we have elected.
It’s much more complicated than that and goes much deeper. Society has failed. We have failed. It seems many of those involved were in care at the time. Why were they in care? Because, in most cases, relationships had failed or their parents were unable to handle them, so an upbringing failure. We have learned in recent years that the care system provided had, at least on some occasions, also failed, being itself infiltrated by paedophiles.
Teenagers are often difficult to understand or manage. Every parent knows that and things happen in every generation they don’t know about then, and may never. My own children have told me things recently they haven’t admitted for the past 50 years. The girls involved in the grooming were vulnerable and exploited but the stories they are telling today are not the same as those they would have told when it was happening.
Blaming under resourced police or social services for failing to deal with a phenomenon they knew nothing about, had no training in how to handle, when the victims often didn’t regard themselves as victims, is not reasonable. When the issue was first recognised at a national level the scale seems not to have been. Deciding to handle it quietly in order to avoid alienating a whole community seems to me to be an understandable reaction, given what was known at the time.
Nobody who failed to do their duty should be exonerated. What their duty at the time must though first be specified. Imposing today’s expectations on yesterday’s public servants should never be done.
We need to learn as a society, not blame individuals as scapegoats, wash our hands free of our own failings and walk away. That would improve nothing and serve no one.
We need to look at why children are in care, and try to avoid it. We need to improve parenting skills and schools. We need to ensure thorough vetting avoids the employment of unsuitable staff in care homes. All of those things have been, and are, being addressed.
None of that excuses, in any way, the actions of the criminals involved or the need to identify and punish them. That’s a given. What I am addressing is trying to improve the environment in which they were able to operate.
I hope the enquiry does too.
England
