Police Failed To Stop 300 Children Being Abused Says New Report

A report into the failure of Police and Social Services in Oxfordshire to stop the abuse of vulnerable girls by Pakistani men has concluded there are a total of 300 victims. The children were mostly in care, and were systematically abused over 15 years despite multiple complaints about the men responsible.

In one case highlighted by the Guardian a 12-year-old girl was regularly raped and subjected to what she described “as torture sex”. In the end she fell pregnant and was forced to have a backstreet abortion in Reading. Her abuse went on for a total of six years. The report will also highlight the failure of authorities to prevent the violent abuse and enslavement of six vulnerable girls, aged 11-15, by a gang of men.

The review by Oxfordshire safeguarding children’s board is due to be published tomorrow and will highlight multiple occasions when the abuse could have been stopped. However, in each case Oxfordshire Social Services – who were ultimately responsible – failed to act.

Although seven men were convicted in at the Old Bailey in May 2013 it was revealed that nine out of ten staff at Oxfordshire Social Services had known about the abuse.

At the trail Akhtar and Anjum Dogar, Bassam and Mohammed Karrar, Kamar Jamil, Zeeshan Ahmed and Assad Hussain, who were all from Oxford, were given sentences ranging from a minimum of seven to 20 years in prison.

For years vulnerable girls would go missing, in one case 80 times, but it was only in 2011 that the police began tracking a pattern. It was this work that led to the convictions.

Despite the huge number of victims once again police are now warning that many more cases are likely to be uncovered before the scandal is over. One senior investigative source said: “If you think you haven’t got a problem in your city or town, you are just not looking for it.”

As a result of the investigation Thames Valley Police have identified 700 girls they believe could be at risk of abuse. They are now monitoring the children in the hope of offering them better protection than was provided in the past.