Police officers ‘also abused’ Rotherham grooming gang victims

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence

Five women, who as children were exploited by grooming gangs in Rotherham, say police officers in the town also sexually abused them at the time.

One says she was raped from the age of 12 by a serving South Yorkshire Police (SYP) officer in a marked police car. He would threaten to hand her back to the gang if she did not comply, she says.

“In a world where you were being abused so much, being raped once [each time] was a lot easier than multiple rapes and I think he knew that,” she tells the BBC.

We have seen written accounts from these women, plus testimony from 25 other victims of grooming gangs, with some of them saying that corrupt police officers worked alongside the gangs or failed to act on child sexual exploitation.

At least 1,400 girls in Rotherham were abused by gangs of men, identified by victims as being of mainly Pakistani heritage, between 1997 and 2013 – the landmark Jay Report concluded in 2014.

A new criminal investigation into the involvement of police officers in the Rotherham grooming scandal is now being led by SYP’s major crime unit, under the direction of the police watchdog.

Prof Alexis Jay who led that independent inquiry into abuse in the town has told the BBC she is “shocked” that SYP is investigating its own former officers and says the criminal investigation should be handed to another force or independent body.

In response, Hayley Barnett, SYP assistant chief constable said:

“We know how hard it must be for a victim or survivor, who has been so badly let down in the past, to put their faith into the South Yorkshire Police of today.”

But she added that victims and survivors were “at the heart” of the investigation, with all actions being taken in their best interests.

The 30 witness accounts seen by the BBC detail shocking allegations:

• Years of abuse from serving police officers, from the mid-90s to early 2000s, at the same time as being exploited by Rotherham grooming gangs
• Most alleged victims were in their teens but some were as young as 11
• One woman says as a child she would hear a police officer having sex with girls in exchange for drugs and money
• Another woman says as a child she witnessed a police officer supplying illegal class A drugs to a grooming gang
• Three women describe being beaten up by officers as children – one says this happened in a police cell

The women’s accounts, seen by the BBC, are redacted to protect their identities. They were collected by a specialist child abuse legal firm, Switalskis Solicitors, as part of a bid to bring a separate civil claim against SYP and secure compensation for alleged victims.

One of the women, Willow – not her real name – says she was sexually abused by hundreds of men over five years after first being targeted, as an 11-year-old in 1997, by a grooming gang.

Two police officers also sexually abused her, she says. Over three years, one of the SYP officers would repeatedly track her down and pick her up in a police car in Rotherham town centre, she says.

“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 tells the BBC.

If she tried to refuse his requests, says Willow, he would even contact the grooming gang directly to threaten her.

“I would rather be raped once, or give one man oral sex, than to be taken somewhere where I know it’d be 15… 20 guys one after another. That was just easier,” she says.

After she was pressured into an illegal abortion by the grooming gang, she says a youth worker contacted social services and the police. But she was left “destroyed”, she says, when one of the officers who had been abusing her turned up to interview her.

A few days later, the same officer ripped her statement up in front of her and threw it in the bin, she says, and no further action was taken.

Of the 30 women who gave their accounts to Switalskis Solicitors, only 17 have agreed to their testimony being given to the police.

Some of the remaining potential witnesses have withdrawn from the SYP investigation, say the solicitors, with some saying they do not trust the force or have lost faith in the justice system.

“It’s beyond belief, the accounts we have heard,” says Amy Clowrey from Switalskis, who has been collecting testimony of alleged police abuse, corruption and misconduct in Rotherham for 10 years.

“There has been no accountability in the town – and without accountability, there will continue to be a distrust of South Yorkshire Police,” she says.

In response South Yorkshire Police told us it has a “dedicated team of detectives working on this case who have worked diligently to explore all lines of enquiry” and the investigation is being overseen by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC).

Another survivor of a grooming gang, Emma – not her real name – says the current investigation into former officers and their role in the Rotherham scandal should have happened decades ago.

“We’re forgotten children. We’re dirty little secrets. That’s how they look at us,” she says.

Emma was in care in the late 1990s and often ran away from children’s homes. When she was found, she would be raped by a police officer in a squat, she says.

He targeted children in care, she says, because he knew they were vulnerable, playing on their fear and naivety.

“He knew we wouldn’t be missed, he knew we wouldn’t be reported. He knew we wouldn’t be able to say anything. He knew that he had the upper hand,” she explains.

• A list of organisations in the UK offering support and information with some of the issues in this story is available at BBC Action Line

Prof Alexis Jay believes, because of the way some officers in the force behaved, there were “many, many legitimate causes for victims and survivors at the time to feel a total lack of trust in SYP”.

It is important that potential conflicts of interest are brought “to light before the process starts”, she says.

She wants the current criminal investigation to be run by an independent police force – or even His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of forces.

“In far too many cases, the priority for the institution, of whatever kind, is to protect their reputation rather than prioritising the welfare of children and the devastating effect that sexual abuse can have,” Prof Jay adds.

David Greenwood from Switalskis Solicitors says he doesn’t have confidence that there are not officers who are “burying evidence or just not finding evidence deliberately”, because they may know some of those involved in the allegations.

“I’m sure that the full truth in terms of the level of corruption and the extent of it in Rotherham has yet come out,” he adds.

While the police watchdog, the IOPC, is overseeing SYP’s investigation – one of its former investigators says he has no faith in it doing a good job.

Garry Harper spent two years working on the IOPC’s Operation Linden – an investigation into how SYP responded to allegations of child sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

The eight-year investigation was “an abject failure from beginning to end”, says Mr Harper, adding that SYP “managed to evade almost any accountability”.

The watchdog upheld 43 complaints against individual officers, with eight facing misconduct and six facing gross misconduct charges. But no officers lost their jobs or faced criminal charges.

“Operation Linden involved 91 investigations,” an IOPC spokesperson told the BBC. “We concluded in 2022 that SYP fundamentally failed in its duty to protect vulnerable children and young people during that time.”

With regard to the current criminal investigation, the spokesperson said they were “satisfied that there is no conflict of interest” and that the IOPC had been assured by SYP that “none of the investigating officers had either worked with any of the former officers under investigation, or were themselves investigated as part of Operation Linden”.

We cannot see the names of the former SYP officers referred to in the accounts of their alleged victims, because the women’s accounts have been redacted.

But three former officers have been arrested since December 2024 on suspicion of historic sexual offences – including attempted rape, indecent assault and misconduct in a public office. The crimes are alleged to have taken place between 1995 and 2004 while the officers were on duty as PCs. None has been charged.

But the BBC understands that one alleged victim, Willow – in a report to police – has named PC Hassan Ali as having raped her.

“The first time, he literally said: ‘You do it for the other officer. So you’re gonna do it for me,'” she tells us.

PC Ali died in January 2015, a week after he was hit by a car. On the day the collision took place, he had been put on restricted duties because of an investigation into alleged misconduct in the abuse scandal. He was never arrested.

Willow also says that both officers who abused her, including PC Ali, were also involved in supplying drugs.

A SYP spokesperson told the BBC the complaints the force had received regarding Hassan Ali had not been drug-related and concerned “allegations of persistently asking a victim on a date, sharing information and failure to safeguard victims”.

Former IOPC investigator Garry Harper says he was also aware of allegations facing PC Ali – and says the officer’s links with organised crime groups were discussed inside the IOPC during Operation Linden.

“There were several complaints that he had supplied and taken drugs, as well as sexually abused some of the survivors,” he says.

At the time, the IOPC and SYP were aware of a second officer accused of abuse against children, he adds, but SYP had allowed the officer to retire.

“At best it was a reputational covering exercise. That’s me being incredibly generous to them. At worst, it was out and out corruption to let him go.”

The IOPC told the BBC it had “no record” of such allegations against PC Ali being raised by “any of the victim-survivors involved in Operation Linden”.

It said it had investigated a report from a third party that a former officer had a sexual relationship with “two young vulnerable females”. These individuals had been spoken to as adults and had denied this took place, it added.

South Yorkshire Police told the BBC that none of the former officers forming part of the force’s current inquiries “had an allegation of rape against them at the time of their retirement”.

Do you have any information about this story? You can contact Ruth Green by email ruth.green@bbc.co.uk