How the scale of the abuse shocked even the man who exposed it

The journalist who exposed the Rotherham grooming gang scandal said even he had grossly underestimated the scale of the abuse.

Andrew Norfolk told the BBC on the 10th anniversary of the Jay Report that he had “absolutely no idea” that 1,400 girls would be named as victims before the figure was announced at a shock press conference.

Mr Norfolk had been pressing Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police to answer questions about child sexual exploitation by mainly Asian men since 2011, when he received tips.

His subsequent investigation for The Times had ‘seismic’ consequences and led to a major investigation.

Reflecting on the impact of Professor Alexis Jay’s findings in 2014, Mr Norfolk said the outcome of his research work demonstrated the value of the ‘mainstream media’ in exposing criminality and the failures of authorities.

He admitted he had to balance his instincts to expose the abuse against his concerns that publishing the story would provoke both a backlash from the far right and accusations of racism.

“If you had asked me the day before that press conference how many young teenage girls in Rotherham had been manipulated and exploited in the period covered by the report, I would have guessed 150,” he said.

He was “stunned” when he heard Prof. Jay describe how 1,400 girls had been abused, smuggled to other cities or doused with petrol.

“They were treated like subhuman species for the pleasure of these men,” he added.

Mr Norfolk first identified a ‘pattern’ of white girl gangs of Pakistani origin exploiting white girls in the north of England and the Midlands in 2010. However, when he tried to elicit responses from police and local authorities, he was met with a ‘conspiracy of silence’.

He called it an “extraordinary” moment when Professor Jay explicitly referred to the ethnic background of the perpetrators.

“It was so hard, she didn’t mince her words. The reaction was huge worldwide.”

He added: “When the leader of Rotherham Council was asked by the Home Affairs Select Committee why they had ordered that investigation, he said: ‘Because The Times wouldn’t leave us alone’. That in itself, in 35 years of journalism, is a justification for being a journalist.”

The Times newspaper was called racist and Islamophobic over the research.

“It was a very difficult story to cover because it involved white British girls, typically aged between 12 and 15, being manipulated and abused by men who, as was becoming increasingly clear, were predominantly of Pakistani and Muslim descent,” he said.

“It’s not fun being seen as someone with horrible views when deep down you know the opposite is true.”

There were also fears about the reaction of far-right groups to the story, which eventually led to protests and marches in Rotherham.

“It was a dream story for the far right,” he said.

“They weren’t interested in solutions, they were interested in exploiting the situation.”

Ten years on, tensions remain in the city, most recently highlighted at the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, near Rotherham, when a riot broke out outside the hotel, which was housing asylum seekers, following the knife attack in Southport.

“There is a great danger in allowing people to blame ‘the other,’ especially when your own life is not great,” he said.

Mr Norfolk first became aware of cases in West Yorkshire when Ann Cryer, then MP for Keighley, publicly raised concerns about the abuse of two girls in her constituency.

“I had noticed a handful of cases through local newspaper reports. At first I wanted to look away, which I think is a shame, but then one specific incident happened.”

Mr Norfolk heard a BBC radio report from Manchester Crown Court about nine men convicted of crimes against a 14-year-old girl living in a care home. He discovered that the men were Asian.

His editor gave him five months to investigate the affairs in the north. In January 2011, The Times published his first story.

Days later, a concerned grandfather from Rotherham contacted him to say that his 12-year-old granddaughter had been found drunk and half-naked with a group of Asian men. When police arrived at the house, the schoolgirl was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.

This was an ‘important introduction’ to how much girls and their parents had been abandoned in the city.

“It became my full-time job until we felt like everyone knew what was happening, the system had changed and the perpetrators were held accountable,” he added.

In 2012, the story of grooming victim “Amy” was the first of several Rotherham case studies to be published in the newspaper. Her confidential files, given to Mr Norfolk, detailed how authorities failed to act after she reported being abused by 10 men, eventually being jailed in 2018.

“We thought when that story was published that Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police would respond and say, ‘this is appalling, we are going to take action’,” he said.

“Instead, they asked South Yorkshire Police to launch a criminal investigation into who had leaked the material to me. They remained in total denial and told us they were a model example of how to deal with child sexual exploitation – so we just carried on.

“A year later, another very brave young woman contacted me. She had been serially abused by a man who is now serving a 35-year prison sentence.”

Mr Norfolk said he was proud of the findings of his investigation, which has led to child sexual exploitation becoming a national priority for policing.

He believes that authorities will no longer “shrink” from tackling the problem, even though it has not yet been eradicated.

“It’s because of journalism. Sometimes the hardest stories are the ones that only journalists can tell. People turn to the “mainstream media” when they’ve tried everywhere else and the people who should have helped didn’t.”

The government said lessons had been learned from “past mistakes” in tackling abuse.

Jess Phillips MP, the new Minister for Safeguarding and Combating Violence Against Women and Girls, said: “My heart goes out to the brave survivors of Rotherham and other communities. I have met and worked with many of these victims in the years I have been involved in the issue of grooming and sexual exploitation. They are not only left to live with the unimaginable horrors of what happened to them as children, but also with the abject failures and indifference of the adults who should have protected them.

“In the decade since Prof Jay’s report was published, we have seen some positive steps forward in addressing its recommendations. For example, the work of the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce has led to hundreds of arrests and helped identify and protect thousands of victims. But much remains to be done.

“Anyone with responsibility for children must learn from past mistakes. I am determined to work with the police and other partners to identify more perpetrators of these horrific crimes and bring them to justice. I want to ensure that child and adult survivors are treated with compassion, so they feel safe and secure; that authorities take these reports seriously; and that victims and their families have access to the support they need.”