Rotherham child rape gangs: At least 1400 victims

[J Ed]

Can anyone with access to the Times behind the paywall paste the Janice Turner article?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It's not the OB I know, either. In fact I'd go as far as to say that such an idea flies in the face of the experiences not only of ethnic minorities in Britain, but of the working class as well (try living in a "white" area, and in the absence of racism as an outlet, coppers invariably use class as a determinant for whether to shit on you or not).

I don't necessarily see it as implausible in the case of community 'leaders' who are in a position to do valuable favours for the cops, in effect by acting as agents of state control over the community in question while perhaps also facilitating a nice bit of graft.

 

[Sue]

I suspect that it's a bit more than getting the vote out. I get the idea that those dodgy community leaders are the focus for wider forms of political and even social control. For example, providing intelligence on unauthorised political activity etc.

See also: http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-rotherham-abuse-scandal-pakistani-community

Oh, I'd agree. There was also other stuff going on that seemed to suggest other gangsterism/corruption related to the council. Impossible to prove alas, given people were too scared to report things and who knows if anything would've actually happened if they had anyway.

 

[Diamond]

Have you read the thread? I'm just not repeating myself, that's all.

A surfeit of other demands preying upon your time presumably.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I suspect that it's a bit more than getting the vote out. I get the idea that those dodgy community leaders are the focus for wider forms of political and even social control, particularly in the period following the 2001 Oldham, Bradford, Burnley etc riots.

For example, providing intelligence on unauthorised political activity within their 'manor', getting into all kinds of dodgy backscratching with the local cops etc.

See also: http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-rotherham-abuse-scandal-pakistani-community

I think this bit is important:

The victims weren’t only white girls, but the police and council focus on talking only to older male Muslims meant they weren’t aware of this. Women and girls living on their own were being targeted by Pakistani landlords and forced into sex with other men, afraid to report their abuse for fear of social stigma. The report found: “One of the local Pakistani women’s groups described how Pakistani-heritage girls were targeted by taxi drivers and on occasion by older men lying in wait outside school gates at dinner times and after school.”

In other words, their targets were vulnerable girls or women they thought they could control. Race wasn't the issue in choosing victims. Vulnerability was.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't necessarily see it as implausible in the case of community 'leaders' who are in a position to do valuable favours for the cops, in effect by acting as agents of state control over the community in question while perhaps also facilitating a nice bit of graft.

A small piece from something larger i wrote a few years back - this in relation to the way that labour post-97 adapted the post-scarman model of community control/co-option - last para important:

Around the same time as Scarman reported, the left-inside-the labour-party had embarked on a program of opposition to the thatcherite neo-liberal agenda of widespread cuts to a range of national and local services and so on from within local councils around the country. As part of this program they adopted a strategy of opening up the councils to what they saw as community interests - that is ethnic communities, religious communities, national communities and so on - in short, different cultures (There is significant debate over just how far this was actually a conscious pre-planned strategy, but even if it was not planned in any formal way it still spoke very clearly of how this section of the left viewed society as mix of competing cultures at that point in time). These were externally identified and authenticated by a mutually beneficial process of the ‘leaders‘ demands for recognition and the councils willing/planned recognition of them . Further ‘cultures’ were invited to constitute themselves, and then to identify their own leadership representatives from with the community. The community leaders, now fully authorised to speak for the people and culture it had been decided they represented, were placed on a range of public bodies, were given a default position as consultative for any initiative that was planned within ‘their’ communities. Race relations boards, equal opportunities units, police liaison committees and so on were set up and these community leaders played a key role in their functioning.

This centrality helped reinforce their local power base which was then further consolidated when grants were handed out on the basis of community competition for funds. What then developed at that point was a form of clientelism in which community leaders received funds for their pet projects on behalf of their communities from the councils on the basis of the councils recognition of the authenticity of their culture, and then another layer of potential leaders received their funding from the existing leaders.

A reciprocal network of responsibilities to not act in ways that would be see as challenging the ‘communities’ stability - as defined by the council and leaders - was constructed, alongside a clear pathway into political influence for those prepared to ‘follow the rules’ was slowly developed. If you broke the rules your funding was cut, if the people you were supposed to represent got out of hand, your funding was cut.

Previously, individuals from ethnic communities had been able to advance - against significant hurdles - through participation in existing institutions - the labour party and the unions for example, but they had to participate on the basis of the already existing culture and practice of those institutions - the end result was individuals moving upwards on the basis of acceptance of existing wider mainstream‘culture’ but now it appeared that there was room for upward mobility for people on the basis of their own ‘culture’, and the beneficiaries of this mobility were then able to portray their individual mobility as that of their collective ‘ethnic community’ or culture.

So there was a mutually reinforcing dynamic of community incorporation and community construction at the same time - where issues that had formerly been seen as cross community questions, as general social or political issues - class issues - slowly transformed themselves into cultural questions, as questions could only be dealt with by the officially recognised cultures, and more clearly, by their leaders. Political issues were racialised but under the guise of culture and equality. A politics developed out of common experience of school, work, leisure, family and area was derailed onto a territory of competing cultural experiences and expectations with the result that attacks that struck at the working class as whole - whether as wage-labour, as potential labour-power, as claimants etc faced a disunited opposition, and even had the door opened to them to offer enticements to one cultural community or another to participate in these attacks. The ground for class re-alignment, for actively recognising or constructing shared class interests was made that much less firm, whilst already existing cross-community networks were placed under severe pressure.

This generally remained a local level strategy but was adopted by ‘new labour’ on the national level (see the aufheben article on the construction of the Muslim community or recent work by Kenan Malik etc). Essentially a layer of mediators was constructed between the national/local state and the ‘communities’ who had the largesse to offer opportunities (or the appearance of opportunities) to members of that community. What formal politics that existed existed only through these mediators on the basis of their top-down legitimacy - rather than acting as bottom-up expressions of the local communities interests they developed as transmission belts in the opposite direction. (of course, it would be too simplistic to pretend that this is the whole picture - the state does actually have to maintain its ideological dominance through meeting genuine social needs, increasingly so as it encloses may previously collective non-state functions). Top-down official multi-culturalism according to Kenan Malik developed into a “top-down bureaucratic social management deployed in capitalist economies which import labour from abroad.”

 

[bluescreen]

Oh, I'd agree. There was also other stuff going on that seemed to suggest other gangsterism/corruption related to the council. Impossible to prove alas, given people were too scared to report things and who knows if anything would've actually happened if they had anyway.

5.8 We read cases where a child was doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, children who were threatened with guns, children who witnessed brutally violent rapes and were threatened that they would be the next victim if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators, one after the other.
“What’s the point… I might as well be dead.”
5.9 In two of the cases we read, fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from houses where they were being abused, only to be arrested themselves when police were called to the scene. In a small number of cases (which have already received media attention) the victims were arrested for offences such as breach of the peace or being drunk and disorderly, with no action taken against the perpetrators of rape and sexual assault against children.
5.10 There are numerous historic examples (up to the mid-2000s) of children being stalked by their abusers, and some extreme cases of violent threats or actual assaults on the victims and their families.
5.11 One parent, who agreed to her child being placed in a residential unit in order to protect her, wrote to children’s social care expressing her fears for her daughter’s safety. She described her despair that instead of being protected, her child was being exposed to even worse abuse than when she was at home:
“My child (age 13) may appear to be a mature child, yet some of her actions and the risks to which she constantly puts herself are those of a very immature and naïve person. She constantly stays out all night getting drunk, mixing with older mature adults, and refuses to be bound by any rules.”
5.12 One child who was being prepared to give evidence received a text saying the perpetrator had her younger sister and the choice of what happened next was up to her. She withdrew her statements. At least two other families were terrorised by groups of perpetrators, sitting in cars outside the family home, smashing windows, making abusive and threatening phone calls. On some occasions child victims went back to perpetrators in the belief that this was the only way their parents and other children in the family would be safe. In the most extreme cases, no one in the family believed that the authorities could protect them.

 

[butchersapron]

I think this bit is important:



In other words, their targets were vulnerable girls or women they thought they could control. Race wasn't the issue in choosing victims. Vulnerability was.

I think in certain circumstances the vulnerability may have been seen as function of - not necessarily their race - but of their distance from the perpetrators culture - these girls and boys were vulnerable because they (and maybe larger society) doesn't have the close knit family and male domination that we have and that others should have. They are outside the norms and so worthless.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Very interesting piece, butchers. That has clarified something for me - the exact meaning of 'multi-culturalism' as employed by New Labour. And it appears to describe the situation in Rotherham to a tee.

 

[Lurdan]

Wheel on is a bit dismissive - she was fighting against this in Keighley when many others were keeping their head/careers down.

Indeed - which she and her husband did by promoting the idea that the root cause of the abuse was "cultural practises" "imported" from Pakistan. As opposed to being in any way linked to the fact the abuse is taking place a society in which people are encouraged to regard themselves, their creative activity, everyone they know and everything they come in contact with as a commercial opportunity to be exploited. A society presided over by a Labour government who's leading clique was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" and which actively advanced the social divisions which created the available "labour pool" which the victims they are now so "shocked" about were drawn from. A Labour Party whose humbler members actively set an example by getting their snouts into the trough with as much alacrity as everyone else. (Including as it happens the Cryer dynasty - Ann Cryer and her MP son John both claimed expenses on the same flat, owned by other family members).

It would be ridiculous to suggest that these activities are in any sense equivalent. But it is just as ridiculous to look for causes in Pakistan, or in the consequences of Foreign Wars and at the same time pretend that the values these rapist pimps were expressing didn't also in some ways express the core values of the society they currently live in and aspire to get on in. Ann Cryer is very far from the worst but she was a part of the political class which set itself the task of drawing the lines not to be crossed and establishing the mechanisms for policing them. No doubt she 'meant well' but she was still part of their collective failure. Why should we be impressed that it's her getting an attendance fee for talking about this on television as opposed to someone with a less partial and frankly less reactionary viewpoint.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, what is the alternative answer, then. It cannot be just incompetence.

Maybe the answer is a bit more complex than you're assuming, and what happened isn't due to any one over-riding factor, but to a confluence of smaller, more insidious factors.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You should never underestimate the incompetence of the police.

Or their malice.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's a fucking side issue, a gift to the right wing. And some ex militants from the left wing. Why are you so focused on it?

To be fair, Bob, sometimes people actively desire a simplistic set of reasons, because it means not having to look too hard beyond the given reasons, when doing so might cause cognitive dissonance for them.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So stop trying to pin this on some people saying they were scared of being called racist! You can clearly see a litany of reasons and ways people have fucked up, but you grab the most obvious attempt to cover their collective arse and give it value, seemingly above and beyond all else. Bizarre.

ETA: Actually... Like so often happens when it comes to racism and my experience of it...it all makes sense...the double speak, the double bind...it's easier to believe 'those Black and brown people have tied this society up in knots, we give them everything and look how they repay us, we're even to scared to stop them commiting crimes'.

Bollocks! Whiteness isn't invisible, the system is corrupt and cowards will resort to anything, even racism to cover their pathetic little arses.

"Even racism"?
In my experience, racism is the default setting in many institutional environments, closely followed by buck-passing as far down the heirarchy as is possible.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But it is just as ridiculous to look for causes in Pakistan, or in the consequences of Foreign Wars and at the same time pretend that the values these rapist pimps were expressing didn't also in some ways express the core values of the society they currently live in and aspire to get on in.

There are precious few shared 'core values', aren't there? I'd make a comparison with the men who murdered Stephen Lawrence. These were racist people who existed within a culture where being racist was the norm. Their actions don't express any core value, though, either of wider society or of any putative 'white community' in Eltham. It was a racist subculture within a group within an area. Is it not best to consider these rapists as part of a rapist subculture within a group within an area?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

"Even racism"?
In my experience, racism is the default setting in many institutional environments, closely followed by buck-passing as far down the heirarchy as is possible.

And of course 'blame the victim'.

 

[Lurdan]

There are precious few shared 'core values', aren't there? I'd make a comparison with the men who murdered Stephen Lawrence. These were racist people who existed within a culture where being racist was the norm. Their actions don't express any core value, though, either of wider society or of any putative 'white community' in Eltham. It was a racist subculture within a group within an area. Is it not best to consider these rapists as part of a rapist subculture within a group within an area?

My point in part was that they weren't just rapists - this wasn't just the consequences of leisure activity outside work. I don't know the timeline but things clearly developed into a business supplying services to others in the context of other illegal and legal business activities. As a set of business practises what they did is far from different to a lot of what is done 'legally' by legitimate business. Seduction, exploitation, taking advantage of the weakness of vulnerable people, ruthlessly enforcing control over the people making money for them. More careful "due diligence", better networking into the business community and they would have got away with it for much longer and been able to go 'legitimate' like many criminals before them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

My point in part was that they weren't just rapists - this wasn't just the consequences of leisure activity outside work. I don't know the timeline but things clearly developed into a business supplying services to others in the context of other illegal and legal business activities. As a set of business practises what they did is far from different to a lot of what is done 'legally' by legitimate business. Seduction, exploitation, taking advantage of the weakness of vulnerable people, ruthlessly enforcing control over the people making money for them. More careful "due diligence", better networking into the business community and they would have got away with it for much longer and been able to go 'legitimate' like many criminals before them.

ah ok. Got you.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Both, who can say to what extent for each person? Burnout is a massive deal in SS, comminication between departments is known to be crap, lots of unsuitable people still on the job and with power...

I think you need to interrogate those claims a bit more closely - not because they're necessarily crap, but because if you do interrogate them, they give insight into the milieu within which such things can happen.

Why is burn-out such a massive deal in Social Services depts? Chronic understaffing; chronic use of agency staff, with all the effects that has on the continuity of care; ever-expanding client base; ever-changing legislative remit; stigmatisation of the profession.
Plus all the effects the above have emotionally on each individual staff member.

Why are communications between depts "known to be crap"? Because lax communications standards provide "get out of jail free" cards to the managerialist fucks at the top of the management chain; because most LA social services depts are still trapped in administrative systems that are part modern ICT, and part paper-driven, with all the opportunities for cock-up that that implies; because most SS depts don't have a unitary integrated communications system beyond the landlines in the dept headquarters, and the private phone numbers of staff members.

Why are "lots of unsuitable people" still "on the job and with power"? Because at a certain level, it's as much about who you know that keeps you in-post, as about how well you do your job; because sometimes it's seen as appropriate by senior executives to retain "useful idiots" in post; because all too often, the supply of mid-ranking and above staff experienced in the various fields of social work is so thin that you'd have to be an axe murderer not to be hired and retained.

We don't need to construct any theories beyond the sad realities listed above, IMO, except to take into account the fact that a minority of people are 9-5ers who simply can't be arsed about their clientele beyond those hours

police corruption is widespread...the list goes on...

Corruption, incompetence and malice are all signatures of police work.

 

[Casually Red]

I don't even mean anything as elaborate as that, what I mean is that without the already inflamed 'community relations' as a result of Blair's wars there would be a lot less perceived need to tread softly on issues like this.

reading some of these accounts of the victims...being threatened while literally in a police station ..parents following a taxi and phoning 999 to report an abduction of a young girl with the cops just ignoring them even when it was pointed out to them....head honcho being allowed walk after smashing up a restaurant and hospitalising its employees thanks to personal intervention of top cop ..parents being arrested and charged for attempting to rescue their kids from gang rapes and no action taken against the kidnappers..

with the perpetrators known serious and armed crims of an ethnic minority origin . The very people youd think the cops would love the opportunity to fuck about. And on such a massive scale. Personally i think a lot of this goes beyond treading softly . Thats more in the realms of protection and collusion . And thanks to Blair its against a political backdrop were such collusion would be deemed a requirement. And alongsde such colluson..a status of criminal untouchables which ultimately means localised power influence and wealth .. corruption graft and grubby political deals naturally follow in its wake.

Bottom line even if a cops a racist misogynist scumbag at the end of the day arresting criminals is good for his career . These are very serious crimes. This strikes me as a situation were someones made it plain to the cops arresting these people wont be good for their career . Theres a pattern here thats depressingly familiar to me at least.

 

[Treacle Toes]

"Even racism"?
In my experience, racism is the default setting in many institutional environments, closely followed by buck-passing as far down the heirarchy as is possible.

My point was about some of those who claim not to be and IME on the whole are not, will and do resort to it if it means saving their own skin.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I think you need to interrogate those claims a bit more closely - not because they're necessarily crap, but because if you do interrogate them, they give insight into the milieu within which such things can happen.

Why is burn-out such a massive deal in Social Services depts? Chronic understaffing; chronic use of agency staff, with all the effects that has on the continuity of care; ever-expanding client base; ever-changing legislative remit; stigmatisation of the profession.
Plus all the effects the above have emotionally on each individual staff member.

Why are communications between depts "known to be crap"? Because lax communications standards provide "get out of jail free" cards to the managerialist fucks at the top of the management chain; because most LA social services depts are still trapped in administrative systems that are part modern ICT, and part paper-driven, with all the opportunities for cock-up that that implies; because most SS depts don't have a unitary integrated communications system beyond the landlines in the dept headquarters, and the private phone numbers of staff members.

Why are "lots of unsuitable people" still "on the job and with power"? Because at a certain level, it's as much about who you know that keeps you in-post, as about how well you do your job; because sometimes it's seen as appropriate by senior executives to retain "useful idiots" in post; because all too often, the supply of mid-ranking and above staff experienced in the various fields of social work is so thin that you'd have to be an axe murderer not to be hired and retained.

We don't need to construct any theories beyond the sad realities listed above, IMO, except to take into account the fact that a minority of people are 9-5ers who simply can't be arsed about their clientele beyond those hours




Corruption, incompetence and malice are all signatures of police work.

I don't think I personally need to interrogate them, I know all of this you have posted above...I was giving a few bullet points. Thanks for taking the time to provide detail though, I dare say those who don't know these things will learn something from them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

reading some of these accounts of the victims...being threatened while literally in a police station ..parents following a taxi and phoning 999 to report an abduction of a young girl with the cops just ignoring them even when it was pointed out to them....head honcho being allowed walk after smashing up a restaurant and hospitalising its employees thanks to personal intervention of top cop ..parents being arrested and charged for attempting to rescue their kids from gang rapes and no action taken against the kidnappers..

with the perpetrators known serious and armed crims of an ethnic minority origin . The very people youd think the cops would love the opportunity to fuck about. And on such a massive scale. Personally i think a lot of this goes beyond treading softly . Thats more in the realms of protection and collusion . And thanks to Blair its against a political backdrop were such collusion would be deemed a requirement. And alongsde such colluson..a status of criminal untouchables which ultimately means localised power influence and wealth .. corruption graft and grubby political deals naturally follow in its wake.

Bottom line even if a cops a racist misogynist scumbag at the end of the day arresting criminals is good for his career . These are very serious crimes. This strikes me as a situation were someones made it plain to the cops arresting these people wont be good for their career . Theres a pattern here thats depressingly familiar to me at least.

Yes, that makes sense. Would it be fair to say, perhaps, that the systems of local ethnicity-based patronage described very well by butchersapron were already in place before the 'war on terror' kicked up into top gear, but that the intensification of the desire of the state to identify and keep an eye on extremists gave that local power base increased leverage with the state?

(Worth remembering that Blair was ratcheting up that 'war on terror' before 9-11, Afghanistan or Iraq 2, his first terrorism act curtailing civil rights dating from 2000.)

 

[bluescreen]

Yes, that makes sense. Would it be fair to say, perhaps, that the systems of local ethnicity-based patronage described very well by butchersapron were already in place before the 'war on terror' kicked up into top gear, but that the intensification of the desire of the state to identify and keep an eye on extremists gave that local power base increased leverage with the state?

(Worth remembering that Blair was ratcheting up that 'war on terror' before 9-11, Afghanistan or Iraq 2, his first terrorism act curtailing civil rights dating from 2000.)

Nah, I can't see the local fuzz doing the state's work for its own sake. Maybe some other more immediate satisfaction for a job well done?

E2A though that may have been the story they told themselves.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Somewhere on this thread (I too can't remember exactly where it came from) there was an allegation from un-named police that the reason they hadn't investigated was because un-named community leaders had said this. I'd be inclined to take it with a large pinch of salt...

That pinch of salt, yesterday.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well indeed but local politics, local business interests, the relation of both with the police, it all functions on the basis of collusion in the broadest sense. How do you distinguish 'good' collusion from 'bad' - they clearly can't.

Good collusion would effect socially-beneficial change, so if collusion doesn't effect socially-beneficial change...

 

[Lurdan]

Good collusion would effect socially-beneficial change, so if collusion doesn't effect socially-beneficial change...

Do we get a say in how socially-beneficial is defined ? hmm thought not...

 

[ViolentPanda]

....OK....I admit its quite possible its part of the picture...

...maybe they all meet at the local Masonic Lodge thats SOP in local govt isn't it...?

I have the 1970s on the phone. They want to know when you're coming back.

 

[Casually Red]

Yes, that makes sense. Would it be fair to say, perhaps, that the systems of local ethnicity-based patronage described very well by butchersapron were already in place before the 'war on terror' kicked up into top gear, but that the intensification of the desire of the state to identify and keep an eye on extremists gave that local power base increased leverage with the state?

if the state perceived a big enough potential threat from political currents within that community then my belief is anythings possible . Literally anything . if those communities began to be perceived as some sort of front line as regards Defence of the Realm then DOTR takes precedence over everything . if the state perceived a real threat of a bombing campaign aimed at central london for example coming out of Asian heritage communities then those communities through no fault of their own would become a definite front line in certain quarters.

For example the UDA and UVF were essentially networks of local criminal gangs from the outset incorporated by the state. Within their communities they already had a certain existent hierarchy...many of them were also cops and orange leaders. Essentially a pre existing ethnc hierarchy that delivered votes jobs and muscle . Then ramped up as necessity dictated .They remain heavily engaged in crime ..often identical to a lot of this..on an industrial scale. With their leaderships afforded lucrative government grants ..unelected communty leadership roles..etc. its depressingly familiar.

im trying to keep in mind here theres countless victims of some absolutely horrific stuff and dont want to be using their tragedy as a means to vent my hatred of certain agencies. But its the sheer scale of this thing alongside repeated opportunities to take action..alongside very apparent immunity from prosecution for certain people that went very high up . And parents not just ignored but some even charged with criminal offences when they ..lets face it..crossed these people. Not just interrupting their criminal abductions but putting plod in a sticy situation by reporting it..making enemies of the police by reporting crime . Parents charged with crime for reporting serious crime..victims threatened while in a police station for reporting crime..for creating a situation were the cops might have to tae action against certain people..ive definitely seen that pattern before and to me it absolutely stinks.

And then when it comes out its all immediately explained away by a mass media furore that it was all down to political correctness gone mad. Absolute bollocks. Thats deflection..cover up .

 

[ViolentPanda]

So where are we on this thread?

The Economist came up with a good phrase yesterday - "ethnic misogyny"

Thoughts?

Besides "Hmm, I see that Diamond is still reading The Economist. I wonder if he still thinks he's some sort of anarcho-capitalist?"?
I'd say that whoever coined the term "ethnic misogyny" doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Ethnic misogyny implies an ingrained social response across an ethnic culture. This would mean, in terms of Rotherham, that all British Pakistani men in Rotherham could be expected to manifest a thoroughgoing hatred of any and all women. That doesn't happen.

(and btw, this thread is of no consequence - a point that is worth underlining in light of "heated" exchanges)

Posters are well aware of the lack of consequence of such threads. Nice of you to remind us, though, even if it was only to boost your own ego by doing so.