South Yorkshire Police should not investigate own officers over grooming, say critics
Among the witness accounts reported by the BBC, was the testimony of one woman who said she was was raped from the age of 12 by a serving South Yorkshire Police (SYP) officer in a marked police car. She claimed the officer would threaten to hand her back to the gang who had been grooming her if she did not comply.South Yorkshire Police said it had a "dedicated team" of detectives looking at the allegations, with the investigation being overseen by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC).
But in a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Philp and Kearns backed Prof Alexis Jay's view that the force should have no involvement in the investigation themselves. Prof Jay, who led the landmark inquiry which exposed the Rotherham grooming scandal in 2014, said the investigation should be taken over by another body.Philp and Kearns said: "It is incredibly concerning that the rape and abuse reportedly carried out by South Yorkshire police officers is being investigated by South Yorkshire Police themselves."Whilst we recognise the IOPC is overseeing the investigation, this simply isn't good enough."They added: "There can be no conflicts of interests which may impede the investigation or deny justice."Speaking on Women's Hour on BBC Radio 4, the former Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue said it appeared the South Yorkshire force was "marking their own homework in the most catastrophic way".The Hon Zoë Billingham CBE, who spent 12 years inspecting police forces, said: "Trust and confidence are at the heart of this and victims are not trusting this will be done well, and we have to listen to the victim's voices in this. "It would be perfectly reasonable for another police to be asked to come in and investigate independently under the auspices of the IOPC and I think that should happen immediately."Responding to the BBC's initial report, South Yorkshire Police assistant chief constable Hayley Barnett 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.
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The Independent
6 minutes ago
- The Independent
Inside the depraved world of migrant hunters using disturbing tactics to track down asylum hotels
'You're a traitor.' Those were the words heckled last week to a driver pulling into RAF Wethersfield, a former Ministry of Defence airbase in Essex currently being used to house asylum seekers. Livestreamed from an iPhone to tens of thousands of people online, the clip shows a group of so-called migrant hunters hurling abuse at the driver, presumed to be a worker at the airbase, and threatening to publish his car's number plate. This – verbally abusing staff and police officers on camera, before sharing the incident with fellow 'patriots' – appears to be the modus operandi of the self–proclaimed migrant hunters, who are on the rise amid growing unrest over the government's handling of the migration crisis. Often posing as journalists, these far-right activists will turn up at accommodation centres and hotels with the intention of harassing those who work and live there. They then post the footage online with the aim of – according to experts – laying the groundwork for anti-migrant protests, which often descend into violence. They also use Facebook and X to spread information about the locations of hotels which have been earmarked by the government to house asylum seekers. A post shared time after time in this corner of the internet is an interactive map, purporting to show the location of more than 200 hotels across the UK where migrants live. Their methods for identifying accommodation for asylum seekers appear to be a myriad of tip-offs from disgruntled employees at the hotels in question, information from locals, as well as meticulous monitoring of to check which 3* hotels have been blocked out for mass bookings. Some of the most prominent migrant hunters have nearly 200,000 followers on X and tweet around 20 times a day, often peddling false and dangerous rumours about those inside the hotels. Among the more disturbing posts are unfounded claims of an upcoming terror attack, littered among AI generated images of far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Recent research from the anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate found the number of migrant hunters had doubled since 2021 and that they had visited hotels housing asylum seekers on more than 250 occasions. But activity on social media accounts connected to the movement has ramped up particularly in recent weeks, following anti-migrant protests in Epping, Essex which triggered similar demonstrations across the country. The unrest began in July after an asylum seeker from Ethiopia, believed to be staying at The Bell Hotel, was charged with sexual assault, including that of a 14-year-old girl. 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They were the content creating machine that was sitting under the far-right.' he said. 'They would release daily vlogs and livestreams which would percolate through the far-right system and get picked up by people like Tommy Robinson. They have been quite important in pushing cross-Channel migration up the agenda of the far-right.' Having analysed the locations of protests, the anti-racism charity spotted a pattern – hotels targeted during the summer of violence in 2024 had often been visited multiple times by migrant hunters. Riots were sparked across the UK last July after three girls were killed in a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, with a wave of misinformation on social media falsely claiming the killer was a Muslim asylum seeker. Mr Mullhall added: 'Where we saw those atrocious scenes and arson outside the Holiday Inn in Rotherham, migrant hunters had visited that hotel 12 times between 2021 and 2024. 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Reuters
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- Reuters
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The Independent
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- The Independent
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