The scale of this report is simply staggering and some of the detail extremely hard to read.
It lays out how Rotherham Council and the police knew about the level of child sexual exploitation in the town, but didn't do anything about it.
They either didn't believe what they were being told, played it down, or were too nervous to act. The failures, the report says, are blatant.
The report estimates that 1,400 children were sexually exploited over 16 years, with one young person telling the report's author that gang rape was a usual part of growing up in Rotherham.
The processes for dealing with these crimes have got better in the last four years, but still improvements need to be made.
There were more apologies from the council today but the report's author says they are too late
Despite this, the report concluded: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."
Revealing details of the inquiry's findings, Prof Jay said: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered."
She said she found examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone".
Failures by those charged with protecting children happened despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 which both the council and police were aware of, and "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".
She said the first of these reports was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data. The other two were ignored, she said.
The inquiry team found that in the early 2000s when a group of professionals attempted to monitor a number of children believed to be at risk, "managers gave little help or support to their efforts".
The report revealed some people at a senior level in the police and children's social care thought the extent of the problem was being "exaggerated".
Prof Jay said: "The authorities involved have a great deal to answer for."
- At least 1,400 children were subjected to "appalling" sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, a report has found.
Children as young as 11 were raped by multiple perpetrators, abducted, trafficked to other cities in England, beaten and intimidated it said.
The report, commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council in 2013, revealed there had been three previous inquiries.
Five men from the town were jailed for sexual offences against girls in 2010.
'Doused in petrol' Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote the latest report, said there had been "blatant" collective failures by the council's leadership, senior managers had "underplayed" the scale of the problem and South Yorkshire Police had failed to prioritise the issue.
Prof Jay said police "regarded many child victims with contempt" and that by far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims".
Continue reading the main story Analysis
James Vincent BBC Look North
The scale of this report is simply staggering and some of the detail extremely hard to read.
It lays out how Rotherham Council and the police knew about the level of child sexual exploitation in the town, but didn't do anything about it.
They either didn't believe what they were being told, played it down, or were too nervous to act. The failures, the report says, are blatant.
The report estimates that 1,400 children were sexually exploited over 16 years, with one young person telling the report's author that gang rape was a usual part of growing up in Rotherham.
The processes for dealing with these crimes have got better in the last four years, but still improvements need to be made.
There were more apologies from the council today but the report's author says they are too late
Despite this, the report concluded: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."
Revealing details of the inquiry's findings, Prof Jay said: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered."
She said she found examples of "children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone".
Failures by those charged with protecting children happened despite three reports between 2002 and 2006 which both the council and police were aware of, and "which could not have been clearer in the description of the situation in Rotherham".
She said the first of these reports was "effectively suppressed" because senior officers did not believe the data. The other two were ignored, she said.
The inquiry team found that in the early 2000s when a group of professionals attempted to monitor a number of children believed to be at risk, "managers gave little help or support to their efforts".
The report revealed some people at a senior level in the police and children's social care thought the extent of the problem was being "exaggerated".
Prof Jay said: "The authorities involved have a great deal to answer for."
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