More than 100 sexual offences committed by youth offenders in Rotherham

A report from Rotherham’s Youth Offending team shows that of 612 offences committed by youth offenders, 108 were sexual offences, 198 were categorised as violence against the person, and 95 were criminal damage.

The youth offending team works with youngsters aged 10 to 17.

The report states that rates of serious youth violence have increased since 2018, but reduced in 2021.

The actual numbers of serious youth violence offences by children in Rotherham are low and below YJS family, Yorkshire and National comparison numbers,” it adds.

During today’s (Dec 6) improving lives select commission meeting, Zulfiqar Shaffi, youth justice service manager at RMBC said: “We have a specialist staff member who works with a charity that works around harmful sexual behaviour.

“It’s a specific kind of intervention and assessment….which specialises the work around sexual offending.

“In terms of violent crime, we have recently brought in two evidence based programmes – one is managing anger working around emotional regulation.”

Mr Shaffi added that specific training around knife crime had also been introduced.

Helen Sweaton, joint director of children and young people’s services added that sexual offences also included indecent images, and were “not necessarily that we’ve got a significant proportion of young people who are offending physically in that category.”

The report adds that there was an increase in the number of youngsters under the youth offending team since 2020/21- from 353 to 489, but there had been a “significant reduction in offences” – from 1157 to 612.