Police respond to claims criminal gangs pose bigger threat to Rotherham children than CSE
South Yorkshire Police has responded to claims that criminal exploitation now poses a bigger risk to children than CSE.
The Rotherham Safeguarding Children Partnership’s annual assurance report for 2024/25 states that criminal exploitation has overtaken sexual exploitation as the most common form of harm faced by vulnerable young people, with far higher numbers of children identified as being at risk.
The partnership says data shows a continuing shift in the patterns of exploitation, with CSE stabilising while criminal exploitation continues to rise.
Detective Superintendent Pete Quinn, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “We don’t want to see any child at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation in South Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire Police works with partner agencies to effectively identify those at risk so that we can protect them and pursue those who seek to criminalise them.
“Criminal gangs that exploit children are corrosive to our communities, and they put the welfare of the most vulnerable in society at risk.
“In response to this we have invested in specialist resource and training to better protect children and bring offenders to justice.
“Rotherham’s multi-agency child exploitation team Evolve puts an increased focus on educating families and intervening at the earliest opportunity.
“Additionally, Lifewise delivered Crucial Crew, a scenario-based learning experience, to 98 per cent of schools in South Yorkshire in the 2024/5 academic year, and more than 19,000 secondary school children received inputs relating to knife crime, CCE, and consent and sharing images.
“This has resulted in local communities in Rotherham having a greater awareness of the signs of child exploitation and a lower tolerance of the issue, which contributes to the increased reporting of intelligence and incidents and, crucially, the effective identification and safeguarding of those who are or may be vulnerable.”