Senior officers failed to protect children in Rotherham from grooming abuse gangs, the police watchdog has confirmed for the first time.
A complaint against senior officers was lodged by key whistleblowers in 2017, which was upheld by the Independent Office for Police Conduct in 2022.
But critical details about the complaint were not included in the overarching IOPC report into policing failures published that year.
Operation Linden, the review into police officers that found dozens of cases of misconduct from 1997 to 2013, did not refer to senior officers.
The updated summary today is the first time that the IOPC has released that senior officers failed in their duties.
The investigation defined senior officer as the rank of Chief Superintendent and above and looked from 1999 to 2011.
To assess the complaint, the watchdog said that it reviewed information from social services, health departments, education departments and youth support services, plus “independent reviews of SYP operations carried out by the National Crime Agency.”
Despite finding that senior officers failed to protect children, the IOPC also said that there was “no indication” that senior officers in South Yorkshire Police “may have committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner which would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings".
It also said that some of the officers who served during the period of investigation had retired and were not legally bound to assist the watchdog with its investigation.
Referring to critical failures to process and act on intelligence, the Amazon summary said that its teams found evidence that perpetrators were discussed at meetings attended by SYP officers but that “no action appeared to be taken.”
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The summary found that the failure to protect children in Rotherham 'was a systemic organisational failure, as opposed to the failings of individuals'
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It grimly concluded that the same perpetrators “went on to continue to abuse young girls until they were convicted in 2016 – 14 years later.”
At stakeholder child sexual exploitation meetings, it was found that focus was given to drug issues, but CSE was sidelined.
There were also many problems with intelligence-gathering and sharing across departments.
On some perpetrators, there “appeared to have been no vehicle checks on these individuals, no cross-border intelligence and no requests to staff to target them.”
The updated summary also notes that investigators identified some positives from officers.
“There was evidence that certain officers did act on some intelligence and conduct operations, some of which resulted in convictions,” notably Operation Central in 2008 that led to the first convictions of an abuse network in Rotherham amid the scandal.
The IOPC also said that there was 'no indication' that senior officers in South Yorkshire Police 'may have committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner which would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings'
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The summary found that the failure to protect children in Rotherham “was a systemic organisational failure, as opposed to the failings of individuals.”
When the IOPC shared its findings in 2021 with SYP, the force disagreed with the decision to uphold the complaint against senior officers, pointing to the evidence of some positive action.
Jayne Senior, a key Rotherham whistleblower awarded an MBE after the scandal emerged, told GB News: “This report is the only report throughout all of Rotherham that proves that they knew what was happening and did nothing.”
Alongside former strategic drugs analyst Angie Heal, Senior put in the complaint against senior officers in 2017.
She told the People’s Channel that she had been fighting for over a decade for the truth to come out.
GB News can today reveal that the decision to release an updated summary comes after the South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard applied significant pressure to the IOPC during meetings about the report.
Sources familiar with the meetings said that on one occasion, when Mr Coppard was told that he could not see the report, he replied that he had greater authority than them.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion has reacted to the updated summary by calling on the National Crime Agency inquiry into abuse networks to include policing cover-ups.
The Labour MP said: "So what happens now? Who do you complain to when you don’t believe the complaints body has carried out its job?
"Well, I will be raising my concerns with the new Police Minister - just as I did with the last. The new @NCA_UK investigation must include police cover-up in its remit."
A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: "Operation Amazon was one of 93 strands of Operation Linden, the outcome of which was published in 2022.
"At the time, SYP accepted the vast majority of the Operation Linden findings but disagreed with the decision to uphold the Operation Amazon complaint on the basis that the finding did not name any officers who had failed in their statutory duty.
"The force acknowledges and respects the IOPC’s decision.
South Yorkshire Police has accepted and apologised for the failure to safeguard vulnerable young people in Rotherham against CSE in the 1990s and 2000s.
"We remain committed to ensuring that the organisation and officers of today are the best they can be at preventing harm."