"Mistakes were made..."

So, after raking through news reports out of the UK, let me recap my understanding of this Rotherham thing: 1400 children sexually abused, for 16 years, THREE FREAKING PREVIOUS official reports submitted to authorities about gangs of “Asian” (UK-speak for persons from South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) men handing girls as young as 11 around like party favors, and 1) No one did anything about it, and 2) No news outlet reported on it?

Oh—and now that it's been made public, five alleged perps are in custody, the Rotherham Council leader has "resigned effective immediately" and the chief policing officer offered "an unreserved apology" to the victims? But he’s not resigning. Apparently he’s not in fear for his life or property, either, which I don’t quite get.

I don't say this nearly often enough, but might there be a neutron bomb available to take out all the so-called human life forms in that area?

I mean—I hope to God that civil and police authorities are not trying to tell us that five men—the only ones in custody—are solely responsible for this? For 1400 girls being systematically raped and terrorized for the last 16 years? That there aren’t scores more of the bastards who should be charged with multiple felonies ranging from statutory rape and GBH to perverting the course of justice? Because I have not taken enough stupid pills to swallow that kind of crap without choking.

And here’s something I find extremely interesting about news coverage of this story: I had to read several reports before I discovered that all the suspects are South Asian. Seriously: it was the written equivalent of someone lowering his voice to a whisper to add, “And they’re of, uh, you know, Pakistani heritage. But you didn’t hear that from me.” 

Evidently the same PC fear of identifying a spade as, in fact, an implement for shoveling muck, which caused child protective services, police and civic officials at all levels to flap their hands and hope that the elves would come in during the night and make it all go away, is shaping the news coverage. Would there be such hesitation if the names on the booking sheet were Sobieski or Mendoza or even Patel instead of Hussain and Razaq? Really?

(And while I’m on this—why the hell did no news outlet report on any of the earlier official reports about this? Are they telling us that no one called the Rotherham Advertiser, or sent an anonymous note to the Telegraph or even tweeted something with the hashtag #childabuse; that there was no reporter on the Yorkshire police beat who followed up on the victim complaints that were actually filed; and there wasn’t one single newspaper, blogger or late-night public-access talk-radio host anywhere who was interested in breaking the story of alleged child abuse on an industrial scale? If so, this is systemic failure of media at all levels.)

I do understand the complication of the state-supported BBC’s reportage being weighted against believing the victims. The Beeb has its own problems with condoning and covering up high-profile long-term sex offenders, so they’re rather in a glass house on this story. Ergo the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain attitude.

But how’s this for summing up their complete lack of journalistic integrity: on Wednesday, John Humphrys, one of their premier “presenters”, interviewed one of the victims, who described being repeatedly gang raped at age 12, and then being told by police that there was nothing they could do to help her.

Humphrys asked, “Why didn’t you just stay indoors?”

Evidently Humphrys doesn’t fear for his life or property either.

Oh--and apparently one of the earlier reports of the abuse was thrust under a stack of order forms for office supplies, because those in charge "hoped it would go away as a one-off". Because, yeah, we can all live with a “one-off” instance of child rape, just a single, oh, week or month of only maybe ten or 20 little girls being abused by just a few adult males. Or, even just one—we’ll give you one rape of…well, anyone, really…for free; no harm, no foul. Because we all have little slips, and one hardly counts as a real crime.

Yeah, that'll wash straight off our consciences as banner-bearers for civilization.

So far (early days, I know) it doesn’t look like anyone in authority, either locally or nationally, is in any particular hurry to drill down into who was doing what in Rotherham ever since 1997, much less who was turning massive numbers of blind eyes when it was their job to protect these children on every level. They are starting to make me think of the tweedy version of Colonel Klink; all you hear is, "I knew nothing."

In the US, there would at least be squadrons of lawyers circling the town, briefcases flapping, ready to file lawsuits on behalf of the victims against the perpetrators, their extended families, their employers, their community groups, their mosques, the police, child services, the council and Her Majesty’s government (and probably others I’m missing).

In the UK, meanwhile, I guess they’re staying indoors and pouring tea.