YET another report into child sex abuse and grooming has found that the authorities have failed to protect the victim.

Just as with the case in Rotherham where massive errors were made, the independent Serious Case Review into a schoolgirl’s brutal abuse by a gang of men in Keighley, which even included gang rape, highlights huge failings in the way the agencies that were supposed to look after her missed opportunity after opportunity to do so.

The report criticises how police had defined the girl as unreliable and even a liar when officers failed to deal with complaints by herself and her family that she was being sexually abused.

And it describes a “picture of systemic and structural disconnections” which caused information not to be shared between police and social services leading to a “multi-agency failure to respond appropriately” when the girl reported she had been raped in 2011.

West Yorkshire Police and Bradford Council yesterday both accepted and apologised for the past failings which allowed the girl’s abusers to get away with their abhorrent crimes for so long.

Thankfully, the prevalence of cases such as this has led to wholesale changes in the way child sex grooming is now treated by police and social services across the country.

And in Bradford this girl’s ordeal directly led to the setting-up of a child sexual exploitation hub, which brings together police, social services and others to protect children.

Important lessons have been learned but it can only be hoped that any case like this will never again emerge in the future.