SOME children in the Bradford district remain "unprotected" after a damming report was released on child sexual exploitation over the last 20 years.
The damning 60-page report, called Child Sexual Exploitation Thematic Child Safeguarding Practice Review, gives an insight into child sexual exploitation in the Bradford district over a 17-year period between 2002 and 2019.
It shone a light on responses from authorities including Bradford Council and the police, with 'lessons needing to be learned' from the report.
The independent review also says responses to CSE cases is "not yet good enough".
It focused on five historic victims, four girls and one boy, of CSE over this period and gives backgrounds to their experiences, with the report warning their experiences were difficult to hear. One of the girls had two children while she was still a looked after child.
The review was commissioned after nine men were jailed for a total of 132 years and eight months in February 2019 following the sexual exploitation of a child between 2006 and 2011 who had been in the care of the council.
More than 120 arrests in relation to non-recent CSE cases in Bradford have been made with investigations continuing, the report says.
The report concludes: "During the process of conducting this review it became clear at an early stage that agencies and individuals in Bradford do not always get it right and some children remain unprotected while some perpetrators remain unknown and unchallenged.
"It is also clear that while there has been considerable work in the district in relation to CSE there are still lessons that need to be learned and the responses to victims of this complex crime is not yet good enough in all cases."
The report produced a number of recommendations which included that agencies work closely together to learn from national and local learning , to boost the attendance at school of CSE victims.
It also states that more should be done to understand why people are perpetrators of CSE.
Bradford Council, West Yorkshire Police's Bradford district commander and Bradford District and Craven CCG released a joint statement after the Bradford Partnership – Working Together to Safeguard Children published its review today.
Mark Douglas, Bradford Council’s strategic director of children’s services, said: "Children are still at risk of CSE and up and down the country there are individuals that continue to target young people and Bradford is no different in this respect."
He added staff are better trained now than in the past to stop potential signs of CSE and responses are more robust.
Dan Greenwood, Chief Superintendent for Bradford District, West Yorkshire Police, said: "A number of CSE court cases are ongoing.
"We have learned a lot about CSE in the last 10 years and we will continue to learn."
Jane Booth, The Independent Chair of The Bradford Partnership, says she hopes the findings of the published report will help other victims of CSE come forward to the authorities.
She added the wider community in Bradford can be the "eyes and ears" on potential CSE cases and called for more government funding to carry out future investigations.
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