Thread by @technopopulist

The Rotherham rape scandal ranks among the top 10 most significant events in British history since 2000. It stands alongside Brexit, the Iraq invasion, foot-and-mouth disease, 7/7, the expenses scandal, and the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Yet, unlike these headline-dominating events, Rotherham was met with an astonishing lack of media coverage.

In fact, the Rotherham scandal is so pivotal - such a defining moment in modern UK history - that you could even place it in the top five. Why? For several deeply troubling reasons.

First, the sheer barbarity and sadism of the crimes. This wasn’t some dark fiction conjured from a warped imagination; it was Salò-level depravity, happening in real life, on an industrial scale, for decades. The crimes were grotesque enough, but their persistence over such a long period makes them uniquely horrifying.

Now, I’m an extremely calm and gentle man - something that might surprise you, given how adversarial I come across online. But when I read about the Rotherham rape scandal, I can’t help but lose my temper. It makes my blood boil in a way few things can. Even writing about it now, I’m absolutely seething. The only other times I feel this level of rage are when I read about the mass slaughters and rapes in places like Sudan or the DRC.

(Of course, when I say 'Rotherham,' I’m not just referring to that one town. It’s a synecdoche - a stand-in for the many other places across the UK where similar large-scale atrocities took place. Rotherham stands out in many people’s minds because it became synonymous with the worst of these crimes.)

Second, and perhaps even more damning, was the vast wall of silence surrounding it. Police, local authorities, politicians, NGOs, social services - many were either indifferent to this industrial-scale child rape or, worse, actively complicit in covering it up. It was a collective betrayal of a scale I’ve never encountered in my adult life.

Rotherham shattered the myth of one-tier policing and the supposed ‘benevolence’ of Britain’s institutions. Instead, it exposed their darker reality: these institutions were willing to turn a blind eye to unimaginable suffering, feeding lives into the meat grinder of abuse, so long as no one dared ask uncomfortable questions about 'diversity' or multiculturalism.

This happened everywhere. Operation Sanctuary was launched in January 2014, after a young woman with learning difficulties in Newcastle reported to her social worker that she had been sexually abused. A review was subsequently conducted for the Newcastle Safeguarding Children Board and Newcastle Safeguarding Adults Board. Its findings on the police were damning:

The review also highlighted a "lack of professional curiosity, thinking beyond the presenting issue, and insight into the actual harm victims were experiencing."

Shockingly, it also found a failure to conduct forensic medical examinations or collect physical evidence!

In Oxfordshire, the abuse endured by victims was so horrific it was likened to 'torture.' And yet, once again, the police and social services turned a blind eye. Some even treated the young girls as if they had willingly chosen such a 'lifestyle,' ignoring repeated cries for help.

Oxfordshire social services - responsible for the safety of these children - are equally culpable, having known the girls were being groomed and failing to act despite overwhelming evidence of the danger they faced. Shockingly, a social worker testified during a trial that nine out of ten people responsible for the girls were aware of what was happening.

This basically allowed animals like Mohammed and Bassam Karrar to subject their child victims to a string of violent and sadistic rapes, often leaving them injured. After grooming them for about a year, they took them to other places around the county to be sold and raped in hotels and "brothels for young girls". Other men paid them to play out sadistic sexual fantasies.