Whistleblower says money was directed away from protecting children in order to pursue ‘priority crimes’.
Police ignored the sexual abuse of hundreds of young girls because they were too busy chasing Labour crime targets that would earn bonuses for senior staff.
Whistleblower Tony Brookes, a former detective who tried to investigate the abuse, said money was diverted away from protecting the children from rape, trafficking and beatings in order to pursue so-called ‘priority crimes’.
The offences, which included car crime, were considered crucial for satisfying a target culture introduced by the last Labour government.
Now it has emerged the same targets were also linked to performance-related pay for top officers at South Yorkshire Police.
It meant that, while young girls suffered heinous abuse at the hands of sex gangs in Sheffield and Rotherham, top brass could have had a perverse incentive to instruct their staff to look elsewhere. The targets have been scrapped by the Tories amid concern they were harming policing.
Tory parliamentary candidate Michael Ellis, a former member of the home affairs select committee, said: ‘Labour’s grossly irresponsible obsession with targets led to a perverted sense of priorities whereby senior officers could get bonuses for prioritising car crime while hundreds of young girls were being abused with impunity.’
[…]
