LABOUR called on Police Commissioner Shaun Wright to resign yesterday following the revelations of “devastating” child abuse in Rotherham.

Mr Wright was Labour councillor responsible for children’s services in Rotherham from 2005 to 2010. It was during this time that 1,400 youngsters are reported to have suffered sexual exploitation over a 16-year period including gang rapes, grooming and trafficking.

Mr Wright apologised to victims of abuse and insisted he had no knowledge of the scale of the problem when he was a councillor.

But the Labour Party said he should resign as PCC following publication of the report into the scandal.

A Labour spokesman said: “The report into child abuse in Rotherham was devastating in its findings. Vulnerable children were repeatedly abused and then let down.

“In the light of this report, it is appropriate that South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright should step down.”

Mr Wright, who was elected commissioner in 2012, said: “I do have regrets that perhaps I was not more aware of the issue at the time where I could have perhaps influenced services better. 

“But in the end I regret my role in that systemic failure and I have taken responsibility for that.”

The scandal emerged in Rotherham in 2010 when five men were jailed after being found guilty of grooming teenage girls for sex.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who was children’s secretary in the last Labour government, has admitted that the party could not force Mr Wright to quit.

“But it is absolutely our view that he should do so,” he added.