THE scale of child abuse detailed by Alexis Jay in her report for Rotherham Council almost beggars belief. She finds that more than 1,400 children have been abused going back to 1997 and that this continues to the present day. 

Ms Jay summarises the types of abuse in harrowing terms: “They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated. 

“There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made witness to brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. 

“Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.”

The damage done to so many victims is incalculable and for many will represent a life sentence of fear, self harm, mental illness and ruined relationships which, in some cases, will only be cut short by suicide.

There will be deep and widespread anger in Rotherham and across Britain as the details of the report become known. 

The danger is that people’s outrage could take a dangerous course rather than reinforce the kind of decisions necessary to root out the culprits and minimise the scope for such atrocities in the future.

In particular, the fact that most perpetrators in this latest Rotherham case, as in the Sheffield sex grooming trial in late 2010, were men of Pakistani origin will doubtless be seized upon by racists to whip up racial hatred. 

That the overwhelming majority of paedophiles in Britain are white men can easily be forgotten when the spotlight is trained on a specific example. 

It should also be noted that Rotherham’s Asian and Muslim organisations have condemned child sex abuse in the sharpest terms and shown a readiness to co-operate with the authorities to combat it.

Yet, as Ms Jay points out, the ethnic or religious identity of abusers cannot be the excuse for official inaction when it comes to investigating and punishing their crimes. 

Where this is a factor contributing to the ethos, organisation and execution of the abuse, it must be taken fully into account and acted upon. 

She rightly condemns the abject failure to act by a range of police, local authority and other agencies in Rotherham for fear of accusations of racism or Islamophobia. 

At the same time, this is but one failure among many exposed in her report, although some are clearly related.

Above all, the repeated refusals in Rotherham as elsewhere to take children’s allegations seriously are a disgrace and a scandal. 

While this can be motivated by a misplaced concern about the consequences for community relations, all too often it has been part of a deliberate effort to obstruct justice.

From the cases of the Kincora boys’ home in Northern Ireland to the Bryn Estyn children’s home in north Wales and the Elm guest house in south-west London, the stench rises of conspiracy and cover-up in high places. 

As reported in the Morning Star, there is no doubt that well-organised paedophile rings have long preyed on vulnerable youngsters across Britain, protected by their friends and colleagues in high places — and on a scale many of us would not have dared imagine.

It remains to be seen whether the inquiry headed by Peter Wanless into past child sex abuse scandals will pull up the drains to reveal the size and contents of the cesspit beneath.