Never having worked for Child Services the most eye-opening thing about this very good piece by Suzanne Moore in the Guardian, is that we assume it is just a case of finding the victims. As a reader we can’t imagine that the victims might become so conditioned by their attackers that it is hard even to save them from themselves.

Further, our assumption is that those in a position of responsibility should simply have been able to stop it. This piece by the BBC covers accounts from an unnamed care worker and paints a very clear picture of how powerless and depressing it must have been to work in Rotherham at that time, probably still is now. The children were escaping to see these men, we should ask why? Rather than the media, as in this BBC example simply making repeated demands for someone’s head.

We must not forget that at the heart of this it is the men who perpetrated these acts that should be judged and punished.

There is no doubt truth in Suzanne Moore’s characterisation of the problem being one of cuts in funding — stretched and poorly motivated services simply being unable to make inroads into dismantling these networks of men who where able to act so flagrantly in the face of both Child Services and the Police — but, I don’t think that is the only truth.

Further, her left-wing undertone that rich right-wing southerners have denied funding to the northern poor seems questionable. Buckinghamshire may well only have seen cuts of 4.5% in the last four years relative to 33% in Rotherham, but we know nothing about the relative levels of provision before. Rotherham may still, per head of population, have more people working in Child Services — we just don’t know — so it is just loose politically opportunistic journalism.

As informative as Moore’s article is, it does underplay the role of humans just like herself in this current story. She admits she left years ago because the system did not seem to be one that would solve the problem. Why did she not speak louder? Stay and try to change the system for the better?

At the heart of it is exactly the same failing as those who were in positions of responsibility in Rotherham. People join with the best of intentions and then fail, either because:

• they are career minded, want to get a promotion so don’t rock the boat;
• they become so disillusioned and poorly motivated by how bad it is;
• they leave and go on to do something less traumatising.

Even as the head of a Child Services we should not underestimate the feeling of helplessness, and being smeared in the press for incorrectly accusing members of a minority community. Just because they seemed to have failed to act, does not mean that they were not trying to. Sure we may find those wh0 have been complicit, and we should prosecute, but for those who didn’t know, or felt powerless to act we should not be so hash to judge.

As humans we can feel things are wrong, but not feel we are strong enough or responsible enough to do anything about it. Drawing no comparison, but it’s a sliding scale that starts with not standing up for someone in social situation when you could, takes in these sorts of events in Rotherham, and leads all the way to respectable Germans being camp guards at Auschwitz.

We can’t overlook the community in all this. Even in London there are still pockets of minority immigrant communities who live in isolation from an intolerant indigenous community which has resisted their attempts to integrate. However, London is far more cosmopolitan and in most areas integration has progressed much further. In most Northern cities these pockets are still far more stark, where the lack of integration and opportunity has led to disillusioned 2nd/3rd generation immigrants almost reversing integration. They are now resentful of the original community for appearing to have more opportunity and success, rather than keen to fit in like their parents were. Local authorities are terrified of lighting the powder keg. They actually feel in the minority in being able to criticise those minorities. As southern socially ideological commentators we can sneer at these problems, but we aren’t truly in a position to sympathise.

Moore also mentions the Jimmy Savile case. This was at the heart of it a similar problem. People at the BBC at the time who suspected Saville were too afraid of saying something, and being ousted when they failed to make the evidence stick. The few who did speak out were in the minority and were brutally dealt with.

As observers we then show indignation and bay for blood in the form of someone’s head, but we fail to recognise how we could easily have been the people looking the other way when the problem seemed too big to tackle.