- 2014 report laid bare the shocking scale of abuse by sex gangs in Yorkshire town
- In wake of report, National Crime Agency set up investigation into abuse
- The scale of issue means the number of people being investigated has hit 420
A police investigation sparked by the child abuse scandal in Rotherham is now investigating more than 400 suspects, it emerged today.
The National Crime Agency, often called 'Britain's FBI', is conducting a huge investigation after a 2014 report found more than 1,000 young girls had been abused in the South Yorkshire town.
Scandals have since engulfed other towns and cities, including Newcastle, Telford and most recently Huddersfield, with a series of similar gangs jailed.
Vulnerable young victims were typically given drugs and alcohol before being passed around between men of Pakistani heritage to be raped and sexually assaulted at will.
Seven men were found guilty of sex crimes in Rotherham between 1998 and 2005 yesterday: (Top row left to right) Iqlak Yousaf, Nabeel Kurshid and Asif Ali. (Bottom row left to right) Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, Salah Ahmed El-Hakam and Tanweer Hussain Ali
Authorities did little to tackle the abusers or save their young victims from their terrible ordeals, often due to fears over being labelled racist.
In the latest tranche of convictions, seven men were found guilty by a jury at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday, of 24 charges relating to sex crimes between 1998 and 2005.
Operation Stovewood, the NCA probe sparked by the Rotherham scandal, is now examining 420 other suspects, The Times reported today.
Paul Williamson, the head of the inquiry, told the paper that its scale was daunting.
The NCA is set to bring its total spending on Operation Stovewood to £90 million by 2024 and will soon have a 250-strong team investigating sex abuse crimes in the 16 years to 2013.
This latest case involved five girls as young as 13 suffering acts of a 'degrading and violent' nature.
The men would drive around town in their 'flash' cars and target girls from problem homes hanging around late at night outside a supermarket.
At first the girls believed the older men were their 'boyfriends' and thought they were in 'love.' But that quickly changed as the grooming process progressed to brutal abuse. If they didn't comply to sexual demands, the men turned violent.
They were driven to remote locations or empty homes with no electricity to be raped and assaulted, the court heard.
The men would threaten to dump them in the middle of nowhere if they didn't agree to depraved demands and one was abandoned on the M1 motorway.
One of the girls was raped in car parks, under a bridge and in a country park. The court heard she was raped or assaulted by seven of the defendants at different times.
In 2002 the then 15-year-old went with her mother to report an abduction and beating to police. She later reported being raped by one defendant in a country park, but a police investigation into this alleged rape ended without a file being sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The series of British towns and cities rocked by Asian sex gang investigations
Rotherham - The issue of child abuse in the town first came to light in 2010 when five Asian men were jailed for sexual offences against under-age girls.
A 2014 inquiry found there were more than 1,400 victims of grooming and sex exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.
Rochdale - The trial of nine men for grooming young white girls for sex attracted widespread public outrage and sparked a national debate when they were convicted in 2012.
The gang received jail sentences of between four and 19 years for offences committed against five girls - aged between 13 and 15 - in and around Rochdale between 2008 and 2010.
The case returned to the public consciousness earlier this year when the BBC broadcast its Three Girls drama based on the experiences of some of the victims.
(Top row, left to right:) Tayab Dad, Nasar Dad, Basharat Dad. (Bottom row left to right:) Matloob Hussain, Mohammed Sadiq and Amjad Ali groomed two girls and sexually abused in Rotherham
Newcastle - A total of 17 men and one woman were convicted of, or admitted, charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution, in Newcastle last year.
Older men preyed on immature teenagers who were plied with cocaine, cannabis, alcohol or mephedrone (M-Cat), then raped or persuaded into having sexual activity at parties known as 'sessions'.
The case raised huge controversy after a convicted rapist was paid almost £10,000 of taxpayers' money to spy on parties where under-age girls were intoxicated and sexually abused.
Northumbria Police launched a major investigation after receiving information from social workers and initially spoke to 108 potential victims. Over the course of four trials, 20 young women gave evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014.
Oxford - A group of men who abused teenage girls in a vehicle they called the 's**gwagon' were jailed for a total of nearly 90 years in June this year.
The men - aged 36 to 48 - befriended vulnerable girls as young as 13 before plying them drink and drugs at 'parties' in Oxford.
The eight men - branded 'predatory and cynical' by a judge - were jailed for between seven and a half and fifteen years each.
The faces of 12 of the 20 men jailed over abuse in Huddersfield earlier this month
Bristol - Some 13 Somali men were jailed for more than a total of more than 100 years after they were convicted in 2014 of running an inner city sex ring.
Victims as young as 13 were preyed upon, sexually abused and trafficked across Bristol to be passed around the men's friends for money.
Aylesbury - Six men were jailed in 2015 for grooming vulnerable under-age white girls between 2006 and 2012.
The Old Bailey heard victims would be plied with alcohol and forced to perform sex acts for as little as 'the price of a McDonalds'.
Peterborough - A total of 10 men were convicted of child sex crimes in the town, including 'predatory' restaurant boss Mohammed Khubaib.
He was jailed for 13 years at the Old Bailey in 2015, after he was found guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and nine counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, involving girls aged from 12 to 15, between 2010 and 2013.
Telford - Earlier this year, Telford became the latest town to become the focus of the now sadly familiar stories of abuse.
A Sunday Mirror investigation concluded that around 1,000 children could have been sexually exploited in the Shropshire town over a 40-year period, leading to calls for a public inquiry.
Huddersfield: Earlier this month, 20 sex abusers were jailed for grooming vulnerable girls as young as eleven.
The court heard evidence from 15 victims during the trials and the judge said he fears none of them will ever recover from their ordeals.
In victim statements the girls described coming into contact with the abusers after being bullied at school and said the relationship became 'one of those things that you couldn't get out of'.
The case attracted attention after activist Tommy Robinson was jailed for almost causing one trial to collapse.
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