One of the Rotherham MPs who is suing UKIP MEP Jane Collins for libel for suggesting that they had information on child sexual exploitation had a daughter and a brother on Rotherham Council at the time of the abuse, Private Eye reveals.
Sir Kevin Barron, who was brought up in Rotherham and has represented the constituency of Rother Valley for 32 years, insists he knew nothing about the level of exploitation that was going on for sixteen years, aside from one case in 2003 which he referred to South Yorkshire Police.
The council, which has now been suspended by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles after the investigation by Professor Alexis Jay, was at the heart of the scandal where at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013 by men mostly of Pakistani origin.
Sir Kevin, who chairs the Commons standards committee, also publicly clashed with former colleague Denis MacShane.
McShane praised Times reporter Andrew Norfolk for exposing how South Yorkshire police and the local council had ignored the abuse of children.
However, in a scene at Rotherham Town Hall, Barron accused the journalist of misreporting the facts.
Both MacShane and other Rotherham MP John Healey say they were never approached by constituents who were victims of child sexual abuse.
Yet Barron’s daughter Amy Rushworth, who has been on the council since 2000, and his brother Colin who has only recently left his position, were both Labour councillors who sat on the children’s committee during the period covered in the investigation by Alexis Jay. The pair were both present at what Jay describes as “unambiguous” presentations in 2004-5 following which no councillor could plead they didn’t know about child sexual exploitation in the borough.
But neither of them, according to a writ issued to UKIP MEP Jane Collins, told Barron any details of what was taking place in the constituency he was born and brought up in and so proudly represents.
Mrs Collins, he says, is guilty of a grave libel for saying in a speech, “I am convinced that they [The Rotherham MPs] knew many of the details of what was happening”: He and his fellow Rotherham MPs are suing the UKIP MEP for £300,000.
Mrs Collins’s colleague Mike Hookem told Breitbart London: “This is another case of Labour playing the three monkeys: hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.”
As the town heads into the General Election where the systematic abuse can never be far from the minds of voters, another Labour party member with links to Rotherham council has landed herself a highly paid job in a neighbouring borough.
Jackie Jenkins was mentioned in the Casey report into Rotherham council’s ‘complete denial’ of the seriousness of the sexual abuse which was taking place right under their noses. She was referred to as a senior officer who had helped suppress a report which detailed what the grooming gangs were up to, back in 2001.
Jenkins, who has since remarried, now goes by the name of Jackie Wilson and is employed by Doncaster council in the position of assistant director for children and families, on an annual wage of £90,000. Her job requires her to sort out the council’s children’s services after a series of deaths.
What neither of the reports mention is Wilkins’s link to the Labour party, which runs both councils. Having become involved in politics through the support of the late MP for Doncaster North, Kevin Hughes, she regularly attends events hosted by the sitting MP, Ed Miliband. She also attended a summer picnic by nearby constituency MP Caroline Flint and boasted to friends at a party event back in 2010 she was “doing some work for Caroline”, something which Flint’s office now deny.
A spokesman from Doncaster Council has yet to respond to questions from Breitbart London regarding the suitability of Mrs Wilkins’ employment and requesting to know who her references for the position were.
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