Among the more nauseating spectacles of the Rotherham child rape scandal has been the squirming evasion and shameless attempts at face-saving by the various authority figures whose job it supposedly was to prevent such horrors happening.
One of them is a man named Javed Khan. He is the head of Britain’s largest children’s charity Barnardo’s which now stands accused of having known about the Muslim rape gang problem for well over a decade – but which chose to do next to nothing to confront it.
In an ugly interview with Sky News, Khan infuriated viewers – and his normally mild-mannered interviewer Eamonn Holmes – with his mealy-mouthed evasiveness.
Not only did Khan refuse to call for the resignation of South Yorkshire Police Commissioner (and former head of Rotherham Council Children’s Services) Shaun Wright but it often seemed as though he was trying to make excuses for the various institutions which allowed mass child rape to occur on their watch.
Holmes could barely contain his fury.
“You’re the expert in the field. You’re the man who people turn to when all else fails. Your charity’s job is to protect children, to protect the innocence of those children. I put it to you, Mr Khan, no one else has bothered: are you going to fail them as well?”
Khan once again evaded the question. As well he might – for the children’s charity he represents is almost as heavily compromised by this scandal as Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police.
We know this thanks to Peter McLoughlin’s detailed report Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sex Slavery. A whole section of it is devoted to Barnardo’s.
Barnardo’s, founded in 1866, is Britain’s largest children’s charity, with annual revenues of nearly £250 million – most of it, via the government, from the pockets of the UK taxpayer. In other words it has more than enough money, campaigning muscle and political clout to make its influence felt on socially important issues. Apparently, though, the fact that Muslim gangs around Britain have been grooming and sexually abusing often underage white girls (and Sikh girls) was not considered by Barnardo’s sufficiently serious to merit blowing the whistle.
Indeed, there is disturbing evidence that, for reasons of political correctness, Barnardo’s may unwittingly have colluded in the cover up.
Consider this statement by Barnardo’s then-Chief Executive Martin Narey in its 2011 report on child abuse Puppet On A String.
From our experience, we know that in some areasethnicity is a factor, but in many other areas it isn’t… Ifyou focus on one model of sexual exploitation, children who are being exploited in different circumstances won’tsee that it’s an issue for them as well. Young people whoneed support won’t come forward because they don’t fitthe model that’s being presented.
He elaborated on this point at the time in various interviews with the BBC and the Guardian, in response to claims by former Home Secretary Jack Straw that some Pakistani men saw white girls as “easy meat.” Narey said: “I certainly don’tthink this is a Pakistani thing. My staff would say that there isan over-representation of people from minority ethnic groups -Afghans, people from Arabic nations – but it’s not just one nation.”
No doubt these statements were technically accurate. But they also served to muddy the waters a) by distracting from the fact that the vast majority of these crimes were perpetrated by Pakistanis b) by misrepresenting the problem as an issue of ethnicity rather than of religion and c) by implying that attempts to pin these crimes on specific groups were in any case a red herring.
What McCloughlin clearly demonstrates in his report is that Barnardo’s knew for years what was going on. How could it not? As it boasts in Puppet On A String, Barnardo’s is “the main provider of child sexual exploitationservices in the UK”, with 22 “specialist services”in this field. It will have encountered hundreds, if not thousands, of girls who have fallen victim to Muslim rape gangs. Some of these victims’ stories are told in the Barnardo’s report. But with one key detail mysteriously excised: the religious or ethnic identity of the perpetrators.
McCloughlin lists numerous occasions when Barnardo’s could have spoken up but didn’t.
Why in 2004, when a Channel 4 documentary on the subject was shelved at the request of the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, did Barnardo’s not complain?
Why, when local MP Ann Cryer raised the issue in 2003 – and was vilified as a racist – did not Barnardo’s rise to her defence?
Why didBarnardo’sremain silent in 2004 when BradfordCouncil and West Yorkshire Police stated there was “no evidence”that these grooming gangs existed?
How didBarnardo’srespond in2005 when West Yorkshire Police closed down their investigation intothe grooming gangs?
Why when Julie Bindel bravely wrote about the subject in 2007 did Barnardo’s not back her up?
True, it wouldn’t be fair to say that Barnardo’s has done absolutely nothing over the years in response to the problem. But its policy has been to care for and counsel the victims of this abuse and to issue reports like Puppet On A String designed to raise awareness of child abuse generally and to urge for action to be taken. By failing to specify the true nature of the problem, however, Barnardo’s may well have helped prolong it.
So clearly, the culture of complacency, political correctness and head-in-the-sand-burying existed at Barnardo’s long before Javed Khan was appointed its Chief Executive last year.
But the fact that it chose such a man for the £150,000 pa job speaks volumes about its priorities. Certainly, Khan’s colourless, evasive, shifty performance in his Sky News interview would suggest that it wasn’t raw talent, intelligence or charisma that landed this impeccably Muslim, career lefty quangocrat the position. And to judge by this recent story in the Daily Mail, it probably wasn’t his probity either.
The head of Victim Support, the Government-backed charity for people affected by crime, has been accused of taking an armed gang to settle a long-running land dispute in his native Pakistan.Javed Khan is reported to have arrived in the village of Haveli Bagal last week with about eight men armed with automatic rifles.
Witnesses claim that one middle-aged woman who tried to stop the gang from bulldozing a contested wall of the village graveyard was threatened by the charity chief and that shots were fired in the air.Mr Khan spent several hours at a local police station as officers tried to resolve the row.
Yesterday, a contempt of court notice was said to have been served, as the dispute was already before a civil court.The events threaten to embarrass Victim Support, which receives £38 million a year from the Government. They may also tarnish the reputation of Mr Khan, 50, who has been cited as one of the most influential British Muslims and is set to begin a new role as chief executive of the children’s charity Barnardo’s later this year.
Aren’t you SO glad you’re paying this guy’s £150,000 salary with your taxes and so relieved he’s now the chief guardian of British children’s welfare?
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