Police have launched two major investigations into sexual exploitation of children in Scotland in the past three years, it emerged yesterday. Both investigations — Operation Cotswold in 2011 and Operation Dash — have focused on alleged abuse of white girls by men from ethnic minorities.
News of the two investigations in Scotland emerged as the controversy over the child-abuse scandal in Rotherham gathered pace. Police stressed last night that there was no evidence to suggest that the situation in Scotland was anything like that in Rotherham.
Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boal, who leads Police Scotland’s Public Protection Division, said: “Operation Dash remains a live investigation that has resulted, so far, in 21 persons being reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in relation to a range of crimes and there are live ongoing criminal proceedings in a number of cases.”
It is understood that Operation Cotswold focused on a group of Middle Eastern asylum seekers in the north of Glasgow and the alleged abuse of vulnerable teenagers, some of whom absconded from children’s homes. Some of the investigations failed to make progress after girls refused to see themselves as at risk or as victims.
Police officers then worked closely with Barnardo’s in Scotland for the second investigation, Operation Dash. It is understood that proceedings are still live in some of the cases and that one involves several alleged offenders.
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Martin Crewe, the director of Barnardo’s Scotland, said he had been asking the authorities to take the issue more seriously for years.
He said the police now appeared to be working very hard to tackle child sexual exploitation in Scotland. “There’s still a bit of a sense that all of these cases that have hit the headlines . . . are in England and maybe it’s a bit different up here. Only when one of these major stories breaks in Scotland will people realise it has been going on, that there isn’t anything fundamentally different here.”
Graeme Pearson, a former senior police officer and now a Labour MSP, also said he believed the authorities in general had to make sure vulnerable witnesses were listened to.