A senior council officer accused of trying to suppress a damning report on child sex crimes in Rotherham 12 years ago is today responsible for the safety of thousands of children in a neighbouring town, The Times can reveal.
Jackie Wilson, Doncaster council’s £90,000-a-year assistant director for children and families, was a senior manager with responsibility for safeguarding children in Rotherham during the years when widespread sex-grooming crimes were going unpunished. She also previously had a high-profile role at Leeds city council before leaving after another child protection scandal.
Ms Wilson, who was known as Jackie Jenkinson at the time, was involved in the alleged “cover-up” of a report by a Home Office researcher that found evidence of widespread sexual exploitation. She faces possible disciplinary action after the chief executive of Doncaster council requested a meeting with Rotherham council to “discuss the implications” of an independent inquiry published last week.
It was revealed yesterday that Di Billups, who was Rotherham’s director of education, attended a meeting in October 2001 when the local police district commander, Chief Superintendent Christine Davies, allegedly berated the Home Office researcher over her attempts to raise the issue.
It can now be disclosed that Ms Wilson was also present at the meeting. The researcher claimed that Ms Davies attacked her for highlighting the abuse and gang-rape of young girls by groups of men predominantly of Pakistani origin. “It was so hostile and intimidating that I was terrified,” the researcher said.
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A few months later, in 2002, the researcher again raised concerns about sex-grooming in Rotherham in a report that was shared with police and council staff, including Ms Wilson. The report included evidence that police officers and council workers were ignoring vulnerable girls who disclosed horrific incidents of sexual abuse.
Soon after, a raid took place on the specialist youth service where the researcher was based, which resulted in case files being removed and computer records being wiped. Youth workers believe that the seizure was ordered by senior Rotherham council staff. Marked-up copies of the researcher’s report were later handed back to her with demands for many sections to be altered or removed. One of the copies had been annotated by Ms Wilson.
She has not explained her motives for making these annotations, although a police officer who made edits to another of the copies said that she had removed identifying information about the children involved.
After leaving Rotherham council, Ms Wilson spent two and a half years at Leeds as chief officer for children and young people’s social care. She left in December 2011, a month after The Times revealed the cases of five teenage girls from West Yorkshire who had been groomed and plied with drugs and alcohol before being sexually exploited.
One victim from Leeds tried to commit suicide in 2010 at the age of 16 after police and social services had failed to act on information that she was being gang-raped and sold for sex.
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Ms Wilson, who spoke to Professor Alexis Jay as part of the independent inquiry into child abuse in Rotherham published last week, began working at Doncaster council in January.
She refused to answer detailed questions about her knowledge of the raid, why she sought to suppress the Rotherham report, and the reasons for her departure from Leeds. In a statement, she said that she was “profoundly sorry for the suffering of children and young people” in Rotherham.
“As soon as I was aware of the report’s publication I brought it to my employer’s attention and asked them to make inquiries about my time in Rotherham and to rigorously assess my fitness to practise,” she said.
Doncaster council’s chief executive, Jo Miller, said: “Jackie Wilson is co-operating fully with us while we continue with our inquiries, which we cannot conduct in the public domain.”