A former police officer accused of raping a teenager in child-sex scandal town Rotherham has been arrested, the third such arrest in the investigation so far.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) announced a former police constable of the South Yorkshire Police was arrested on Monday. The former officer, a man in his 50s, is suspected of raping a teenage girl in the town of Rotherham in 2004.
IOPC spokesman Emily Barry said the investigation into the South Yorkshire Police is being conducted by the South Yorkshire Police under the Office’s direction, and that they have received complaints against police officers from six women. This new arrest pertains to the sixth and latest woman to come forward, she said.
Barry said: “These complaints are being handled sensitively and thoroughly investigated and a third former officer has now been arrested. At the end of the investigation we will decide whether a file of evidence will be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider criminal charges.”
As previously reported, two former police officers were arrested on suspicion of child sex abuse last year. One of those former officers, a man in his 60s has been arrested twice over the course of the investigation in relation to separate allegations, including alleged child sex abuse against a victim between 1997 and 2002, and indecent assault against two other girls between 1995 and 1999.
A second former officer, a man in his 50s, was arrested on suspicion of “sexual assault and misconduct in public office and one count of indecent assault in connection to incidents that reportedly occurred around 1995-1996.”
As reported then:
the alleged attacks took place while the Rotherham-based police officers “were both on and off duty”… The arrests follow the IOPC’s Operation Linden, one of its largest investigations ever, which investigated the actions of South Yorkshire Police around the mass rape of children in Rotherham. The IOPC was moved earlier this month to deny it had attempted to bury its findings, or that it had been told not to investigate senior officers, characterising these whistle blower claims as “completely inaccurate”.
An estimated 1,400 young girls were sexually abused by predominantly Pakistani gang members in the town, the Jay and Casey reports found.
