How far this goes back ,is quite horrible
How Rotherham bosses have reinvented themselves since grooming scandal
Council leaders criticised in inquiries into child sexual exploitation have become government advisers and executive coaches
The 2014 Jay report condemned senior managers for having “underplayed” the scale of the “appalling” abuse faced by girls — some as young as 11 — at the hands of men mainly of Pakistani heritage between 1997 and 2013. It found there had been “blatant” collective failures by the council’s leadership.
Sonia Sharp
Sonia Sharp led Rotherham’s children’s department from 2005 to 2008. She has acknowledged and apologised for its failure to protect girls, admitting that her department “knew there were many children in the community at risk and feared that this was the tip of an iceberg”.
After leaving Rotherham, Sharp worked for Sheffield council before moving to Australia in 2012 where she was responsible for running education services in the state of Victoria.
Today, Sharp is a partner at the consultancy EY Australia, where she “provides bespoke advice to state and territory governments” on “human and social services challenges”.
Ged Fitzgerald
Ged Fitzgerald, who was criticised for “missing opportunities” to tackle grooming while chief executive of Rotherham council between 2001 and 2003, has rebranded himself as an “executive coach and mentor”.
A report commissioned by Rotherham council and published in 2017 concluded that a more “rigorous” approach by Fitzgerald could have resulted in a “very different” response to child sexual exploitation at the time.
Fitzgerald went on to serve as chief executive of Sunderland city council, Lancashire county council and Liverpool city council. In May 2017 he was arrested as part of an investigation into financial irregularities during his tenure at Lancashire county council and resigned from his position at Liverpool council the following year.
In August 2022 he was charged with misconduct in public office and procuring the misconduct of others, related to alleged activities at Liverpool and Lancashire councils.
While on bail he has transitioned into executive coaching, becoming a certified member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.
Jahangir Akhtar
Jahangir Akhtar was described in a 2015 report on the council by Louise Casey as an intimidating and “powerful figure” in Rotherham politics, thought to have “influence that extended to the police”.
The Jay report suggested that Akhtar, who served as deputy leader of the council and vice-chairman of the South Yorkshire police and crime panel, may have chosen to ignore a “politically inconvenient truth” when he claimed not to have realised that there was a “deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls”.
Today Akhtar works for the bank Santander and is a registered director of a social enterprise based at a Rotherham mosque that provides “educational support services” and “social work activities”.
Suspended by the Labour Party in 2014, he continues to take a keen interest in politics and started a TikTok channel where he posted “unfiltered” commentary on various issues, particularly the war in Gaza.
In full (paywalled) hopefully the start of a very, very long running 'where are they now' Times series