The Labour party has called for the resignation of South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner, Shaun Wright, in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal in Rotherham.
Wright was a Labour cabinet member for children and young people’s services at Rotherham council from 2005 to 2010 when he received three reports about widespread abuse but failed to act, according to Prof Alexis Jay’s damning report on the sexual exploitation of 1,400 children over 16 years in the South Yorkshire town.
Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, told BBC radio’s The World at One that Wright should stand down because “of the failures of leadership”. He said: “It’s important that people in positions of responsibility take responsibility.”
Speaking later to Sky News, Wright insisted he had already taken responsibility for the failures at the council by standing down as cabinet member for children’s services in 2010.
“We need to go through the report in depth. Clearly governance arrangements came out as one of the issues.” Lakin, himself a councillor since 1999, said he had not been aware of the depth and scale of child abuse in Rotherham until the publication of Jay’s report. Colin Ross, the leader of Sheffield’s Liberal Democrat party, said: “It’s difficult to see how people can have confidence in him [Wright] to continue.”
