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Serious Case Review: Sexual exploitation gang went unnoticed

Social workers in Derby let children down by failing to realise that they were being exploited. Joe Lepper looks at the difficulties of identifying victims.

After three trials and one of the largest police operations of its kind, nine men were convicted in November last year for their role in a child exploitation gang that targeted vulnerable young girls in Derby.

Among their victims were two looked-after children who were abused before and while in the care of Derby City Council.

A serious case review (SCR) into the two girls' cases found they were let down by social workers and other children's professionals. Social workers mistook the girls' challenging behaviour for teenage rebellion rather than as signs of abuse.

The SCR report says that if Derby council had taken the girls into its care earlier they would have been "more resilient" and "less vulnerable as adolescents to all kinds of exploitation and abuse".

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