Pilot project to tackle child grooming launched by police

The projects will look at how young people in care become ensnared by child abusers.

In particular, the projects will try to find evidence that boys and girls are being preyed on by men who use them for sex.

The move comes in the wake of the Rotherham scandal south of the border where a gang of men were discovered to be “brazenly” grooming girls from care homes and runaways as young as 11 for sex.

About 1,400 children were thought to have been abused by a network of Pakistani men in the South Yorkshire town.

The project will focus on South Lanarkshire, Edinburgh and Dundee and will involve the NHS, councils, charities and the police.

In Scotland children aged between 14 and 16 are one the biggest groups that comprise the 32,000 missing persons every year.

Assistant chief constable Wayne Mawson (pictured), who is in charge of missing persons, stressed the importance of speaking to young people who have been found after going missing.

He said: “Return interviews, carried out when young people who have been reported missing have been found, or returned on their own, are crucial for many reasons.

“They help us understand why and where young people go, and reveal any other causes which may prompt their decision to leave looked after accommodation. It also helps if they go missing again.”

He added that care homes and councils must investigate the issue.

He said: “The force is also working to build on the excellent work done to date, but also to create an agreement, nationally, about how we can work better together in carrying out effective return interviews, but also in building our understanding of why young people go missing.

“These are very often vulnerable young people and it is our duty, with our partners, to make sure we protect them by listening to them and taking action where it is needed.

“In the coming months, we will be piloting a partnership agreement between Police Scotland, local authorities and other third sector organisations to ensure that when young people go missing, we understand why, in order to prevent them repeating such behaviour in the future.”

Officers hope to use the interviews to get an idea of what makes children vulnerable.