Rotherham child sex abuse scandal: More arrests as crime agency vows to keep hunting suspects

More arrests have been made as part of the ongoing investigation into the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal in which more than 400 men are believed to have exploited some 1,500 victims.

Two men, aged 35 and 40, were detained over the alleged abuse of four teenage girls in the South Yorkshire town some 20 years ago.

A third, aged 35, was interviewed under caution.

The action came as part of Operation Stovewood, the single biggest law enforcement investigation ever held into non-familial child sexual exploitation in the UK.

So far, it has seen more than 150 people arrested, 20 convicted, and prison sentences handed out amounting to almost 250 years.

Among them have been Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, Nabeel Kurshid, Iqlaq Yousaf, Tanweer Ali, Salah Ahmed El-Hakam and Asif Ali, pictured above, who were all jailed for between 10 and 23 years in November 2018.

The new arrests were made in Rotherham earlier this week but only made public by the National Crime Agency, which is leading the operation, on Friday.

It makes it a total of 18 people who have been detained in connection with the scandal this summer alone.

And in a statement, senior investigating officer Philip Marshall vowed more would come as the agency continued to identify victims and act against suspects.

He said: “We will continue to make arrests of further suspects in the future as our investigations develop. We appeal to anyone who has been a victim or witness to come forward and speak to us in confidence and with our full support.”

All three men were released pending further enquiries.

The NCA began its operation in 2015 after South Yorkshire Police asked the agency to lead an independent investigation, following a 2014 report which found wide-scale and systematic abuse in Rotherham had been ignored by local authorities for more almost two decades.