Dear Ms Thacker,
We are all human, we all have the capacity to achieve and we also have the capacity to fail. Sometimes these ‘fails’ do not have serious consequences, but in other areas, medicine, policing, heavy engineering, social services, such ‘fails’ can have devastating outcomes for individuals and communities.
I, and many other members of the public, have observed your actions whilst in post as Strategic Director of Children’s Services for Rotherham, and what we see doesn’t appear to be satisfactory. When people look at both the scandal of the seemingly unchecked growth of Islamic Grooming Gangs in Rotherham, and the politically motivated removal of children from UKIP-supporting foster parents, there is a strong impression that you have not served the people of Rotherham very well at all.
Your tenure in the post of Director of Children’s Services has been mired in ignominy. Your time in your, financially well rewarded by the taxpayer, position in Rotherham has seen your town become known both for overtly politically motivated childcare decisions but also, sadly, the fact that Rotherham is now known as ‘The Islamic Paedophile Capital of Britain’. These labels, that Rotherham now has, should be a matter of shame for yourself and your department.
The most important job that anyone can do is to look after children and keep them safe. Your department failed to do this, not once but many times and not just on one occasion but over many years.
Back in 2010 whcn information about Islamic Grooming Gangs was starting to trickle out in to the media, you even went so far as to try to minimise the extent of the involvement of Islamic men in Grooming Gangs. You stated that the issue wasn’t ‘Asian men’ but was related to the actions of a group of generic ‘older men’. You also tried to blur the line between victim and victimiser by saying that the young, mostly Islamic men, who were grooming the girls and young women were ‘also victims’. ( see this article quoting the feminist writer Julie Bindel for more on this issue – https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2012/12/05/feminist-writer-julie-bindel-on-islamic-grooming-gangs/ )
For a manager in charge of Children’s Services to allow your local area to become a beacon for idiotic political correctness and to be seen to be making extreme efforts to sidestep the problems caused by Islamic Grooming Gangs, is not a good track record to have.
To those of us who are observing the political scene in Rotherham from afar, it does seem that your primary loyalty is not to the children whose care you are responsible for, but to the political ideology of multiculturalism that treats people differently according to what race they are, or what religion they profess. Someone in your position should have as their primary aim the safeguarding of children, you didn’t do that, therefore objectively, it can be said to have failed.
Your failure in your job has been well established by the furore over the UKIP foster parents and the scandal of the Rotherham Islamic Grooming Gangs.
The question is not that you’ve failed but why are you still in post? Maybe if you had such a thing as a conscience, or some scrap of professional standards, then you would have done the decent thing and resigned. The fact that you haven’t resigned is yet more evidence why you are not a fit and proper person to undertake the task of running Rotherham Children’s Services.
Best Regards
Fahrenheit211
A perfectly reasonable letter except that, I think, in her terms her only failure was to prevent some of the relevant information ‘escaping’ into the public domain. I believe she has, or had, an investigation made into the leak, rather than into how to improve child safety (much scope there, I feel, with possibly the first step being her resignation, and I would hope prosecution, for what on the face of it is covering up very serious crimes).
The fact that Miliband’s (New Labour) candidate was voted in as MP with a substantial majority shows that Thacker and Miliband may have nothing to worry about in terms of Rotherham voter support; however, for most decent folk this is an unsettling glimpse of unrepentant self-righteous ideological vileness lurking in the heart of UK politics, and indeed apparently within the police and law enforcement bodies which would seem to be putrifying from too close contact with the political class.
do you have proof that Joyce thacker is a labour supporter or voter. implying the name of a labour mp and her saying they have nothing to worry about implies that she is. she could easily be lib dem. however she should go for doing an interview in her back garden, straying into false claims about ukip im not a fan of them but they are not against multiculturalism and whatever part she played in the rotheram cover up re paedo gangs. whether this will lead to or is a matter for a criminal prosecution i have no way of knowing.
Paul, welcome to Fahrenheit 211. I’ve lived and worked in Labour one party states similar to Rotherham. I’ve seen for myself how close the supposedly politically neutral council officers become politically aligned to the perma-governing Labour group. Knowing what I know about how such council’s work, it would be unusual for there not to be some overlap of support between Labour and the permanent administrative structure in the town.
I definitely agree she should have gone for the overtly political way she dealt with the UKIP foster parents issue. Re UKIP, I dont’ think that they are classically racist like the BNP but I do think that UKIP have started to recognise, as has a lot of the population, that multiculturalism has brought problems. People are equal but cultures I’m afraid are not.
I do think that there needs to be more digging done about the Rotherham Islamic Grooming Gang scandal.
There are two key issues which Joyce Thacker is responsible for in her position which pose a serious problem for liberty in the UK.
The first is the classification of political affiliation as an apparent child protection issue.
The second is the apparent support for paedophilia and child prostitution from a position of ostensibly being responsible for child protection as evidenced by the grooming issues you highlite in the letter.
Both of these issues are deeply anti-libertarian, and if tolerated by virtue of allowing her to remain in a position of public office have fairly deep implications for basic civil freedoms for all in the UK.
She is an enemy of liberty, and be removed without question.
There is no need to waste thought on this matter, or get bogged down in irrelevant politically correct arguments.
Hi Ironclaws, welcome to Fahrenheit211. Good points there. Thacker needs to go. Sadly, because the Left has managed to infiltrate into so many parts of the establishment (thanks Labour) she is pretty secure or is inline for a big taxpayer pay off. The system in the public sector is now so bent in favour of people like Thacker, that they rarely face any meaningful censure.
Pressure must be kept up until she resigns. She presided over a paedophile scandal on her own patch and was overtly political in a role that should not be. She needs to be removed by Eric Pickles personal and individual decision if necessary. If Pickles took that step he would suddenly become very popular indeed.
Hi Derek. Welcome to Fahrenheit211. ‘Self-righteous ideological vileness’, what a wonderful term and could describe any one of the crap Labour party run hell holes I’ve had the displeasure to live in.
The problem with many places is by combining often bent Islamic postal votes with the tribalistic bovine stupidity of many voters in these Labour ‘one party states’ you seem to end up with a situation where no matter how hard sensible people try, Labour will always control the council.