Police officers incorrectly produced a custody sheet for an arrest that never happened, according to the father of a grooming gangs’ victim.

He believes the records may have been falsified in order to cover up two separate arrests when he was trying to rescue his daughter from a grooming gang den in Rotherham. South Yorkshire Police has confirmed it has launched an investigation into the case.

Jack, not his real name, is the father of Elizabeth, also a pseudonym, who was abused by gangs of rapists in a flat in Rotherham for 10 weeks in 2005.

She was lured to the house by Shafina Ali, a white woman who converted to Islam, before being exploited, raped and abused by countless men in the building, across Rotherham, and also elsewhere in the country after being trafficked.

Like many Rotherham parents, Jack knew his daughter was being exploited and desperately sought police support. He told GB News that he made hundreds of reports to South Yorkshire Police about her being missing.

But instead of the force sufficiently investigating the issue, Jack claimed that they arrested him twice as he tried to rescue his daughter from the den.

On the first occasion, he said he went to the flat, was arrested and then swiftly de-arrested at his nearby address and told not to go back.

However, he ignored this guidance and returned to the building where Elizabeth was being held. He claimed that he started kicking the door and shouting. He said that he was arrested again, only this time he was taken to Rotherham police station.

Jack, not his real name, believes the records may have been falsified in order to cover up two separate arrests

Instead of being booked in at the custody desk, Jack said he was taken to a nearby room, held for a brief period, and then released again. He did not return for a third time having been told that Elizabeth’s life would be at risk, along with the lives of other girls.

When the grooming gangs scandal in the town was finally exposed nearly a decade later, Elizabeth submitted complaints to the Independent Office for Police Conduct about the ordeal.

This specific complaint was not upheld as there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that he had been arrested twice outside the building. However, several of Elizabeth’s complaints to the IOPC were upheld after it was revealed how she had been let down by the authorities during her horrendous ordeal.

The IOPC reached the decision in 2021, seven years after he made the complaint.

As part of the legal proceedings, lawyers acting for South Yorkshire Police released a set of custody sheets related to Jack.

One of the sheets says that Jack was arrested for being drunk and disorderly around the time that he claims he was arrested twice outside the abuse den.

An IOPC spokesperson said: “In June, we received a voluntary complaint referral from South Yorkshire Police, which included an allegation relating to concerns regarding a custody record of a family member.

“After assessing the matter, we decided that this complaint should be returned to the force for SYP to deal with the complaint as it deems reasonable and proportionate, noting that the allegation was similar to a previous complaint made by the complainant that had already been through the complaints process.

“The complainant has been notified of our decision.”

A South Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “The IOPC have since reviewed that complaint and subsequently determined that this is a matter for South Yorkshire Police to manage.

“We have since determined that the matter should be investigated, and that investigation is now underway. The complainant has been notified of our decision to investigate.”

Charlie Peters spoke to Jack about his experience with the grooming gangs

Jack insists that this account is false. He told GB News that he had been arrested for underage drinking as a teenager in the 1970s but had not broken laws related to drinking since.

There are other curious elements to the custody sheet. The police record, accessed in June 2021, has written that Jack’s address and age are inconsistent with what was accurate for that period.

The listed address is a property that Jack did not live at until 2010.

GB News has had sight of council tax records supplied by the local authority which demonstrate that Jack lived at a different property around the period of the alleged arrests.

Jack told GB News that he believes this was a mistake made by the police as they retrospectively developed the custody sheet for what he described as a false arrest record.

When asked why SYP officers might have done this, Jack said: “Because they didn’t want it to go public.

“As we all know about Rotherham, we were told we was the only family going through this. We reported it over 200 times over months. We were told: ‘it’s you and your wife’s bad parenting because it's only happening to you’.”

Jack added: “If these police officers are still in the police force now [happy there’s no way these officers can be identified? two are named on custody sheet but presumably that has not been made public?] , obviously they’ve moved up to higher positions and they’re lying and making things up to cover what they’ve done, and it’s wrong.”

He said: “As far as I'm concerned, they’re in the same bed as the perpetrators, because that's what they are. They’re still aiding and abetting these people.”

Rotherham Police Station

The allegations have sparked a fierce political reaction, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage telling GB News: “It’s almost like it’s getting worse. However bad we thought the grooming gang scandal was, it just got worse. This new evidence shows that Rotherham must be part of the national inquiry.”

Jayne Senior, the Rotherham whistleblower who helped to expose the scandal, told the People’s Channel: “This is another example of how South Yorkshire Police failed in their duty to protect our children and listen to parents when they cried out for help.

“I would expect an immediate investigation into how this happened and who appears to have falsified that document to be held to account.”

She added: “We need an investigation to be as quick as possible to give this father answers.”

A former social worker close to the family, who has requested anonymity, said: “I truly feel for this family, a father desperate to keep his daughter safe and failed by the very organisation that is here to protect us all.”

They added: “His family were torn apart, not only by her abusers but also by South Yorkshire Police. The trauma the family still live with is immeasurable and this has been disregarded by the IOPC and South Yorkshire Police.

“Changes need to happen to protect our children and their families… Rotherham needs to be part of the inquiry and professionals and police officers need to be brought to task and dealt with appropriately.”

Jack pointed to the exact part of the document

In legal correspondence seen by GB News, solicitors representing South Yorkshire Police said in 2021 that while the IOPC found no record of the arrest, the watchdog concluded that his arrest outside the abuse den in 2005 was lawful “to prevent a breach of the peace.”

Soon after GB News approached the IOPC for comment on the custody sheet, an analyst sent a note to Elizabeth to say that the complaint had been sent back to South Yorkshire Police’s Professional Standards Department for their oversight.

In 2021, the police watchdog published its report into policing failures during the abuse scandal. During the seven-year investigation, the second largest in its history, the IOPC investigated 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants.

Forty-seven officers were investigated. Just eight were found to have a case to answer for misconduct.

Five faced sanctions, the harshest of which was a final written warning.

In January, IOPC whistleblowers told Channel 4 that the investigation itself was a failure.

Garry Harper, who served for two years on Operation Linden's major investigations team, said: “We’re just another chapter in the failure for the survivors. They haven’t received the service they should have received and the force hasn’t been held to account in the way that it should.”

A spokesman for the IOPC said at the time that some of the allegations were "completely inaccurate" and defended the effectiveness of Operation Linden.