GWENT Police Chief Constable Jeff Farrar said he is confident that his force has a good system in place to prevent a situation of widespread sexual abuse of children as seen in Rotherham.

Newport City councillor David Williams asked the Gwent Police and Crime Panel on Friday if there was anything the force could learn from Rotherham, where a report found that at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013.

Chief Constable Farrar: “Would I say it could never happen? Of course not but I think what we saw there was a police force dealing with what they had on face value and not looking at what was actually happening.

“Gwent Police’s Operation Artemis is about looking at vulnerable young women so that these sorts of circumstances don’t happen. I’m confident that what we’ve got in Gwent is a good system.

“These are awful circumstances in Rotherham and I wouldn’t want to be sat on a Home Office select committee not being able to justify what we’ve done.”