Fears of a “deliberate cover-up” by public officials of the sexual abuse of children in Rotherham have been fuelled by the large number of documents detailing the scandal which have vanished, an investigation by MPs has concluded. They urged the Home Office to launch an immediate search for the missing paperwork and to examine claims that files warning about the activities of paedophile rings were stolen from a locked council office in the South Yorkshire town.

The MPs heard private evidence from a former researcher who was hired by Rotherham Council to find ways of catching men who tried to lure girls and vulnerable young women into prostitution. She referred in a report, which was about to be sent to the Home Office, to the “alleged indifference towards, and ignorance of, child sexual exploitation on the part of senior managers”, the committee said.

“The researcher told us that an unknown individual subsequently gained access to her office and removed all of the data relating to the Home Office work. There were no signs of a forced entry and the action involved moving through key-coded and locked security doors. “She was also subjected to personal hostility at the hands of Council officials and police officers,” the committee said.

The MPs said: “This is not the first case in which it has been alleged that files of information relating to child sexual exploitation have disappeared. The proliferation of revelations about files which can no longer be located gives rise, whether fairly or not, to public suspicion of a deliberate cover-up.