“IF A perpetrator can spot the vulnerable children, why can’t professionals?” That’s a quote from one of the sex abuse victims in Oxford – and doesn’t it just hit the nail right on the head?

Among the findings of the serious case review, author Dr Alan Bedford found that the “behaviour of the girls was interpreted through eyes, and a language, which saw them as young adults rather than children, and therefore assumed they had control of their actions”, “at times, the girls’ accounts were disbelieved or thought to be exaggerated” and that “what happened to the girls was not recognised as being as terrible as it was because of a view that saw them as consenting, or bringing problems upon themselves, and the victims were often perceived to be hostile to and dismissive of staff”.

In addition, there was “insufficient understanding of the law around consent, and an apparent tolerance of – or failure to be alarmed by – unlawful sexual activity”, and worryingly, “distraught, desperate and terrified parents” were “sometimes seen as part of the problem”.

How appalling that concerned parents believed they could trust the authorities to help them stop what was happening to their children only to find they shrugged their shoulders and looked the other way.

How had this apparent lack of concern for the wellbeing of children aged as young as 12 developed? How had it become acceptable by adults in positions of authority and protection that 12-year-olds should be having sex with older men?

The reason, it seems, was that the victims were “very difficult girls making bad choices” who were dismissed as “naughty, a nuisance” and they were treated as consenting adults.

I have to ask: would these professionals have found it acceptable if this was happening to their own children? Perhaps the alarm bells remained silent because some professionals have become jaded, tired of dealing with the same kind of bolshie teenager who just swears at you even when you’re trying to help. Perhaps they’ve seen it all too many times. It’s also possible that the proliferation of porn on the internet and across almost all media has hardened attitudes. Sadly, many of the 370 victims were “vulnerable”, which I assume means the children lived within dysfunctional families, with a stable family framework and boundaries missing.

Inadequate parents and parenting can result in children seeking attention and love elsewhere, and it’s this need that was spotted and so ruthlessly exploited by the gangs of older men of Pakistani heritage who abused them.

Of course, it is these men who are to blame for the abuse they carried out, not the professionals, but nevertheless professionals are employed to protect the vulnerable, not swat them away like annoying flies.

Gobby teenagers can be awful to deal with – physically and verbally abusive, aggressive, ungrateful – and, according to the serious case review into the Oxford scandal, more effort was put into containing the girls’ behaviour than into investigating their abusers. In fact, the girls were “sometimes treated without common courtesies, and as one victim described it, by ‘snide remarks’”.

The girls’ behaviour, which should have been recognised as the consequence of troubled backgrounds and family circumstances, defined their treatment by professionals who allowed their prejudices to rule their actions. It’s entirely possible the girls were regarded as “poor white trash” while to pursue the abusers, who were men of Pakistani heritage (as it’s been delicately phrased), ran the risk of the dreaded racism label.

Like most publicly funded professions, social work departments and the police are seriously underfunded and understaffed. Government statistics show that in 2013, England’s population was almost 54million and that there were almost 23,000 (full-time equivalent) social workers – each of whom have an average of 17 children in need – with more than 3,600 vacancies. Social work is one of the most stressful occupations, and the fact that it’s always the social worker who’s blamed in these dreadful cases can’t help.

It’s all very well for David Cameron to call for a national debate on child sex exploitation.

What’s more urgently needed from the government and local authorities are the resources to identify it in its early stages and tackle it robustly.