South Yorkshire Police has opened an investigation after video from Saturday evening in Rawmarsh, near Rotherham, showed officers appearing to push teenage girls to the ground. The force itself called the footage "shocking."

But this incident is not happening in isolation. The National Crime Agency — an agency that handles serious crime investigations — is already looking into allegations that South Yorkshire Police officers sexually abused children. That's a far more serious situation than a single use-of-force complaint.

Both investigations involve the same area and raise similar concerns. That overlap will be hard for the police force to separate in the public's mind.

The Rotherham History

South Yorkshire Police has been dealing with institutional damage for over a decade. In 2014, a major inquiry found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. Police not only failed to protect these victims but sometimes actively discouraged them from reporting abuse.

Now the National Crime Agency investigation goes further: it is looking at whether police officers themselves committed crimes against children — not just whether they failed to prevent crimes by others.

A survivor told the BBC in July 2025 that she was raped starting at age 12 by a South Yorkshire Police officer in a marked police car, as part of the wider abuse she suffered from grooming gangs. In February 2026, an MP claimed that a teenage girl had been abused by South Yorkshire Police officers, with at least one still employed by the force.

These are allegations that need investigation. The question of whether the force knew about these officers and failed to act will be central to that process.

Two Different Investigations

The video from Rawmarsh will be handled through the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which is the standard way police complaints about use of force are reviewed. It has established procedures for these situations.

The National Crime Agency investigation operates differently. Because the officers themselves are accused of criminal conduct, the investigation happens outside the police force — it needs that independence. This separation is necessary, but it also means South Yorkshire Police now has multiple oversight bodies checking different things at the same time.

Why This Matters Now

The Rawmarsh footage is what people can see immediately, but it is the smaller piece of the current problem. The National Crime Agency inquiry — looking at whether officers committed sexual abuse — raises a far deeper question: did parts of the police institution itself harm the very children it had catastrophically failed to protect a decade earlier?

For the leadership of South Yorkshire Police, the situation is complicated by overlapping scrutiny. The National Crime Agency is investigating criminal allegations. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is reviewing conduct complaints. And Parliament is watching after a public claim by an MP.

Each body works on its own timeline. Managing all this while trying to rebuild trust with survivors in Rotherham is a problem without a simple answer.

The Rawmarsh video will probably be resolved through standard misconduct procedures within months. The National Crime Agency investigation has no predictable timeline. Whatever it finds will fundamentally shape how South Yorkshire Police confronts the reckoning it has been navigating since 2014.