Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said that it will take over a grooming gang investigation from the South Yorkshire Police after the force came under fire for investigating itself amid accusations that some of its officers were complicit in the sexual exploitation of children and had personally raped young girls.

A team of officers from the NCA’s Operation Stovewood will take the lead in the investigation into “allegations of child sexual abuse by former South Yorkshire Police officers” after the force requested Britain’s equivalent of the FBI to take over the investigation.

It came after allegations from victims of the predominantly Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs in Rotherham, who accused members of the South Yorkshire Police of collaborating with the child rape networks and of se

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