Children go missing from council care homes 7,000 times EVERY year – with more than 1,000 missing kids in Rotherham since the sex abuse scandal in 2011

CHILDREN have gone missing from council care 34,000 times in the past five years – with NINE still unaccounted for, the Sun can reveal.

Local authorities were accused of leaving kids at risk of “sexual and criminal exploitation” as new figures showed how care homes and foster parents are letting down vulnerable kids.

One went ‘missing’ in Portsmouth for 679 days.

Sixteen of the 34,062 ‘incidents’ recorded by councils since 2011-2012 involve babies, whose disappearance has been put down to parents taking them during a ‘contact’ visit.

Children’s charity the NSPCC said: “These are extremely worrying statistics and call into question the ability of local authorities to protect children in their care.

“There is an urgent need to understand why this is happening in such large numbers.

"Many of these children are at grave risk of further harm, including sexual and criminal exploitation.”

Rotherham Council has recorded 1,656 incidents of kids going missing since 2011 – including 235 this year.

This comes despite councillors vowing to protect children after the astonishing sex abuse scandal that rocked the town two years ago.

The data collated by the Lib Dems is based on FOI responses from just 76 councils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland – meaning the true scale of the problem is likely to be far greater.

It covers the period from 2011/2012 to the current year.

Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said the figures lay bare the “widespread failures” to keep our most vulnerable young people safe.

“This should be of concern to both local and national Government,” he said.