The police force at the centre of the Rotherham child abuse scandal is still failing to record crimes against children properly, a report has said.
South Yorkshire Police's public protection unit spent a "great deal of time" trying to "disprove" allegations, said HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
It said the force's public protection unit showed "a disregard for victims".
A separate report on Tuesday found a "collective failure" by the authorities to stop child abuse in Rotherham.
That inquiry, by Professor Alexis Jay, said at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited from 1997-2013, mainly by gangs of men of Pakistani heritage.
The new investigation, which saw HMIC inspectors visit South Yorkshire Police in February, threatened to put more pressure on police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright.
He has so far resisted calls to resign as commissioner, with Nick Clegg the latest to call for him to go, but he has quit the Labour Party.
The HMIC report said the force's public protection unit (PPU) had a cultural "disregard for victims".
It criticised the unit for under-recording crime, highlighting the impact this had on vulnerable children who had been victims of sexual assault.
The HMIC looked at 117 crimes that should have been recorded, but found that only 89 had been.
Of those, three were wrongly classified. The report highlighted "a serious need for improvement in the accuracy and timeliness of crime recording decisions".
It said: "There is an inherent risk that a significant number of reported offences of a serious nature have not been recorded and that vulnerable victims have, as a consequence, been left unprotected or at risk of further offending."
The force welcomed the HMIC report, but it said it was important to note it was about the recording of crime and not the way it was investigated.
"We recognise that systems need improving and there is a programme in place to do so, including IT and the force's public protection unit stand-alone system," the statement said.
South Yorkshire Police is already under scrutiny after Professor Jay's report criticised police for not making child sexual exploitation (CSE) a priority and "regarding many child victims with contempt".
Abuse police face fresh criticism
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