April 5, 2023 - 10:15am
Much of the British media has not taken kindly to the Government’s new plans to clamp down on grooming gangs. After the Prime Minister announced a raft of policies to tackle the crisis, columnists singled out Home Secretary Suella Braverman for claiming that British Pakistanis were largely to blame for child abuse networks in the UK.
The Guardian’s political editor rushed to refer to the 2020 Home Office report, which she said “concluded majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under age of 30”; presenter Adil Ray compared the “racist” reaction to Braverman’s claim to the atmosphere after “9/11 and 7/7”; and the i paper’s chief political commentator argued that “Rishi Sunak’s focus on Asian grooming gangs fails his own test of ‘evidence-based politics’”. Politicians were also swift to condemn the Home Secretary’s comments, with West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin describing the statement as “dog whistle politics”.
These are just a handful of examples. But this week, Braverman responded by telling me that “it’s not racist to tell the truth,” defending her claim that British Pakistanis are over-represented in this kind of child abuse. Downing Street was more mealy-mouthed, adding that there was insufficient evidence linking ethnicity to abuse.
The 2020 Home Office report to which Braverman’s critics keep referring is deeply flawed. Although it concluded that a majority of group-based abusers were white, it warned that the data was too poor to be certain and also said that many studies showed ethnic minorities were over-represented.
Even if Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford had been isolated or minority cases, they would still have been notable. Only around 2-3% of the population of Rotherham during the period examined by the Jay Report came from a Pakistani ethnic background. Most abusers of the 1,400 girls therefore came from a population of only around 8,000 people. They were hugely over-represented.
In Rotherham, the Casey Report also found that the majority of abusers were of Pakistani ethnicity and the majority of victims were white. This was “a matter of fact”. Rotherham Council was scared of mentioning ethnicity and confronting that there was “a race issue here.”
The scale of the abuse in small towns; the total failures of the authorities due to fears of being seen as racist; and the close-knit groups of family, friends and work colleagues who deliberately preyed on girls from another community would still make these the worst race hate crimes in 21st-century Britain.
In the year-long investigation for my documentary on grooming gangs, my team trawled through all of the available Government, police and academic research and reporting on the nature of group-based child sexual exploitation. We did find a pattern.
A 2020 study titled “Group Localised Child Sexual Exploitation Offenders: Who and Why?” showed that people of Muslim and especially Pakistani heritage were significantly over-represented in group-based localised child sexual exploitation. By comparing the number of prosecutions to the overall population, it showed that one in every 2,200 Muslim men over 16 in England and Wales had been prosecuted for this crime from 1997 to 2017. When it came to Pakistanis, it was one in 1,700.
What’s more, there’s plenty of evidence from prosecutions that the abusers chose their victims for racial reasons. They were “white girls”, “white slags”, “white bitches”. This is the language of racism — and yet Britain’s leading anti-racist charities don’t seem to see it that way.
It’s clear that many in the British Asian community were unwilling to face reality when this national scandal was brewing. When Labour MP Anne Cryer spoke to local imams about Asian men abusing white girls, they didn’t want to hear it.
Despite prosecution after prosecution, there is still a complete unwillingness to have a conversation about this problem. The vicious reaction to Braverman’s (accurate) comments reveal as much. Until that changes, this crisis will only worsen.
CDP1882
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SubscribeAll decent people should deliberately, loudly, and vocally use phrases like “Pakistani paedophile rape gangs” as often as possible.
Categorising everything under the head “grooming” is how they fiddle with the figures.
What these Pakistani gangs do should be in an officially distinct form of offending. It is the systematic gang rape, prostitution and sexual torture of white children. But throw them in to the same category as some white saddos chatting up children on the internet and the fact that this evil, repugnant type of offending is committed almost exclusively by one ethnic group is concealed.
If the government was really serious about tackling this issue they would officially mandate that the police and courts record the ethnicity of every person charged and convicted of being involved in a gang rape or selling of females for sex. Whether the females were women or children and their ethnicity should also be documented Then we can have the truth, and I think I can safely predict the Left won’t like what the figures show.
Great comment. These are organised crime gangs that practice race based sexual enslavement for perverted pleasure and financial gain. The problem should be treated as such
Exceedingly well said.
Why should the Government take the issue seriously.
It is never going to be their children or the children of the likes of Garry Lineker.
Of course what it does show is the contempt that the Pakistani community have for the white population.
Great comment. These are organised crime gangs that practice race based sexual enslavement for perverted pleasure and financial gain. The problem should be treated as such
Exceedingly well said.
Why should the Government take the issue seriously.
It is never going to be their children or the children of the likes of Garry Lineker.
Of course what it does show is the contempt that the Pakistani community have for the white population.
Yes indeed, Richard, but the religious affiliation of these gangs is an additional factor of great relevance. Unfortunately, by adding the necessary word the phrase becomes overly long.
Pakistani and Muslim are mutually inclusive so you don’t need to add religious affiliation. Additionally you want to keep Islamophobia lobby at bay.
James has a point. There are fairly numerous Pakistani Hindu and Christian minorities, who as far as I know aren’t implicated in the paedophile rape gang culture of Pakistani Muslims.
And in fact these minorities are upon whom the rape culture has been practiced for centuries and decades respectively.
And in fact these minorities are upon whom the rape culture has been practiced for centuries and decades respectively.
James has a point. There are fairly numerous Pakistani Hindu and Christian minorities, who as far as I know aren’t implicated in the paedophile rape gang culture of Pakistani Muslims.
Pakistani and Muslim are mutually inclusive so you don’t need to add religious affiliation. Additionally you want to keep Islamophobia lobby at bay.
Why don’t you say “Pakistani Muslim paedophile…” because that is a) statistically valid, and b) follows a historically documented trend #PuppetMermaid
Well if you are going to be specific it should say “Pakistani Muslim…” a) because it is true; b) because it follows a pattern dating back to the PuppetMermaid
The Corrupt, Spineless British media (esp BBC), instead of exposing these — EVIL PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS, — tried their best to Cover it all up & kept it under wraps for more than a decade.
And that is not all..
…Once the Horror of PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS came to light (thanks to some independent journalists), the Shameless British Media tried its level best to Shield PAKISTANI RAPISTS by using Generic terms, such as; —— ASIAN Grooming Gangs, ASIAN Men, instead of PAKISTANI MEN.
Categorising everything under the head “grooming” is how they fiddle with the figures.
What these Pakistani gangs do should be in an officially distinct form of offending. It is the systematic gang rape, prostitution and sexual torture of white children. But throw them in to the same category as some white saddos chatting up children on the internet and the fact that this evil, repugnant type of offending is committed almost exclusively by one ethnic group is concealed.
If the government was really serious about tackling this issue they would officially mandate that the police and courts record the ethnicity of every person charged and convicted of being involved in a gang rape or selling of females for sex. Whether the females were women or children and their ethnicity should also be documented Then we can have the truth, and I think I can safely predict the Left won’t like what the figures show.
Yes indeed, Richard, but the religious affiliation of these gangs is an additional factor of great relevance. Unfortunately, by adding the necessary word the phrase becomes overly long.
Why don’t you say “Pakistani Muslim paedophile…” because that is a) statistically valid, and b) follows a historically documented trend #PuppetMermaid
Well if you are going to be specific it should say “Pakistani Muslim…” a) because it is true; b) because it follows a pattern dating back to the PuppetMermaid
The Corrupt, Spineless British media (esp BBC), instead of exposing these — EVIL PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS, — tried their best to Cover it all up & kept it under wraps for more than a decade.
And that is not all..
…Once the Horror of PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS came to light (thanks to some independent journalists), the Shameless British Media tried its level best to Shield PAKISTANI RAPISTS by using Generic terms, such as; —— ASIAN Grooming Gangs, ASIAN Men, instead of PAKISTANI MEN.
All decent people should deliberately, loudly, and vocally use phrases like “Pakistani paedophile rape gangs” as often as possible.
“The data is incomplete and depends on Police determining ethnicity, if it’s captured at all.”
Which us just how the Left like it.
“The data is incomplete and depends on Police determining ethnicity, if it’s captured at all.”
Which us just how the Left like it.
It can be both be true that whites are the majority of child abusers in absolute terms and that Pakistanis are overrepresented as child abusers. The first is referring to the raw numbers, the second is based on per capita. This sort of rhetorical dodge is pulled all the time in one context or another, women’s pay is another example of where you see it.
It can be both be true that whites are the majority of child abusers in absolute terms and that Pakistanis are overrepresented as child abusers. The first is referring to the raw numbers, the second is based on per capita. This sort of rhetorical dodge is pulled all the time in one context or another, women’s pay is another example of where you see it.
Can anyone recall ever seeing the mugshots of a white, child rape, prostitution and sexual torture (RPST) gang? I must have missed every single one because, although I’ve seen hundreds of mugshots of convicted Pakistani offenders I don’t recall seeing one reported white British gang.
Over recent years I have come to believe that any report or academic study on a politically contentious matter is worthless. All our institutions have been captured by Leftists, but academia more than any other. Once one digs down into the studies, the shoddiness and deceit used to reach the wanted conclusions is apparent. Looking at the end of the 2020 Report, I see the typical list of referenced academic studies from “experts”. I don’t doubt that every one of those academics is from the Left. Further, each will know that should they conclude anything that could be described as “racist”, their academic careers are over.
I’ll take a guess at how the figures were fiddled.
Priti Patel opined at the time of the HO report that data on the ethnicty of offenders was not being routinely taken and it was not possible to draw any conclusions. Now one would have though she would have immediately ordered the mandatory recording of ethnicity, but no. No doubt the police were much more comfortable recording the ethnicy of white offenders rather than risk the accusation that they were targeting a particular ethnic groiup.
Next I suspect that lumped “grooming” in to one large category. In with the disgusting Pakistani RPST gangs, were white saddos sitting on their computers trying to chat up kids on the internet. All tecnically “groomers” but very different offences. The RPST gangs are induge in the systematic gang rape, prostitution and racist sexual torture of white children. It is a distint type of offending that should be in a recognised seperate category rather than disgracefully always being euphemistically described as “grooming”.
Lastly, how many of those white offenders were foreign nationals. We know that Eastern European gangs have become dominant in drug dealing and prostitution – often of young girls.
But back to where I started: if RPST gangs isn’t a crime particular to Pakistanis in Britain where are the newspaper reports of alleged white British gangs, and their mugshots? To Guardian and the twitter mob denying that RPT gangs are not committed almost exclusivey by men of Pakistani background against white children, challenge them to give some examples of reported white British RPST gangs, because I’ve looked and I can’t find one.
Well there’s one such picture on the BBC News website right now.
Are the mugshots of gang rapists and racist sexual torturers of children?
The offences in that case appear to be that parents allowed their children to be abused by 4-5 pedophiles.
It is a disgusting crime, but it is distict from the targeting of vulnerable white children to gang rape (victims recorded being forced to have sex with over 100 men in one night), prostitute and sexually torture while screaming racist abuse.
Seven. 21 offenders, seven children. Remind me again of the numbers in Rochdale?
1400.
1400.
Are the mugshots of gang rapists and racist sexual torturers of children?
The offences in that case appear to be that parents allowed their children to be abused by 4-5 pedophiles.
It is a disgusting crime, but it is distict from the targeting of vulnerable white children to gang rape (victims recorded being forced to have sex with over 100 men in one night), prostitute and sexually torture while screaming racist abuse.
Seven. 21 offenders, seven children. Remind me again of the numbers in Rochdale?
I have searched for and found reports on more than 50 grooming gang trials and so far I have only found one gang predominately made up of white British suspects convicted of forcing underage girls to have sex for money.
In April 2017 five people were convicted of sexual offences against five girls in Sheffield. One of those convicted was Amanda Spencer who had previous convictions for forcing underage girls into prostitution in Sheffield. One of those convicted was Taleb Bapir who was one of the men who Amanda Spencer pimped a girl out to. The other three who were convicted were brothers Christopher, Shane and Matthew Whiteley of Sheffield who were the ringleaders of the gang.
I have found two linked trials in 2021 and 2022 of a gang in Burton-upon-Trent where those convicted were mainly white but from Eastern Europe. I have found a trial in 2019 of a gang in Manchester where the gang were white but from Romania. I have found a trial in 2014 of a gang in Peterborough where the gang were white but from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are two trials in Sheffield in which only one man was convicted but his case was very unusual because whilst only one man was ever accused of committing sexual offences a lot more people were (possibly unwittingly) involved in grooming his victims.
The other 40-odd trials involving 200-odd suspects? They are the sort The Guardian doesn’t like to report.
Well there’s one such picture on the BBC News website right now.
I have searched for and found reports on more than 50 grooming gang trials and so far I have only found one gang predominately made up of white British suspects convicted of forcing underage girls to have sex for money.
In April 2017 five people were convicted of sexual offences against five girls in Sheffield. One of those convicted was Amanda Spencer who had previous convictions for forcing underage girls into prostitution in Sheffield. One of those convicted was Taleb Bapir who was one of the men who Amanda Spencer pimped a girl out to. The other three who were convicted were brothers Christopher, Shane and Matthew Whiteley of Sheffield who were the ringleaders of the gang.
I have found two linked trials in 2021 and 2022 of a gang in Burton-upon-Trent where those convicted were mainly white but from Eastern Europe. I have found a trial in 2019 of a gang in Manchester where the gang were white but from Romania. I have found a trial in 2014 of a gang in Peterborough where the gang were white but from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are two trials in Sheffield in which only one man was convicted but his case was very unusual because whilst only one man was ever accused of committing sexual offences a lot more people were (possibly unwittingly) involved in grooming his victims.
The other 40-odd trials involving 200-odd suspects? They are the sort The Guardian doesn’t like to report.
Can anyone recall ever seeing the mugshots of a white, child rape, prostitution and sexual torture (RPST) gang? I must have missed every single one because, although I’ve seen hundreds of mugshots of convicted Pakistani offenders I don’t recall seeing one reported white British gang.
Over recent years I have come to believe that any report or academic study on a politically contentious matter is worthless. All our institutions have been captured by Leftists, but academia more than any other. Once one digs down into the studies, the shoddiness and deceit used to reach the wanted conclusions is apparent. Looking at the end of the 2020 Report, I see the typical list of referenced academic studies from “experts”. I don’t doubt that every one of those academics is from the Left. Further, each will know that should they conclude anything that could be described as “racist”, their academic careers are over.
I’ll take a guess at how the figures were fiddled.
Priti Patel opined at the time of the HO report that data on the ethnicty of offenders was not being routinely taken and it was not possible to draw any conclusions. Now one would have though she would have immediately ordered the mandatory recording of ethnicity, but no. No doubt the police were much more comfortable recording the ethnicy of white offenders rather than risk the accusation that they were targeting a particular ethnic groiup.
Next I suspect that lumped “grooming” in to one large category. In with the disgusting Pakistani RPST gangs, were white saddos sitting on their computers trying to chat up kids on the internet. All tecnically “groomers” but very different offences. The RPST gangs are induge in the systematic gang rape, prostitution and racist sexual torture of white children. It is a distint type of offending that should be in a recognised seperate category rather than disgracefully always being euphemistically described as “grooming”.
Lastly, how many of those white offenders were foreign nationals. We know that Eastern European gangs have become dominant in drug dealing and prostitution – often of young girls.
But back to where I started: if RPST gangs isn’t a crime particular to Pakistanis in Britain where are the newspaper reports of alleged white British gangs, and their mugshots? To Guardian and the twitter mob denying that RPT gangs are not committed almost exclusivey by men of Pakistani background against white children, challenge them to give some examples of reported white British RPST gangs, because I’ve looked and I can’t find one.
The contempt in which white working class girls are held by middle class professionals is also an issue. There is also an assumption that their parents will behave in a middle class way and will have their best interests at heart and value education, whereas those things are clearly not the case. Whilst boys are often indulged, working class girls are treated like adults from their mid teens; something that the middle class finds hard to comprehend. They are, therefore, treated like perpetrators rather than victims, both by professionals and by their own families.
16/17 year olds are particularly vulnerable. They are over the age of consent but have no legal rights. They have probably dropped out of education, because there is no support for it at home, and their mothers were probably pregnant as teenagers so expect them to be too. There is nowhere for them to turn and no one looking out for them.
behave in a middle class way? what? drink Earl Grey tea with the pinkie poking out, call traffic jams ” traffic preserves” and call shampoo ” fauxstool”?
I don’t know why you got the downvotes. Your comment was actually quite funny.
I don’t know why you got the downvotes. Your comment was actually quite funny.
Isnt this actually a standard conservative / right wing mindset? That parents should be responsible for their children? Obviously this is the ideal situation, but the reality on the ground is that many parents simply are not, and it is vulnerable children who end up suffering.
I’m not sure how much class comes into it. There is just a propensity for people to not want to grapple with the fact that the state needs to intervene with care for many children, because bad parents dont and communities dont want to.
behave in a middle class way? what? drink Earl Grey tea with the pinkie poking out, call traffic jams ” traffic preserves” and call shampoo ” fauxstool”?
Isnt this actually a standard conservative / right wing mindset? That parents should be responsible for their children? Obviously this is the ideal situation, but the reality on the ground is that many parents simply are not, and it is vulnerable children who end up suffering.
I’m not sure how much class comes into it. There is just a propensity for people to not want to grapple with the fact that the state needs to intervene with care for many children, because bad parents dont and communities dont want to.
The contempt in which white working class girls are held by middle class professionals is also an issue. There is also an assumption that their parents will behave in a middle class way and will have their best interests at heart and value education, whereas those things are clearly not the case. Whilst boys are often indulged, working class girls are treated like adults from their mid teens; something that the middle class finds hard to comprehend. They are, therefore, treated like perpetrators rather than victims, both by professionals and by their own families.
16/17 year olds are particularly vulnerable. They are over the age of consent but have no legal rights. They have probably dropped out of education, because there is no support for it at home, and their mothers were probably pregnant as teenagers so expect them to be too. There is nowhere for them to turn and no one looking out for them.
I thought that when crime statistics are going to be used to associate a particular group with a kind of crime, you don’t just look at abslute numbers, you compare offending rates, i.e. offences committed by group X per thousand members of group X. Approximately 3% of the population are Pakistanis, so if more than 3% of the offences are committed by Pakistanis, then there is a basis for more investigation.
I thought that when crime statistics are going to be used to associate a particular group with a kind of crime, you don’t just look at abslute numbers, you compare offending rates, i.e. offences committed by group X per thousand members of group X. Approximately 3% of the population are Pakistanis, so if more than 3% of the offences are committed by Pakistanis, then there is a basis for more investigation.
Hear hear! How radical Islamists must laugh, as whereas in Africa they have to fight wars, but in Britain it is all done for them…
Hear hear! How radical Islamists must laugh, as whereas in Africa they have to fight wars, but in Britain it is all done for them…
“Conversations”? How about taking action? Arrest, conviction, incarceration, deportation. Enough of this cowardice.
“Conversations”? How about taking action? Arrest, conviction, incarceration, deportation. Enough of this cowardice.
It has taken too long for mandatory reporting to be introduced but almost everything that has been done about grooming gangs has been too little too late. Having read news reports of many trials I know that some abusers were only convicted more than fifteen or twenty years after the offences were reported to the police. Some politicians knew what was happening twenty years ago. The Guardian newspaper was told about grooming gangs in Keighley twenty years ago and it could have uncovered the Rotherham scandal in 2001 if it had cared more about other people’s children.
The grooming gang scandal is far worse than Partygate. It is worse than Watergate. It is a story of state-sanctioned industrial-scale child rape.
It has taken too long for mandatory reporting to be introduced but almost everything that has been done about grooming gangs has been too little too late. Having read news reports of many trials I know that some abusers were only convicted more than fifteen or twenty years after the offences were reported to the police. Some politicians knew what was happening twenty years ago. The Guardian newspaper was told about grooming gangs in Keighley twenty years ago and it could have uncovered the Rotherham scandal in 2001 if it had cared more about other people’s children.
The grooming gang scandal is far worse than Partygate. It is worse than Watergate. It is a story of state-sanctioned industrial-scale child rape.
The Corrupt, Spineless British media (esp BBC), instead of exposing these — EVIL PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS, — tried their best to Cover it all up & kept it under wraps for more than a decade.
And that is not all..
…Once the Horror of PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS came to light (thanks to some independent journalists), the Shameless British Media tried its level best to Shield PAKISTANI RAPISTS by using Generic terms, such as; —— ASIAN Grooming Gangs, ASIAN Men, instead of PAKISTANI MEN.
The Corrupt, Spineless British media (esp BBC), instead of exposing these — EVIL PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS, — tried their best to Cover it all up & kept it under wraps for more than a decade.
And that is not all..
…Once the Horror of PAKISTANI RAPE GANGS came to light (thanks to some independent journalists), the Shameless British Media tried its level best to Shield PAKISTANI RAPISTS by using Generic terms, such as; —— ASIAN Grooming Gangs, ASIAN Men, instead of PAKISTANI MEN.
The data is incomplete and depends on Police determining ethnicity, if it’s captured at all. Of the data that is available it indicates biggest group is significantly White Male.
Nonetheless as a proportion there is something in the over-representation contention that can’t be avoided. But the danger is rather than think about all the child abuse we have to tackle and how we do that a certain section of the Media and Body Politic wants to only have headlines with a racial undercurrent.
It’s not unreasonable to ask some uncomfortable cultural questions – we see how women appear to be treated in some parts of Muslim world with utter horror and obviously wonder if this culture imported in a small minority. But when you don’t see the Headline writers then also pressing for more specialist Police and Social worker investment you begin to doubt the sincerity of the concern for the terribly vulnerable.
As Charlie Peters rightly points out the 2020 Home Office report states that the data was too poor to be certain. When I looked at the references in that report something else struck me: 45 pieces of research are cited in the 2020 Home Office but only one of them was published before 2010. We know from official inquiries and criminal trials that grooming gangs were operating in the late 1990s and in some cases before that but academic research into the problem only seems to have begun in earnest in the 2010s and the quality of the data it has found was poor. Why wasn’t more better quality research done earlier?
The answer to that question is that it was done earlier. The Jay report found that the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme commissioned research into prostitution to be conducted in 2001 with the ‘young people and prostitution’ part of the research to be carried out in Bristol, Sheffield and Rotherham and evaluated by the University of Luton. The research carried out in Rotherham collected a lot of information about abusers but the research was not funded for its second year due to ‘implementation problems’ and the University of Luton’s “final evaluation report did not include the Rotherham project”. When the researcher wrote to the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police about her concerns about the lack of action taken to protect the victims “this resulted in a meeting with the District Commander and senior Council officials at which she was instructed never to do such a thing again” and after the researcher submitted her data to the Home Office “the Council suspended the researcher on the basis that she had committed ‘an act of gross misconduct’” and she was not allowed to have further access to victims, meetings or data.
The reason why there has been so little research into child sexual exploitation and the quality of the data is so poor is because for many years the policy of many people on child sexual exploitation has been “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” and that includes universities which could have done research earlier and done better quality research. The police, social services, education, the NHS, local councillors, MPs and government ministers knew what was happening but they didn’t want the public to know. The cover-up began in the early 2000s and whilst the scandal was partially uncovered in Keighley and Bradford in the mid-2000s it wasn’t until the early 2010s that Andrew Norfolk in The Times started to expose the truth and forced Rotherham Council to commission the Jay inquiry. Even after it has been proved that abuse has been taking places for decades and there are thousands of victims some people still want to deny it, downplay it, divert attention away from it or defame people who talk about it.
The key to understanding the grooming gang scandal is to ask not who or where but when the cover-up happened.
Let’s not make this about something it isn’t.
There’s one legal system in this country (despite some people’s attempts to introduce their own parallel systems). That has always been based on the principle of equality before the law and has never had any built-in racial discrimination (or cultural discrimination until the last few decades). And nor should it. There is more than enough evidence to show that the cases discussed in this article were not handled seriously or urgently enough by the authorities (local goverment/agencies and police).
This is about two things. Prosecution and punishment of serious crimes. And protection of vulnerable young girls from abuse. It is nothing to do with “dog whistle politics” (whatever that is). It doesn’t matter what the headline writers do or don’t say. There are people paid to deal with this stuff who should be doing it properly. If they can’t, they need to be fired. It doesn’t need more “specialist police”. It just needs people to do their real jobs and stop wasting time on peripheral activities or finding excuses for not doing what they should.
And how is it exactly that the police aren’t “determining ethnicity” ? Every government form I get has this question. Far more likely they’re suppressing reporting here.
The Jay report was clear there had been an undue/unacceptable reluctance to follow up claims due to worry about racism allegations etc. Not acceptable as we all agree. But the timing now of a number of Articles is the interesting bit. Prompted by Braverman pushing the point about legal duty to report earlier this wk. Well this had been a recommendation for some years that Govt failed to act on. Why not? And why now?
All part of strategy to play the dog whistles as much as poss now as run out of other positives IMO.
As regards recording and Police – you are assuming Police have/had the forms to complete. They didn’t, and still in some areas of policing, still don’t. Where they did they had to determine it. The alleged criminal suspect didn’t complete it.
You are also assuming they’ve sufficient resource and training to improve detection rate. They don’t. They’ll be plenty of child abuse going on they are not aware of or able to investigate all leads. And then we don’t have sufficient children’s social workers able to potentially intervene earlier and then help when abuse uncovered. In fact as you’ll have heard on Media yesterday, promises on social care funding, including social worker workforce, now been halved.
We interested in really sorting or headlines was more primary point. I think still has validity.
The answer to the question “Why now?” Is because the final report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was published on 20th October 2022. The Jay report into Rotherham was published on 26th August 2014 but I don’t think mandatory reporting was recommended in that report. Mandatory reporting had been proposed elsewhere before but it was recommended in the IICSA report so the government is now consulting on how that recommendation should be enshrined in law.
It has taken a few months for the government to respond and it will take a while for the consultation and the legislative process to be completed. However, there has been a lot of talk recently about the failings of the Metropolitan police which is obviously more important than thousands of underage girls being raped up north over decades under the noses of corrupt or incompetent police officers, social workers, councillors, MPs and government ministers. Everything else is more important to some people than thousands of underage girls being raped.
Thanks for further highlighting the point – 8yrs between clear recommendation and decision now to do something. 8 years!
You have misunderstood my point (although that may be because I don’t include links in my posts for fear that they won’t be posted). The Jay report of 2014 following the inquiry into Rotherham DID NOT recommend mandatory reporting. The IICSA report of 2022 following the nationwide inquiry DID recommend mandatory reporting.
After the 2014 report there were calls for mandatory reporting from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and also from Keir Starmer (who was no longer DPP but was not yet a Labour MP). On 30th August 2014 Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told The Observer that mandatory reporting “will also challenge the idea that any professional should be tempted to think that things can be solved quietly or privately by brushing them under the carpet” and that “a clear signal needs to be put out that people should not put institutional reputation before protecting children.” The government considered it but did not introduce it because it thought the existing statutory guidance was “crystal clear”.
The same Observer report also stated that “Labour is also planning to make the cover-up or concealment of known child abuse a criminal offence” but if the “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” New Labour government had done that in 1997 a few cabinet ministers and at least one Prime Minister would have been prosecuted under their own law following the Jay report of 2014, along with a few MPs and lots of councillors, council officials and senior police officers.
Yes thanks for taking the time to set that out. You are right. The 2014 report generated/prompted the call for mandatory reporting. It has taken too long, far too long IMO, to become a more formal recommendation that Govt actually thinking about enacting. And it’s the same Party in charge now almost making out the intervening 8yrs didn’t exist. It doesn’t have to wait if it thinks something needs doing now.
Yes thanks for taking the time to set that out. You are right. The 2014 report generated/prompted the call for mandatory reporting. It has taken too long, far too long IMO, to become a more formal recommendation that Govt actually thinking about enacting. And it’s the same Party in charge now almost making out the intervening 8yrs didn’t exist. It doesn’t have to wait if it thinks something needs doing now.
You have misunderstood my point (although that may be because I don’t include links in my posts for fear that they won’t be posted). The Jay report of 2014 following the inquiry into Rotherham DID NOT recommend mandatory reporting. The IICSA report of 2022 following the nationwide inquiry DID recommend mandatory reporting.
After the 2014 report there were calls for mandatory reporting from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats and also from Keir Starmer (who was no longer DPP but was not yet a Labour MP). On 30th August 2014 Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told The Observer that mandatory reporting “will also challenge the idea that any professional should be tempted to think that things can be solved quietly or privately by brushing them under the carpet” and that “a clear signal needs to be put out that people should not put institutional reputation before protecting children.” The government considered it but did not introduce it because it thought the existing statutory guidance was “crystal clear”.
The same Observer report also stated that “Labour is also planning to make the cover-up or concealment of known child abuse a criminal offence” but if the “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” New Labour government had done that in 1997 a few cabinet ministers and at least one Prime Minister would have been prosecuted under their own law following the Jay report of 2014, along with a few MPs and lots of councillors, council officials and senior police officers.
Thanks for further highlighting the point – 8yrs between clear recommendation and decision now to do something. 8 years!
I don’t care about the timing or the headlines. This stuff is really important and needs to be done properly. End of as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t care about resources or detection rates. This is top priority stuff and the resources are already there to do it. No one – whether in the private or public sector – will ever admit they have enough resources. It is well understood in good organisations how to prioritise. The failure here is one of prioritisation. Nothing to do with money or resources.
I do care about the police and government wasting ever more resources on non-essential (and often value destroying) activities when they leave serious problems unsorted.
These are problems of competence and prioritisation. Not resources.
All three I think we’d find the leads for Forces say
All three I think we’d find the leads for Forces say
The answer to the question “Why now?” Is because the final report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was published on 20th October 2022. The Jay report into Rotherham was published on 26th August 2014 but I don’t think mandatory reporting was recommended in that report. Mandatory reporting had been proposed elsewhere before but it was recommended in the IICSA report so the government is now consulting on how that recommendation should be enshrined in law.
It has taken a few months for the government to respond and it will take a while for the consultation and the legislative process to be completed. However, there has been a lot of talk recently about the failings of the Metropolitan police which is obviously more important than thousands of underage girls being raped up north over decades under the noses of corrupt or incompetent police officers, social workers, councillors, MPs and government ministers. Everything else is more important to some people than thousands of underage girls being raped.
I don’t care about the timing or the headlines. This stuff is really important and needs to be done properly. End of as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t care about resources or detection rates. This is top priority stuff and the resources are already there to do it. No one – whether in the private or public sector – will ever admit they have enough resources. It is well understood in good organisations how to prioritise. The failure here is one of prioritisation. Nothing to do with money or resources.
I do care about the police and government wasting ever more resources on non-essential (and often value destroying) activities when they leave serious problems unsorted.
These are problems of competence and prioritisation. Not resources.
errrr… not in Northern Ireland?
What not in Northern Ireland ? Not clear what your question is about.
one policing / political system with no cultural or racial discrimination inbuilt: that was not the case in Northern Ireland at the start of the current troubles.
Perhaps true. Though not true of the rest of the UK, so doesn’t really invalidate what I said.
Perhaps true. Though not true of the rest of the UK, so doesn’t really invalidate what I said.
one policing / political system with no cultural or racial discrimination inbuilt: that was not the case in Northern Ireland at the start of the current troubles.
What not in Northern Ireland ? Not clear what your question is about.
The Jay report was clear there had been an undue/unacceptable reluctance to follow up claims due to worry about racism allegations etc. Not acceptable as we all agree. But the timing now of a number of Articles is the interesting bit. Prompted by Braverman pushing the point about legal duty to report earlier this wk. Well this had been a recommendation for some years that Govt failed to act on. Why not? And why now?
All part of strategy to play the dog whistles as much as poss now as run out of other positives IMO.
As regards recording and Police – you are assuming Police have/had the forms to complete. They didn’t, and still in some areas of policing, still don’t. Where they did they had to determine it. The alleged criminal suspect didn’t complete it.
You are also assuming they’ve sufficient resource and training to improve detection rate. They don’t. They’ll be plenty of child abuse going on they are not aware of or able to investigate all leads. And then we don’t have sufficient children’s social workers able to potentially intervene earlier and then help when abuse uncovered. In fact as you’ll have heard on Media yesterday, promises on social care funding, including social worker workforce, now been halved.
We interested in really sorting or headlines was more primary point. I think still has validity.
errrr… not in Northern Ireland?
The ‘available data’ which indicates that the biggest group is ‘significantly White Male’ has provided a lifeline for those mindless do-gooders who refuse to see any harm in multi-culturalism. They will squeeze that headline to the max – but I do doubt the sincerity of their concern for the vulnerable. Protecting the multi-cultural dream from critical scrutiny is the priority.
We’re seeing exactly the same skewing of reality with the trans debate. Raise the issue that trans identified male offenders are five times more likely to have been convicted of sexual offences than male offenders generally and wait for the screams that it’s “cis men” who commit the most sexual offences.
Indeed. Exhibit A: John Murray.
We’re seeing exactly the same skewing of reality with the trans debate. Raise the issue that trans identified male offenders are five times more likely to have been convicted of sexual offences than male offenders generally and wait for the screams that it’s “cis men” who commit the most sexual offences.
Indeed. Exhibit A: John Murray.
Let’s ignore the niceties about data collection. Can you point to any newspaper report of a gang of white British men who in the systematic gang r”pe, prostitution and sexual torture of children?
As Charlie Peters rightly points out the 2020 Home Office report states that the data was too poor to be certain. When I looked at the references in that report something else struck me: 45 pieces of research are cited in the 2020 Home Office but only one of them was published before 2010. We know from official inquiries and criminal trials that grooming gangs were operating in the late 1990s and in some cases before that but academic research into the problem only seems to have begun in earnest in the 2010s and the quality of the data it has found was poor. Why wasn’t more better quality research done earlier?
The answer to that question is that it was done earlier. The Jay report found that the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme commissioned research into prostitution to be conducted in 2001 with the ‘young people and prostitution’ part of the research to be carried out in Bristol, Sheffield and Rotherham and evaluated by the University of Luton. The research carried out in Rotherham collected a lot of information about abusers but the research was not funded for its second year due to ‘implementation problems’ and the University of Luton’s “final evaluation report did not include the Rotherham project”. When the researcher wrote to the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police about her concerns about the lack of action taken to protect the victims “this resulted in a meeting with the District Commander and senior Council officials at which she was instructed never to do such a thing again” and after the researcher submitted her data to the Home Office “the Council suspended the researcher on the basis that she had committed ‘an act of gross misconduct’” and she was not allowed to have further access to victims, meetings or data.
The reason why there has been so little research into child sexual exploitation and the quality of the data is so poor is because for many years the policy of many people on child sexual exploitation has been “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” and that includes universities which could have done research earlier and done better quality research. The police, social services, education, the NHS, local councillors, MPs and government ministers knew what was happening but they didn’t want the public to know. The cover-up began in the early 2000s and whilst the scandal was partially uncovered in Keighley and Bradford in the mid-2000s it wasn’t until the early 2010s that Andrew Norfolk in The Times started to expose the truth and forced Rotherham Council to commission the Jay inquiry. Even after it has been proved that abuse has been taking places for decades and there are thousands of victims some people still want to deny it, downplay it, divert attention away from it or defame people who talk about it.
The key to understanding the grooming gang scandal is to ask not who or where but when the cover-up happened.
Let’s not make this about something it isn’t.
There’s one legal system in this country (despite some people’s attempts to introduce their own parallel systems). That has always been based on the principle of equality before the law and has never had any built-in racial discrimination (or cultural discrimination until the last few decades). And nor should it. There is more than enough evidence to show that the cases discussed in this article were not handled seriously or urgently enough by the authorities (local goverment/agencies and police).
This is about two things. Prosecution and punishment of serious crimes. And protection of vulnerable young girls from abuse. It is nothing to do with “dog whistle politics” (whatever that is). It doesn’t matter what the headline writers do or don’t say. There are people paid to deal with this stuff who should be doing it properly. If they can’t, they need to be fired. It doesn’t need more “specialist police”. It just needs people to do their real jobs and stop wasting time on peripheral activities or finding excuses for not doing what they should.
And how is it exactly that the police aren’t “determining ethnicity” ? Every government form I get has this question. Far more likely they’re suppressing reporting here.
The ‘available data’ which indicates that the biggest group is ‘significantly White Male’ has provided a lifeline for those mindless do-gooders who refuse to see any harm in multi-culturalism. They will squeeze that headline to the max – but I do doubt the sincerity of their concern for the vulnerable. Protecting the multi-cultural dream from critical scrutiny is the priority.
Let’s ignore the niceties about data collection. Can you point to any newspaper report of a gang of white British men who in the systematic gang r”pe, prostitution and sexual torture of children?
The data is incomplete and depends on Police determining ethnicity, if it’s captured at all. Of the data that is available it indicates biggest group is significantly White Male.
Nonetheless as a proportion there is something in the over-representation contention that can’t be avoided. But the danger is rather than think about all the child abuse we have to tackle and how we do that a certain section of the Media and Body Politic wants to only have headlines with a racial undercurrent.
It’s not unreasonable to ask some uncomfortable cultural questions – we see how women appear to be treated in some parts of Muslim world with utter horror and obviously wonder if this culture imported in a small minority. But when you don’t see the Headline writers then also pressing for more specialist Police and Social worker investment you begin to doubt the sincerity of the concern for the terribly vulnerable.
I think the article has provoked the reaction the writer was hoping for – see the fact that a lot of people ‘liked’ Richard Craven’s mindless, moronic post – and made the problem about ethnicity in exactly the way Braverman intended, rather than her party’s total failure to resource the criminal justice system adequately for the last 13 years.
The Tory Party is hoping to mobilise the old UKIP/ I’m-Not-A-Racist-But vote that served them well in the past. Classic deflect and distract by demonising migrants, blaming Pakistani men for child abuse, create the usual forever culture war and hope that there are enough Craven’s out there to let them get away with how badly they have managed immigration and crime.
You’re the one who’s deflecting, chum.
Deflecting what exactly?
Duh! You’re deflecting attention away from the truth about the massive over-representation of Pakistani Muslims in paedophile rape gang statistics.
Also, I’m an immigrant, and we don’t need virtue-signalling woke twerps to speak for us. Thanks all the same.
Did you actually read what I wrote? Do you really claim that if every Pakistani male was deported then sexual abuse would vanish, which is the subtext of this? The aim of Braverman is to pretend it’s a racial issue not an utter failure of government policy and competence. People, like you, whose IQ is smaller than their shoe size may buy into this, sensible folk don’t.
It is patently not a “racial issue”. I don’t think anyone is saying it is.
It may however be a cultural issue. Or have some cultural aspects. And that could apply to more than a single cultural group. And that is something completely different from anything “racial”.
Most sensible people well understand the difference between cutlure and race. And frankly, it is impossible to have any meaningful discussion or solve anything if people continue to conflate the two – whether through ignorance or ideology.
If you have some evidence that the Home Secretary is treating this as a racial issue rather than a possible cultural one, please do share it.
Seriously? Why do you think Braverman specifically mentioned Pakistani males when announcing this just before the local elections? It’s classic dog whistle politics. When the Tories took 20,000 policemen off our streets, plus 27,000 support staff, and cut the Justice budget by 40% then it was pretty obvious there would be a price to pay further down the line. So currently the Conservatives are polling badly on crime, hence this.
Tackling child sexual abuse is patently obviously a very good thing but this looks much more like an attempt to stoke up a culture war than a joined up, thought through initiative.
Semantics about ‘cultural’ and ‘racial’ just cloud the issue.
This all happened under Blair’s watch
You seriously claim still to not understand the difference between race and culture ?
If we cannot accurately describe what is going on, there is no hope of ever making anything better.
The police have the resources to deal with this stuff as a top priority. They have just chosen to ignore what their customers (that’s the taxpayers – you and I) want them to do and go off and stuff other stuff they find more interesting/less stressful/excuse du jour.
This all happened under Blair’s watch
You seriously claim still to not understand the difference between race and culture ?
If we cannot accurately describe what is going on, there is no hope of ever making anything better.
The police have the resources to deal with this stuff as a top priority. They have just chosen to ignore what their customers (that’s the taxpayers – you and I) want them to do and go off and stuff other stuff they find more interesting/less stressful/excuse du jour.
Seriously? Why do you think Braverman specifically mentioned Pakistani males when announcing this just before the local elections? It’s classic dog whistle politics. When the Tories took 20,000 policemen off our streets, plus 27,000 support staff, and cut the Justice budget by 40% then it was pretty obvious there would be a price to pay further down the line. So currently the Conservatives are polling badly on crime, hence this.
Tackling child sexual abuse is patently obviously a very good thing but this looks much more like an attempt to stoke up a culture war than a joined up, thought through initiative.
Semantics about ‘cultural’ and ‘racial’ just cloud the issue.
“Do you really claim that if every Pakistani male was deported then sexual abuse would vanish, which is the subtext of this?”
Of course not. What an absolutely pathetic straw man.
“People, like you, whose IQ is smaller than their shoe size”
I’m Dr of Philosophy & speak 4 languages. How about you?
It is patently not a “racial issue”. I don’t think anyone is saying it is.
It may however be a cultural issue. Or have some cultural aspects. And that could apply to more than a single cultural group. And that is something completely different from anything “racial”.
Most sensible people well understand the difference between cutlure and race. And frankly, it is impossible to have any meaningful discussion or solve anything if people continue to conflate the two – whether through ignorance or ideology.
If you have some evidence that the Home Secretary is treating this as a racial issue rather than a possible cultural one, please do share it.
“Do you really claim that if every Pakistani male was deported then sexual abuse would vanish, which is the subtext of this?”
Of course not. What an absolutely pathetic straw man.
“People, like you, whose IQ is smaller than their shoe size”
I’m Dr of Philosophy & speak 4 languages. How about you?
Did you actually read what I wrote? Do you really claim that if every Pakistani male was deported then sexual abuse would vanish, which is the subtext of this? The aim of Braverman is to pretend it’s a racial issue not an utter failure of government policy and competence. People, like you, whose IQ is smaller than their shoe size may buy into this, sensible folk don’t.
Duh! You’re deflecting attention away from the truth about the massive over-representation of Pakistani Muslims in paedophile rape gang statistics.
Also, I’m an immigrant, and we don’t need virtue-signalling woke twerps to speak for us. Thanks all the same.
Deflecting what exactly?
You’re the one who’s deflecting, chum.
I think the article has provoked the reaction the writer was hoping for – see the fact that a lot of people ‘liked’ Richard Craven’s mindless, moronic post – and made the problem about ethnicity in exactly the way Braverman intended, rather than her party’s total failure to resource the criminal justice system adequately for the last 13 years.
The Tory Party is hoping to mobilise the old UKIP/ I’m-Not-A-Racist-But vote that served them well in the past. Classic deflect and distract by demonising migrants, blaming Pakistani men for child abuse, create the usual forever culture war and hope that there are enough Craven’s out there to let them get away with how badly they have managed immigration and crime.