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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The eight ways grooming gangs got away with their horrific abuse - as damning 200-page report reveals 'timeline of failure' which shamed Britain
It was described by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper as 'a timeline of failure from 2009 to 2025' which shamed Britain. For decades, victims have been ignored while grooming gangs have been left free to walk the streets due to 'blindness, ignorance, prejudice and defensiveness'. Here, the Mail dissects the key findings in Baroness Casey's damning 200-page report. Lack of data Efforts to understand and tackle grooming gangs have been hampered by a misguided fear that examining the ethnic background of abusers could be deemed racist, Baroness Casey found. Analysis of safeguarding reviews into grooming gang offences found 'a palpable discomfort in any discussion of ethnicity in most of them'. Yet separate examination of the offenders' profiles revealed that 'a high proportion of the perpetrators in these cases were from Asian ethnic backgrounds'. Lady Casey's audit highlights how 'report after report criticises the lack of ethnicity data and calls for better data collection and research into ethnicity and cultural issues'. Meanwhile, too many well-intentioned initiatives to tackle grooming gangs 'have been dropped or superseded, or simply faded away, never to be heard from again'. In a hard-hitting rebuke to professionals and commentators who have tried to silence debate on the grooming gangs, she writes: 'It is not racist to want to examine the ethnicity of offenders. 'The people who downplay the ethnicity of perpetrators are continuing to let down society, local communities and victims – past and future – by not looking harder at the nature of offending in order to better understand it and better prevent it.' Ethnicity data on suspects Grooming suspects in major northern towns and cities are at least twice as likely to be Asian as white, the report said. According to the baroness's report, recording the 'ethnicity of perpetrators' continues to be 'shied away from'. But analysis of child sexual exploitation suspects in Greater Manchester found that between 52 and 54 per cent were Asian, despite representing 20.9 per cent of the area's population in 2021. In West Yorkshire, 35 per cent of suspects were Asian compared to 16 per cent of the county's population. This suggested 'a disproportionate over-representation of people of Asian ethnic background (roughly double) and disproportionately under-representation of people of White ethnicity (roughly half) amongst child sexual exploitation suspects', Lady Casey wrote. And statistics from Operation Stovewood – launched after the landmark Jay Report found that at least 1,400 girls were abused by gangs of men of mainly Pakistani heritage in Rotherham – found that nearly two-thirds were recorded as coming from a Pakistani ethnic background. By contrast, just 4 per cent of the South Yorkshire town's population were of Pakistani ethnicity. 'The question of the ethnicity of perpetrators has been a key question for this audit, having been raised in inquiries and reports going back many years,' she wrote. 'More effort is required to identify the nature of group-based child sexual exploitation and, in particular, the ethnicity of perpetrators and offender motivations, in order to understand it better, and to tackle it more effectively.' Ethnicity data on victims Victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation are overwhelmingly white, according to police data analysed by Baroness Casey. Of those whose ethnicity is recorded, 87 per cent were identified as white, 4 per cent as black, 4 per cent as Asian and 3 per cent as Chinese or 'other'. However ethnicity was only recorded for 35 per cent of victims, leaving the origin of almost two-thirds unknown – meaning it was 'not possible to draw any conclusions' from this data. But the over-representation of white victims was even more pronounced when Lady Casey drilled down into individual police probes into grooming gangs. In Greater Manchester, out of 317 known victims of 35 different investigations, 298 were white – or 94 per cent. Five out of six were girls. Scale of abuse Horrifyingly, about 500,000 children a year are likely to experience child sexual abuse – of any kind – according to the audit. But it says that for the vast majority, their abuse is not identified, and it is not reported to the police either at the time or later. Of just over 100,000 offences of child sexual abuse and exploitation recorded by police in 2024, around 60 per cent involved 'contact' between offender and victim while the rest took place online. Highlighting the need for a thorough inquiry into organised grooming, the audit says the only reliable figure on 'group-based child sexual exploitation' comes from the new 'Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset'. It identified only around 700 such offences in 2023. 'Given how under-reported child sexual exploitation is, the flaws in the data collection and the confusing and inconsistently applied definitions, it is highly unlikely that this accurately reflects the true scale of child sexual exploitation, or group-based exploitation,' Lady Casey writes. 'It is a failure of public policy over many years that there remains such limited reliable data in this area.' Child protection failures The report expresses concern over a disconnect between police data on child sex abuse cases – which are on the rise – with child protection plans for sexual abuse, which are at a 30-year low. Lady Casey found social workers were unwilling to place children on protection plans for sexual abuse, preferring to categorise it as neglect. Her audit found a 'recent' case involving 'a 13-year-old girl who had been raped by three different men but was on a child protection plan for neglect'. She highlights one safeguarding review which found that professionals 'do not always feel confident to ask children about child sexual abuse'. This matters because it means 'they may not be receiving the right kind of protection', she writes. According to Lady Casey, children's services still 'fail too often to spot these factors and evidence of grooming and exploitation taking place'. These include 'obvious signs such as unexplained gifts or older men picking girls up from care homes'. Shockingly – if unsurprisingly – her analysis of serious-case reviews following cases of child sexual exploitation found that two-thirds of victims were in local authority care. Their abuse 'often' started while they were in care. 'So on this basis, being in care is a 'risk factor' for exploitation, not a protective factor.' Lady Casey also says an attitude that 'children who went missing from care were treated with less urgency because 'they always came back'' – a key finding of Professor Alexis Jay's 2014 report into the Rotherham grooming scandal – continues to 'persist'. Such children 'do not set off the same alarm bells that a parent might feel on losing contact with their child', she added. Asylum and overseas offenders The audit uncovered live grooming investigations in which asylum seekers or foreign nationals form a 'significant proportion' of suspects. Lady Casey had access to 'around a dozen live, complex, group-based child sexual exploitation police operations, the full details of which cannot be included in this report so as not to prejudice any future criminal justice outcomes'. She added: 'While the future outcomes of these investigations remain unknown, and the number of live, open cases we had access to was limited, this audit noted that a significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK.' In addition, several of these live operations involve an overlap between child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation, she adds. Close taxi licensing loophole The report stresses that 'most taxi drivers are law-abiding people providing an important service to the public'. However, as has repeatedly been exposed when grooming gangs have finally been brought to justice, as a 'key part of the nighttime economy' they have 'historically been identified as a way children can be at risk of sexual exploitation'. Councils issue taxi licences in line with statutory guidance. But the audit highlights how, in some areas with recognised problems of child sexual exploitation, local authorities go 'above and beyond' to provide 'additional protection for children'. 'However, they are being hindered by a lack of stringency elsewhere in the country, and legal loopholes which mean drivers can apply for a license anywhere in the country and then operate in another area,' Lady Casey writes. 'The Department for Transport should close this loophole immediately and introduce more rigorous standards.' Criminalising victims Victims of grooming gangs who have been prosecuted for child prostitution should have their convictions overturned, the baroness said. She compared the scandal to the sub-postmasters caught up in the Horizon furore, saying child victims have wrongly been prosecuted for criminal damage or inciting sexual activity by bringing other girls to be abused. It was only in 2015 that the term 'child prostitution' was removed from legislation and replaced with 'child sexual exploitation'. Between 1989 and 1995, almost 4,000 police cautions were given to children between ten and 18 for offences relating to prostitution.
BreakingNews.ie
7 hours ago
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Report criticises ‘major failing' to gather ethnicity data on grooming gangs
The lack of data showing the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs in the UK is 'a major failing over the last decade or more', a new report has found. Officials have dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, even though available data showed suspects were disproportionately likely to be Asian men, the British home secretary told the UK House of Commons. Advertisement Speaking as a review of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey was published on Monday, Yvette Cooper told MPs: 'While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities.' She said Baroness Casey found examples of organisations 'avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions'. Yvette Cooper makes a statement in the House of Commons on grooming gangs (House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA) Ms Cooper said: 'These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new.' Currently ethnicity is only recorded for around 37 per cent of suspects. Advertisement The report found that: 'The appalling lack of data on ethnicity in crime recording alone is a major failing over the last decade or more. Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years. 'Child sexual exploitation is horrendous whoever commits it, but there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination. 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it. The system claims there is an overwhelming problem with white perpetrators when that can't be proved. 'This does no-one any favours at all, and least of all those in the Asian, Pakistani or Muslim communities who needlessly suffer as those with malicious intent use this obfuscation to sow and spread hatred.' Advertisement Baroness Casey called the crimes of grooming gangs 'one of the most heinous' in society (James Manning/PA) Ms Cooper unveiled the findings from the rapid national audit to MPs, after the UK prime minister committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse. She gave 'an unequivocal apology for the unimaginable pain and suffering' that victims had faced, and 'the failure of our country's institutions through decades.' Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said: 'The girls at the heart of this scandal have been failed by every professional in their lives. 'They, and the institutions that were intended to protect them, ignored their voices and sidelined their experiences. Advertisement 'They must be held accountable for turning a blind eye to a sustained campaign of violence against young girls by predatory men. This is a source of national shame.' The National Crime Agency (NCA) will carry out a nationwide operation targeting people who have sexually exploited children, and follow up on an estimated more than 1,000 cold cases where no one was convicted. The gangs' harrowing crimes have typically targeted children, mainly girls, as young as 10, some of whom were in care, had physical or mental disabilities, or who had already suffered neglect or abuse. Baroness Casey's review looked at around a dozen live investigations into grooming gangs, and found 'a significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK.' Advertisement The home secretary has pledged to exclude convicted sex offenders from the asylum system. In her report, Lady Casey said it is time to draw a line in the sand and take action over the issue, which she called 'one of the most heinous crimes in our society'. Her report concluded: 'Unless government and all the organisations involved are able to stand up and acknowledge the failures of the past, to apologise for them unreservedly, and to act now to put things right, including current cases, we will not move on as a society.' Speaking in Westminster, Lady Casey called for an end to 'political football' over the scandal, adding: 'I think it would be a real shame if politicians from the opposition parties and people in wider society didn't see that this is a chance to create a national reset, that the only thing that really matters is the protection of children.' The UK government has accepted her recommendation that any adult man who has penetrative sexual activity with a child under 16 will face a mandatory rape charge. Police forces will be made to gather data on the ethnicity and nationality of child abusers, and rules for the licensing of taxi drivers will also be tightened to stop drivers operating outside the area where they are licensed.
The Independent
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Report criticises ‘major failing' to gather ethnicity data on grooming gangs
The lack of data showing the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs is 'a major failing over the last decade or more', a new report has found. Officials have dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, even though available data showed suspects were disproportionately likely to be Asian men, the Home Secretary told the House of Commons. Speaking as a review of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey was published on Monday, Yvette Cooper told MPs: 'While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities.' She said Baroness Casey found examples of organisations 'avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions'. Ms Cooper said: 'These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new.' Currently ethnicity is only recorded for around 37% of suspects. The report found that: 'The appalling lack of data on ethnicity in crime recording alone is a major failing over the last decade or more. Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years. 'Child sexual exploitation is horrendous whoever commits it, but there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination. 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it. The system claims there is an overwhelming problem with white perpetrators when that can't be proved. 'This does no-one any favours at all, and least of all those in the Asian, Pakistani or Muslim communities who needlessly suffer as those with malicious intent use this obfuscation to sow and spread hatred.' Yvette Cooper unveiled the findings from the rapid national audit to MPs, after the Prime Minister committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse. She repeated previous apologies for abject failures to protect victims. Ms Cooper told MPs: 'On behalf of this, and past governments, and the many public authorities who let you down, I want to reiterate an unequivocal apology for the unimaginable pain and suffering that you have suffered, and the failure of our country's institutions through decades, to prevent that harm and keep you safe.' The rapid national audit looking at the scale of grooming gangs across the country was first announced in January as part of a series of measures to tackle the issue. The Home Office has also said the National Crime Agency (NCA) will carry out a nationwide operation targeting people who have sexually exploited children, and follow up on more than 800 cold cases. According to the Home Office, the NCA will work in partnership with police forces to investigate cases that 'were not progressed through the criminal justice system' in the past. On Monday, Ms Cooper said that the number of cold cases to be reviewed again over child sex abuse by grooming gangs is expected to rise to more than 1,000 in the coming weeks. The harrowing crimes targeted children, mainly girls, as young as 10, some of whom were in care, had physical or mental disabilities, or who had already suffered neglect or abuse. Baroness Casey's review looked at around a dozen live investigations into grooming gangs, and found 'a significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK.' The Home Secretary has pledged to exclude convicted sex offenders from the asylum system. In her report, Baroness Casey said it is time to draw a line in the sand and take action over the issue, which she called 'one of the most heinous crimes in our society'. Her report concluded: 'These actions need to be accompanied by commitments to honesty, transparency and to prioritising the safety of children above all else; by an apology to all the victims of child sexual exploitation who have been let down in the past and by a more rigorous and relentless pursuit of the minority of men who have preyed on vulnerable children and looked for gaps in our safeguarding systems to commit heinous crimes. 'Unless government and all the organisations involved are able to stand up and acknowledge the failures of the past, to apologise for them unreservedly, and to act now to put things right, including current cases, we will not move on as a society.' The Government has accepted her recommendation that any adult man who has penetrative sexual activity with a child under 16 will face a mandatory rape charge. Police forces will be made to gather data on the ethnicity and nationality of child abusers, and rules for the licensing of taxi drivers will also be tightened to stop drivers operating outside the area where they are licensed. The report also recommends that police forces should look at cold cases from the past 10 years to find missed chances for prosecutions and children who may have been abused.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Police to collect ethnicity data for all cases of child sexual abuse
Yvette Cooper has condemned damning failures by the authorities to protect children from grooming gangs as she announced there would be a formal requirement on police for the first time to collect ethnicity and nationality data for all cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation. The home secretary confirmed the government would accept all 12 recommendations of Baroness Louise Casey's rapid review, including setting up a statutory inquiry into institutional failures, marking a significant reversal after months of pressure on Labour to act. In her rapid review, Baroness Casey found evidence of 'over-representation' of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects in local data – collected in Greater Manchester, West and South Yorkshire – and criticised a continued failure to gather robust data at a national level. She found evidence that some authorities refused to take into account the ethnicity of offenders out of fear of appearing racist, and said 'blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good, but misdirected intentions, all played a part in this collective failure'. 'While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities,' Cooper said. 'The vast majority of people in our British, Asian and Pakistani heritage communities continue to be appalled by these terrible crimes and agree that the criminal minority of sick predators and perpetrators in every community must be dealt with robustly by a criminal law.' The law will be strengthened so that any individual convicted of sexual offences would be excluded from the asylum system and denied refugee status, after the Casey review uncovered cases involving suspects who were asylum seekers. There would also be a legal change so that adult men who have penetrative sex with 13- to 15-year-olds would receive the most serious rape charges. 'The sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes. Children as young as 10 plied with drugs and alcohol, brutally raped by gangs of men and disgracefully let down again and again by the authorities who were meant to protect them and keep them safe,' Cooper told MPs. 'Those vile perpetrators who have grown used to the authorities looking the other way, must have no place to hide,' she added, as she offered an unconditional apology to victims from current and past governments. 'These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new. We have lost more than a decade. That must end now.' In her statement, the home secretary criticised organisations which for decades had 'looked the other way' instead of protecting vulnerable children, many of whom were singled out for grooming, while their perpetrators walked free. The Home Office will now commission new research into the cultural and social drivers of child sexual exploitation, misogyny and violence against women and girls. The National Crime Agency, the UK's top investigative body, has been tasked with leading a coordinated national push to reopen historic group-based child sexual abuse cases and identify offenders who slipped through the cracks of previous police efforts. More than 800 cases have now been identified for formal review, with the figure expected to rise above 1000 in the coming weeks. Further local investigations will be directed and overseen by a national commission with statutory inquiry powers, which will be time limited and, Cooper said, challenge continued denial, resistance and legal wrangling among local agencies.
