Latest news with #policeData
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Public must ‘keep calm' over ethnicity of grooming gang offenders, says Louise Casey
The public must 'keep calm' over the ethnicity of grooming gang offenders, the author of a high-profile report has urged, saying police data from one region suggested race was proportional with the local population. The comments from Louise Casey came as Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, defended herself from claims that she was attempting to politicise the scandal of the organised rape of girls by men across dozens of towns over at least 25 years. Lady Casey's report on Monday found evidence of 'over-representation' of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects of 'group sexual exploitation' of children, according to data from three police forces. Casey told MPs on Tuesday that she was concerned that the limited data available on the race and ethnicity of offenders was not being used responsibly as part of the public debate on grooming gangs. She said that the report examined data from Greater Manchester police (GMP), which covers towns including Rochdale and Oldham where convicted grooming gangs operated. 'If you look at the data on child exploitation, suspects and offenders, it is disproportionately Asian heritage,' she said. 'If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate and it is white men. 'So just a note to everybody, outside here rather than in here, let's just keep calm about how you interrogate data and what you get from it.' According to the report, GMP's figures showed that 52% of suspects involved in multi-victim/multi-offender cases of child sexual exploitation over a three-year period were Asian, compared with 38% who were white. When examining suspects for all child sex abuse crimes, not just grooming, the same force's data shows that 16% were Asian and 44% were white, while 32% of suspects were of 'unknown' ethnicity. The last census figures show that 57% of Greater Manchester is white and 21% is Asian, according to the report. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Casey told the BBC's Newsnight on Monday that she was 'disappointed' by the Conservatives' response to her review of the grooming gangs scandal. 'We need to change some laws, we need to do a national criminal investigation, we need to get on with a national inquiry with local footprint in it, and ideally wouldn't it be great if everybody came behind that and backed you?' she said. 'I felt the opposition could have just been a bit, you know, 'Yes we will all come together behind you.' Maybe there's still time to do that. I think it's just so important that they do.' At a hastily arranged press conference, Badenoch said she was 'not doing politics now' but criticised people who sought to 'tone police those who are pointing out when something has gone wrong'. 'I do think that we should take the politics out of it. But who was it that said when we raised this issue that we were pandering to the far right? That's what brought the politics into it,' she said. Badenoch said her party backed a national inquiry into the scandal and had been calling for one 'for six months'. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told MPs that officials had dodged the issue of ethnicity among groups of sex offenders for fear of being labelled racist, and called for 'much more robust national data'. A Downing Street spokesperson said the format and chair of the inquiry would be set out at a later date, adding that it would have the power to compel people to give evidence.
BBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Key takeaways from grooming gangs report
A review into abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales has been published. The government asked Baroness Casey to carry out the audit, examining existing data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse, in January. Here are some of its key findings and recommendations. Lack of reliable data The report highlights flaws in data collection, which it says means it is not possible to assess the scale of the cites figures from the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset which identified around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation in 2023. However, the report says this is highly unlikely to reflect the true scale of the issue, given this crime is under-reported and suffers from confusing and inconsistently applied definitions. Ethnicity of perpetrators One key data gap highlighted by the report is on ethnicity, which is described as "appalling". It says the ethnicity of perpetrators is "shied away from" and still not recorded in two-thirds of cases, meaning it is not possible to draw conclusions at a national level. However, the report says there is enough evidence from police data in three areas - Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire - to show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic background amongst suspects for group-based child sexual adds that the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile prosecutions across the country also warrants further examination. The report calls for the collection of ethnicity and nationality data to be mandatory for all suspects in child sexual abuse and criminal exploitation cases, while it says the government should also work with police to improve the collection of ethnicity data for victims. National inquiry Over the weekend, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accepted the report's recommendation that there should be a full national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in England and PM had previously dismissed calls for a national inquiry, arguing the issues had already been examined in a seven-year investigation by Prof Alexis Jay, which concluded in 2022. Instead the government commissioned Baroness Casey's review and unveiled plans for five local inquiries - to be held in Oldham and four other areas yet to be her report recommends both a national police operation to review cases of child exploitation not acted on, as well as a national inquiry. It says this would be overseen by an Independent Commission, with full powers to compel witnesses to provide evidence, and should be time-limited and targeted. The inquiry would review cases of failures by local services to identify areas where investigations should be instigated and coordinate a series of targeted local investigations. Age of consent The report also recommends tightening the law in England and Wales so adults who have sex with a child under 16 are always charged with the age of consent being 16, it says there are too many examples of child sexual exploitation cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a teenager has been "in love with" or "consented to" sex with the perpetrator. Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
