The continuing war against women - Report on the Newcastle "grooming gang"

It seems that women are so rarely believed when speaking about abuse / safety and these girls and women are clear examples of this. The scale is unbelievable.

Given the size and scale the police / government have got to put some level of investment into sorting this.We are prepared to put millions into historic abuse (and I'm not arguing that we shouldn't) but while abuse is happening in plain sight now, there aren't the resources?

have also come across these beliefs articulated in a casual way amongst several colleagues of sub continental origin, women included.

When I was younger I heard these beliefs articulated by other young people. I understood it was not something I was permitted to talk about.

The reporting on this has been dire. I'm up here and it was reported on locally, I know professionals involved in the case but I really noticed a lack of reporting in the wider press and last summer and now - just not that much. It's a huge scandal, affecting vulnerable adults as well.

I agree Kikash I, but before even looking at the cultures which spawn this attitude towards vulnerable white girls, people in all walks of life ( police, social work, media and just commentators generally) self censor and spawn safe homilies such as “sexual abuse happens in all communities” and “Islam prohibits sex outside marriage let alone sexual abuse”. Few in public life want to grasp the nettle and start exploring the beliefs prevalent to some degree amongst Muslims ( especially sub continental Asian) , that: 1) a good “ clean”woman is a virgin until her wedding day 2) women who aren’t are dirty and fair game, and 3) most western women belong in the second category.
Before everyone has a fit or mumsnet rushes to delete my post ( thus rather proving my point above) let me add that I grew up in a Muslim country, was sexually harassed and abused, have read the coran and have also come across these beliefs articulated in a casual way amongst several colleagues of sub continental origin, women included.

In the words of a police officer on that force "it became too big".

Fucking atrocious.

The girls raped in their school uniforms.

The girls put in custody instead of the rapists.

This is being repeated over and over again. They were the victims but they were treated like the criminals.

Desperately sad.

God bless these girls, I hope you can somehow get over this ordeal and live as normal a life as possible

This is happening in many deprived areas, not just Newcastle and Rotherham. The problem is that it also attracts the likes of "Britain First", which then scares anyone else of commenting because they don't want to be seen as racist. For example, the BNP infamously exposed the Rotherham gangs in a documentary years before it came out, but because it was the BNP, nobody cared.

Terrible. It goes on and on and still the authorities continue to target vulnerable girls and women, not the perpetrators.

I'm horrified by this too.

Unfortunately if you scratch the surface of most cultures you come up against the common belief that that is what women and girls are for.

The news report I heard on BBC radio today said that more needed to be done in other cities too because it was felt that there is likely to be the same problem elsewhere.

700 in Newcastle alone.

I feel sick.

Absolutely sickening and they’ll be more to come it’s been well known this has been happening since in the early 90s in many north west towns such as Blackburn and Burnley I dread to think how many young girls have gone through this. There is a real sense of entitlement amongst these men and a common perception of how worthless they view English girls to be.

I was particularly at this quote from the BBC report

"Mr Spicer said the perpetrator he spoke to "displayed no regret" and "spoke in a derogatory manner about a lack of morals in British girls".

It really got to me. So these creatures can apparently behave like feral alley cats with no morals whatsoever, yet cast aspersions on the morals of women. Why does no one ever question the morals of men?

Double standards are alive and well. Bastards.

Utterly shocking (and heartbreaking).

This breaks my heart. All those young girls lives blighted. How the heck do they get past this? Why were their voices not listened to earlier?

I'm a Geordie by birth although I don't live in Newcastle now. It's almost guaranteed some of those innocent young girls are daughters/granddaughters of people I grew up/went to school with. Utterly, utterly heartbroken. I hope the monsters who did this rot for eternity.