Keir Starmer to launch grooming gangs inquiry that will make witnesses testify

Some will give false information, but im not sure if it benefits a suspected sex offender, or someone found guilty to lie and say their heritage is different to what it is?

The police manage to collect ethnicity date in some cases, just not enough, and different forces use different categories so at the moment it is difficult to collate across forces or compare forces.

I am sure that there is room for improvement even if it does not get to 100% data collected with 100% accuracy.

There are plenty of stories in the media about court cases where the ethnicity, religion, place of birth and heritage of perps is cited and I do not recall any stories about newspapers incorrectly reporting these, so the data is definitely being collected when a case gets to court.

Whatever methods are being used, maybe they could be brought further downstream?

Or maybe the police could actually prioritise ticking this particular box?

I am sure I read that ethnicity recording by the police had dropped rather than increased but happy to be corrected.

The way banks obtain ethnic info is by asking their customers. It's self-ID. A passport will show nationality while a birth certificate will show place of birth. Neither shows ethnicity.
I'm not making the point just for the sake of argument. If we don't rely on self-ID I genuinely don't know how we can guarantee that data on ethnic origin can be collected accurately. An Asian person could be of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc. heritage. An African could come from one of over fifty countries. How do you tell which?

Recording ethnicity won't work perfectly for everyone but, realisitically, what percentage will be indeterminate/incorrect? Less than 10%? Less than 5%, Less than 1%? Even so, if there's a problem you can have an indeterminate/uncertain category and still gather useful data.

The earliest I can find a reference to rape and torture gangs is by the documentary film-maker Anna Hall, who made Groomed: a National Scandal, who I heard say she first started hearing about the issue in the mid 90s.

You ask to see their passport/birth certificate. In the UK we need to show our ID for employment, banking, benefits. If banks can obtain this info why is it so difficult for the Police?

I am aware of that. Even assuming the criminal is willing to answer a question on ethnicity it's all going to be self-ID though isn't it? We all know where that gets us. What is stopping someone of Pakistani origin claiming to be of Indian origin or vice versa? The police can probably make a decent stab at deciding whether someone is White or Black but beyond that I can't see it.
For those who are anti-immigration it doesn't matter but for data on ethnicity of criminals to be useful to society it must be very accurate indeed.

I wonder whether self declaration
will work in this situation? Is it in the interest of particular criminals to identify their ethnicity?

Exactly.

We've been capturing data on ethnicity for decades. Schools for example use it intensively to analyse student progress and identify where certain groups might be failing to achieve. Ethnicity data capture usually offers a range of options, with broad groups like White, Black or African American, Asian, and Mixed, with further sub-categories within each group.

It's not perfect, especially for those with a mix of ethnic heritages where the individual (or parent) has to make decisions about the best fit, but it's standard practice.

How exactly can ethnicity be recorded accurately? Neither self-ID nor guesswork by the police will be reliable & it's not simply a matter of ticking the box that says 'Brown Man'.

This year’s kcsie should be published soon.

hopefully aspects of Casey’s report should be included in some way. Alongside the gender questioning children guidance

Fox hunting was taking up an awful lot of parliamentary time, but I work on the assumption it had more to do with protecting dodgy Labour councillors in northern cities.

Also, Nick Griffin and the BNP were making a lot of noise about it at the time, but I just treat that as an alibi - plenty of people would have found a reason to look the other way if Nick Griffin, or later Tommy Robinson, had never existed.

Its been going on for decades easily covering New Labours time in office.

Anne Cryer blew whistle about 2002. Fox hunting banned 2004. She's not wrong.

A friend of mine says that when the abuse of these children was first reported the Labour Party was too busy to care because they were concentrating on banning fox hunting. Were these going on at the same time?

They can’t ignore the role of multiple governments (both Labour and Conservative) or it will stink to high heaven. A lot of this happened under New Labour in the early 2000s, but it’s gone on for decades.

Both Jess and Diana Johnson often look absolutely defeated in parliament.

I think phillips is out of her depth. It must be difficult to work under Starmer - he has a tendency to allow others to deliver and justify unpopular policy, then announce u turns himself, as if hes had to step in an make adult decisions. Then disappear again and leave MPs to explain why the policy has changed.

DEI about victims and inequality, so im not surprised that race of perpetrators is poorly recorded. There hasnt been a belief that sexual assault could be racially motivated, so no one has pushed for it to be recorded accurately.

I too have no sympathy at all for the useless Jess Phillips.

Absolutely.

yes that’s vital

maggie says an inquiry would only work under her

More today on woman’s hour and it’s good. Interviewing survivors too.

I heard this morning that the national inquiry may not cover failings of government or Westminster. I think its essential for a national inquiry to understand what was happening at government level (Labour, coalition and Tories) and at senior civil service level. We need to understand the messages and direction coming from the top.

Until reading the Times today I had not understood how much effort the local 'establishments' (Local Authority, Councillors, Local Labour Party, Police) had put into covering up their failings. At Government level this was backed up by the Civil Service who kept repeating tired old clichés about racism. The Councils + Civil Service wanted a Judicial Review to stop Michael Gove from publishing anything.

I am very pleased that the power to compel people to answer for their actions.