HELP! [Child rape gangs in Bradford]

[bradfordisdamned]

I know this is a horrible subject.

This news article from today shows how much it's being ignored here

After the death of Star Hobson, Bradford was stripped of its child protective services because it was completely unfit.

It continues to be an absolute disaster. I feel that this nightmare is being ignored because Bradford just so happens to be the city of culture for 2025. It's being ignored for many more reasons than that of course, but this is completely and utterly unacceptable. I think officials just don't want to be accused of racism and our children continue to suffer because of it.

Can you please help me make some noise with this? I am going to be writing to my MP, but this needs more attention. We need to put pressure on prominent people to get a public enquiry underway. Rejecting it is despicable. They just don't want to admit we have a major problem.

I am pasting the article here because unfortunately the newspaper site can be riddled with ads that sometimes make it unusable, but I didn't want to ask for Mumsnet help without providing sources.

I don't think I'm being unreasonable to want this enquiry to go ahead. I think Mumsnet will agree with me. Thank you in advance.

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Officials reject new calls for public inquiry on child abuse

A PUBLIC inquiry examining child sexual abuse in the Bradford area is "unlikely to provide us with any new learning", according to the district's safeguarding partnership.
In the House of Commons on Monday, Robbie Moore, Tory MP for Keighley and Ilkley, said "rape gangs and child grooming" have "haunted" the district "for decades" - and he again accused local leaders of refusing to launch an inquiry.

He added that he feared the scale of child sexual abuse and exploitation across the Bradford district would "dwarf that of Rotherham".

In 2014, a report by Professor Alexis Jay described how more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited by gangs of mainly Asian males in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, between 1997 and 2013.

Phillipa Hubbard, of the Bradford District Safeguarding Children Partnership, responded to Mr Moore's remarks by saying: "The national Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which was published in October 2022 and to which Bradford contributed, has made it very clear that this is a national issue.

"Like many local authorities up and down the country, we know that agencies in our district have made mistakes in the past.
"This is why we commissioned an independent review into child sexual exploitation which was published in 2021 so that all the agencies in our district who work with children can implement the learning from past cases.

"The review was extremely detailed and thorough, and was written by an independent author. It looked in-depth at local and national learning and best practice.
"In addition to the review, our multi-agency safeguarding team undergoes regular independent scrutiny from Ofsted and the partnership also publishes an annual report, which anyone can read and which is open to public scrutiny.

"All the local agencies who are working in our district to keep children safe are committed to continued development and improvement.
"The view of our partnership remains that a public inquiry would cost a huge amount of money, use precious officer time and is unlikely to provide us with any new learning that would better-protect children from being abused."

In response, Mr Moore said: "This is a complete and utter dereliction of duty.
"The Council says its 2021 review was 'detailed', but it focused on just five children.
"Meanwhile, the Rotherham inquiry focused on the experiences of over 1,400 children.
"The idea that a Bradford inquiry would bring about no new information is an outright falsehood - and I am completely shocked by these comments.

"Difficult conversations have to be had. You are playing into the hands of ALL men by refusing to acknowledge the issue."

I'm sure you believe that makes sense.

You are right, makes you wonder if there are people higher up who don't want this to come out and are blocking investigations.Just look at Epstein.

I see a lot of comments like “easy meat” and passed around like “a piece of meat” which is hugely provocative and nice for a headline, but I think it is a little too simplistic to be taken at face value. When you look at the Pakistani heritage community in a lot of these northern working class towns, what you see is a communal, tightly knit, socially conservative but highly spiritual network of families that live in a society that in many ways is completely alien to them. It would be like hundreds of English families being transported to Kyoto in Japan and then left to their own devices. For the people in these communities, they see the way we dress and behave (which is absolutely our right by the way) and for some it can be quite confusing, it goes against the way they see the world and how it should be.

I think what’s needed is a coming together of community elders on one side, and Labour councillors from these towns and cities on the other, and a proper hashing out of what we as a modern, multicultural society expect from one another, in order to solve any issues that there might be.

Dialogue essentially, is the answer to all things. Not judgement from any one side, no hatred or finger pointing, just talking and working together for the betterment of everyone involved.

And also the conviction of anyone involved in any crimes that may have been committed to young girls, like the ones who are sharing their horrific stories on this thread.

I'd say millenniums.

Brushing inconvenient facts under the carpet doesn't help women and girls.

You know that but don't care.

You're typing words but they don't mean anything.

Dialogue essentially, is the answer to all things. Not judgement from any one side, no hatred or finger pointing, just talking and working together for the betterment of everyone involved.

100%.

Pretending it doesn't exist helps no one and perpetuates racism and misunderstanding.

This is the last time I am going to engage with you because your dismissal of harms to female children and women globally is despicable.

My words mean nothing to you because you don't 'care. That's a you problem.

Many people do care.

Well if you do engage with me again, please explain how acknowledging that rape is endemic throughout society in every country that has men regardless of the ethnic or religious makeup of the population is a dismissal of harms to females around the world. It's certainly something I've never been accused of so I am curious to your reasoning.

Trying to frame rape as race issue when it's about systemic misogyny harms women and girls. I live in these areas that are being discussed. I don't see how scapegoating brown men will make my vulnerable autistic teen daughter safer when it has been white men who have harassed her.

Make the police prosecute rape. Don't let them make any excuses. You're letting them off. You're giving them the out of saying they were afraid to look racist. Make them afraid to look sexist.

We do definitively need to get the full picture of what is happening and what happened in the past, all the details and factors behind it. And take drastic action to stop it and never ever again have anything of this kind.
In our primary and secondary, they do quite hammer the concept of grooming and consent into the kids. They do have regular police chats too, where they talk to them about these issues, abuse at home, how to contact someone for help, drugs... name it, they have this. I think it is the best way of defense.
We need to address this with our children, warn them of what has happened in the past, how groomers act, including how particular groups like these specific gangs act, have the difficult talks.
I hope you get a resolution OP. You and all the women who have been raped and assaulted. And to the boys and young men too, because it is starting to look to me like very young gay or bi boys are being mistreated just as much and extensively as young women.

Because it's whataboutery @HettysHandbag. Yes, all men rape. You are deflecting from the need for a proper inquiry into this specific group of cases. Sometimes we need to focus on patterns. Like Catholic priests, or TV presenters. This is a pattern. Practically every city or large town in the North of England had a brutal rape and pimping gang from a specific community preying on tween and teenage girls. Yes, misogyny is the overwhelming reason why they did it and why so many people looked the other way or abetted them. But some of the reason why no one would intervene was the race issue. People who did try to, like Ann Cryer or Sarah Champion MP or journalists like Andrew Norfolk who broke the story in the Times in 2011 were smeared as racists. Even Sir Trevor Philips, the former chair of the EHRC, was suspended from the Labour Party over comments he made about it.

I'm not going to discuss this further with you, you clearly aren't all that well informed and can do your own research. Start with Louise Casey's 2015 government mandated inquiry into Rotherham Council where among many problems, she found that

• both members and officers lack the confidence to tackle difficult issues for fear of being seen as racist or upsetting community cohesion

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/report-of-inspection-of-rotherham-metropolitan-borough-council

It would be like hundreds of English families being transported to Kyoto in Japan and then left to their own devices

I doubt this would lead to widespread abuse of children by English families or their Japanese hosts.

I think what’s needed is a coming together of community elders on one side, and Labour councillors from these towns and cities on the other, and a proper hashing out of what we as a modern, multicultural society expect from one another, in order to solve any issues that there might be.

Are you really that naive? The community elders and Labour councillors in these towns are often the same people. This is precisely why local enquiries are likely to result in more cover-ups.

For me, it’s up to the current government to sort this issue out. Is it Labour’s fault? No. But they inherited this broken country and they need to get to to work mending it before things get out of hand.

What I think needs to happen is this

1. set up a task force to deal with CSE nationwide, with no specific agenda in mind but to go after anyone who deals in the abuse of children.
2. Silence the bad faith actors who are using this issue to spread fear and hate. Prosecutions, freezing bank accounts, shutting down social media sites (basically X) whatever it takes really.
3. Commission positive & inspirational stories for broadcast television that goes into showing the life of Pakistani heritage people in this country, how they live and interact on a daily basis.

I know that in Bradford this was happening in the early 1990s. What I find difficult to understand is the reluctance of people to name the main perpetrators of sexual abuse and exploitation as men. There is reluctance to imagine the men known to you might regularly visit prostituted women and girls,or subscribe to website talking about drugging and raping their partners(70000 in Germany recently) or regularly harass girls on the streets. Women don’t want to see this as it is just too frightening.
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It's only whataboutery if you think Asian men are the real problem in this country and not just another small subset of a problem of male on female violence. Do you? I don't.

Some of us have longer memories and remember when in 2015 the same people blaming brown people now, were blaming Eastern Europeans for running the rape gangs.

The same Eastern Europeans are still here (Brexit changing literally nothing) but suddenly they're not in the news now. Did Brexit make them change their minds on raping, or did Farage and the rest change the scape goat?

The majority of rapists in this country are white. I'd put money on most posters here being against an inquiry into why white rapists never seem to be caught and convicted?

It's exactly that. There is a thread that pops up frequently on MN about women who "dated" much older men as teens. And how they now realize how disgusting it was that it was ignored by their family, friends and schools! They'd get collected by men from school. White English men. It boggles the mind. But it's always happened and it always will. The police won't care because they're a part of the problem too.

Asian, white, black. There's one thing they all have in common.

I'd like millions of pounds to be funnelled into stopping it for good.

You will lose your job if you are found to ignore abuse. If you take part in abuse. If you commit DV. Start with the police and move to all jobs of responsibility. Make it actually mean something.

One thing I would pull you up on however is the blank slate approach that you hold all men accountable for, when culture does play a part in men’s attitudes towards women.

White British men, we know that they are over represented in statistics on sex based violence. Now why is that? It has to be culture surely? What is it about British culture that makes white British men more dangerous than any other national/ethnic group?

The majority of rapists in this country are white. I'd put money on most posters here being against an inquiry into why white rapists never seem to be caught and convicted?

Why?

My rapist was white. He has never been convicted because I didn't pursue it because I don't have faith in the justice system. I would absolutely 100% back a public enquiry into the reasons for that.

This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be action and further enquiry into what led the police and others to turn a blind eye on groups of Muslim Pakistani men torturing and raping children because they were fearful of being deemed racist.

I just cannot for the life of me see how it helps 'community adhesion' to brush over this. If anything creating a sacred caste by ignoring it will increase hostility not reduce it.

It enables the far right to poke the bear.

Seriously! This has to be one of the most pathetic posts on this thread.

You didn’t notice anything “untoward” on one visit so you’re not sure what to believe? Give your head a wobble FFS.

'd put money on most posters here being against an inquiry into why white rapists never seem to be caught and convicted?

This is just silly. Do better.

My rapist was white. He has never been convicted because I didn't pursue it because I don't have faith in the justice system. I would absolutely 100% back a public enquiry into the reasons for that.

This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be action and further enquiry into what led the police and others to turn a blind eye on groups of Muslim Pakistani men torturing and raping children because they were fearful of being deemed racist.

I just cannot for the life of me see how it helps 'community adhesion' to brush over this. If anything creating a sacred caste by ignoring it will increase hostility not reduce it.

It enables the far right to poke the bear.

Exactly. Also a rape survivor.

"I think what’s needed is a coming together of community elders on one side, and Labour councillors from these towns and cities on the other, and a proper hashing out of what we as a modern, multicultural society expect from one another, in order to solve any issues that there might be."

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by this? You think we should open a dialogue with the rapists' communities to see what we should do differently in order to not be raped? If they say they expect us to wear more 'modest' clothing, do you think we should agree in order to try to maintain a "modern, multicultural society"? What about if they say they want us to ensure women and girls are not allowed out unchaperoned? Would it be worth considering, in order to maintain a "modern, multicultural society"?

Slight digression but those of us of a certain age who come from Bradford remember all too clearly the time when women and girls were told by the police and local authorities to stay home/never go out without a male escort if we wanted to avoid being dismembered by the Yorkshire Ripper. There was also the attitude that Sutcliffe’s first victims were unworthy and had it coming because they were prostitutes and only decent women should be mourned.
These were the attitudes of the time.

The attitudes of the police towards the grooming gangs were similar - with overt racial overtones. White “child prostitutes” (implying agency and a choice) choosing to “go with Asian men” and therefore even less worthy of protection than the Ripper’s first victims.

Fortunately some attitudes have changed - although we still hear victims being blamed in rape cases. But I am deeply suspicious of suspicious of anyone suggesting that British women should change their behaviour to accommodate the views of “community elders”. These are exactly the kind of views that have led to Afghan women being virtually incarcerated inside their windowless homes to avoid stirring up male lust.

I don't know. I don't think any of us can pull apart how much is culture, how much is them being male. I don't even like to think too hard about it as it upsets me as I have sons and wonder what can be weeded out by our culture with in our home vs the culture of the town/country/world we live in. For example do we think the rape culture/jokes etc make men want to rape or that an anti-rape culture stops men from doing the thing they would anyway?

I would say at least on the surface we've never been quite so overt in our condemnation of abusers in history, but it hasn't stopped anything at all. And it's discussed more widely, but we pick and choose the men that it's trendy to condemn. Russel Brand is a bad man this year. But he was doing it publicly for decades. Jimmy savile admitted as much in writing but did anyone give a shit until it became a news item.

If I'm completely honest I believe that most men in the right circumstances would rape or at the least behave in sexually abusive way if they believed there would be no one would know or that it would be condoned.

We need to make SA a crime in practice, not just in theory. Hand wringing in an inquiry about fears of looking racist won't fix anything. We need to crack down on the police. They need to be suitably trained and funded to investigate every claim and to know what victims look like, even when they're not the kind they see on TV. They shouldn't be allowed to any excuses for why they didn't investigate. I don't think it would happen though because the people who can make change are mostly men and they don't want it