There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

[inkognitha]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/14/keir-starmer-national-inquiry-grooming-gangs

Posting here for traffic

YABU: this was unnecessary
YANBU: this was the right thing to do

Grooming and abuse happen across all religions, ethnicities, communities, and classes — it is endemic in our society.

But in the grooming scandals that took place in towns like Rotherham, Telford, and Rochdale, multiple investigations — including the Jay Report and the Casey Review — found that the majority of perpetrators were from the British Pakistani community.

This isn’t about blaming whole communities — it’s about being honest about why institutions failed. Survivors have said again and again that what they want is not just justice in court, but real accountability from the authorities who ignored or dismissed them,

“ Sadly when I said this I was told it was fine that VAWG exists in the UK because we do not have to cover our faces and can go to school so we should be happy with our lot.”

This is a complete misrepresentation of the discussion. At no point did anyone say it was” fine that VAWG exists in the UK because we do not have to cover our faces”
You said misogyny exists everywhere ( which is true) I pointed out that it is worse in some societies as in those societies misogyny is embedded in the law and misogynistic behaviour is protected by the law .

This survivor thinks up to half a million girls are affected.

Absolutely it does and is endemic. The data shows that the majority were from white communities which stands to reason as sex offenders are mainly white British in the UK.

No one is blaming a whole community. I agree it is about being honest which is why I want all perpetrators being held to account and all victims supported but sadly we have people saying things like muslim girls were not affected when there are reports from muslim support groups saying they feel unheard and ignored because they were.

I would love for honesty and people to talk about all perpetrators and all victims. Sadly we will never get accountability when the law says the child is to blame legally. Unless that changes things will not get better for these girls.

It’s been asked for by Starmer after refusing so I guess we’ll find out.

It was said that it wasn't a problem in the UK but it was elsewhere and examples of covering faces and lack of education being the examples given.

I was told I was wrong to say that misogyny is a problem and part of UK culture. It is.

The fact we have feminist movement shows it is needed because.....of the issues stemming from misogyny and its acceptance in society.

There's always one isn't there.

I didn't mock you. I asked a question.

I agree that rape and other sexual offences are underreported, under-prosecuted and victim blaming is rife.

However, that's not what this thread is about. It's about the grooming gangs in Rotherham, Rochdale, Bradford, Manchester and several other towns.

They were nearly entirely composed of British Pakistani men.

It's clear that the patterns of offending are different in different cultures and right now we're talking about one particular type of sexual offending which is particularly prominent in one specific ethnicity. Different types of offending need different approaches. This particular type was dealt with especially badly.

If you would like to start a thread about how we are going to tackle types of sexual offences committed mostly by white British men, please do so, but instead you've brought it to this thread and derailed the discussion.

Always one who wants all victims to be supported including those who feel excluded and ignored and wants all perpetrators held to account no matter what.

I'll be that one, shame it isn't more eh?!

Always one narcissist derailing the discussion by making it all about their own issues.

You said you assumed. You didn't ask. You asked if I was protecting rapists in my community assuming I was Pakistani. you literally asked me if I was protecting people in my community thus saying I was a rape supporter.

You assumed I was not white because I am blunt due to how I communicate. You assumed I know nothing of British culture. You literally said I lack knowledge of British culture when it is part of my job to know about it! Yes British culture is steeped in misogyny.

So mentioning how I communicate as being not British when I am because I communicate differently to you and saying this is because I am supporting rapists in my community is pretty bloody sick.

The thread is about grooming gangs. The title says grooming gangs of which there are many ethnicities. Shocking to know that you just learnt this. There are white, black and brown. White men form grooming gangs along with men of all other ethnicities.

CSE is an offence that is not prominent in one specific ethnicity. It is prominent in one group - males.

Why do you think it is ok to exclude victims of CSE who were victims of white grooming gangs? This is totally wrong and all victims should be supported no matter the ethnicity of their rapist.

This is about grooming gangs and sorry if you feel that you want to turn a blind eye to white men who do this. I will not. It is not derailing a discussion by wanting ALL held to account and ALL victims supported. It is pretty sick to say that you cannot be a victim if you were raped by a white gang and that you will be ignored because your rapist isn't the colour we want to talk about.

Do you think there should be an investigation into pakistani grooming gangs and white grooming gangs separately? Should victims of white grooming gangs not get support? What is the aim of ignoring these crimes?

Sorry if you have issues. I wasn;t to know.

No - you have misrepresented that whole discussion 🙄

The discussion said I was wrong to say it because there is no issue with misogyny as the law means there is none and women are protected by law.

I disagreed and was told that there is a difference in misogyny - in the levels of hatred because we can get education and do not have to cover up.

I asked about levels of hatred and was told I was being arsey despite it not being me who declared the difference in levels of hatred.

I gave examples and was told I was wrong as the law says it is wrong so there isn't a problem these days and only once has a female been asked to cover up not girls at 4 on the playground wearing skirts despite there being thread after thread on this each summer when the new term starts.

I was going to ask why this was so different from the previous figures quoted, but see it's based on new data which now reflects ethnicity being recorded as a result of the Jay report

Be prepared for continuing insistence that the vast majority of gang abusers are white though, presumably in the hope that if a falsehood's repeated often enough people will believe it

All lives matter?

That is interesting data as it includes other crimes too alongside grooming. It is quite an interesting data set to read and study.

It also shows 52% of offenders are children now when it comes to child abuse crimes.

I wasn't aware that the statistics had changed. Could you link to the evidence that shows the majority of grooming gangs aren't white? I thought the above information had been shown to be unreliable but would be interested in the new, more reliable data.

All victims matter to me, why do they not to you?

Some energy and motivation. How ironic.

The data includes all crimes against children which are sex based. It lists 13.7% of all child sex crimes including grooming as being by asian men.

What people are debating is that as white men are the higher proportion that as a proportion you would expect their amounts to be higher but that as asian men account for less that the proportion of asian men offending out of the whole is reported as being higher when it is mainly black that has a higher proportion of offenders as there are less black men than asian men and more sex offences reported for black grooming gangs than asian men. So proportionately black men are higher offenders.

So it is reported that white men offend more but black are the higher offender per proportion of the population.

Of that grooming is one element of these crimes.

@Fetaface

The Home Office commissioned a study of the available data in 2020, external. It said:

"The academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending."

"Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white."

"Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations."

It found there was limited research on offender identity and poor quality data, which made it difficult to draw conclusions, however "it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending".

A previous piece of research from 2015 found that of 1,231 perpetrators of "group and gang-based child sexual exploitation", 42% were white, 14% were defined as Asian or Asian British and 17% black.

The problem is that the data is from only 19 out of more than 40 police forces and nearly a decade old.

Another issue is that the ethnicity of the offender is recorded by police officers rather than self-assessed, and uses broad definitions, such as "Asian".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65174096

There appears to be more up to date evidence that I'd like to see. According to this report this data is nearly a decade old and only from 19 police forces. The HO said that grooming gangs were commonly white.

They are going off the NPCC which relates to all child sex offences including grooming so lumps them all together and which says the same that the majority of perpetrators are white. The 13.7% was from removing some data such as sports groups and church groups. When they are included that percentage is lower is what the report says.

The debate is that they are on about how many perpetrators out of 1000 who are white/black/asian etc if the fractions had the same denominator. It is equivalent fractions - making them equivalent to compare.

So how white make up about 82% of the population of the UK so if everyone offended at the same rate there would be the same average per white person, per black person, per asian person etc they are saying as a fraction there are more offenders per amount of asian people than there are per amount of white not per whole population. They are taking each group and looking at the fraction per that group and then comparing it.

So for every 1000 white men X are perpetrators and for every 1000 asian men Y are perpetrators. It is comparing it as a like fraction which still shows black perpetrators are the main per 1000. They then apply that to the whole population to generalise about how many sex offenders there are per that group. The data does warn not to do this but hey ho!

They are saying that it shows as an equivalent that asian men are the main issue. It doesn't as it shows children as the main issue when it comes to sex crimes against children.

When it comes to grooming the problem lies in that it is not called grooming when it is a white man who does it. They are called paedophile rings. So if you call it one thing when it is a certain ethnicity and one thing when it is another then you get a whole range of different data as some will collect on one thing and some on another. When the reality is they are all grooming gangs and all paedophile rings. Both a much of a muchness.

This conversation has gone off track, hijacked by discussions around guilt and misogyny, particularly related to white men. While I don’t entirely disagree with those points, I’m not looking to get caught up in comparisons across ethnic lines.

I’d like to return to the question at hand what do we hope the national inquiry will about? What are we hoping for here? What can we realistically expect.

And yes too little too late, but at least this national inquiry has been called though I remain cynical,

For years, children were abused and lives were destroyed—while those in power turned a blind eye. And this wasn’t just one party—this crossed party lines. No one wanted to confront it.

Now, with the national inquiry finally happening, it’s hard not to wonder: is this coming from genuine concern, or is it just another case of political point-scoring?

There are, of course, a few noticeable exceptions. Ann Cryer spoke out when it was deeply unpopular to do so. And Sarah Champion has been consistent and brave, pushing hard for a proper national inquiry when others stayed silent or deflected.

I would hope for a change in legal definition of child sex exploitation for a start. Without that victims will continue to be treated as the problem.