School governors told to ‘dismiss’ grooming gangs concerns

[NoNever]

Article in the Telegraph.

Quote “ School governors have been encouraged to dismiss concerns about grooming gangs as “disinformation”, The Telegraph can disclose.
Thousands of governors undergoing safeguarding training this year were presented with a scenario involving rumours of “men belonging to a particular religion” committing “violent crimes against women”.
They were asked to identify the scenario as an “online safety risk” because children were spreading “disinformation”.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/04/school-governors-told-to-dismiss-grooming-gangs-concerns/

This is infuriating. For decades girls were told to shut up about grooming gangs and this is the training school governors are being provided in 2025.

Please elaborate.

What is happening with these specific grooming gangs has a very specific motivation, victimology and way of evading justice.
By attempting to dilute the target, you dilute the power to actually do anything.

Consider children who are abused in children’s homes by the workers there. Would it be helpful to broaden that out to all adults who abuse children or better to focus in and really get to the root of the issue?

You are correct. At the same time, in the context of this thread, where the initial posting was horror at poorly-worded training material that looked like a left-wing racist dogwhistle, what you say is beyond the scope of the thread.

we have to confront the difficult questions about the role which ethnicity and race may have played in those cases

We don't do that by portraying rumours of grooming gangs in the local area as being prima facie "false", to use the exact word of the training question. Rumours are often the only way that victims have to warn others. To be clear, we don't portray rumours as prima facie true either, we consider them "unsupported" (as a PP put it) and refer to designated safeguarding lead.

Imagine there’s a serial killer on the loose.
Would the police look at the patterns of those specific crimes to find the perpetrator or would they look at evidence in all murders to find him?

If you dilute the issue, you’re diluting the chance of justice for the victims who experienced a very specific crime.

You have to be able to name the issue.

“Stop, that’s really racist/bigoted/old fashioned- you shouldn’t talk like that” obfuscated what is happening.

Preventing victims from describing their experiences obfuscates what’s happening.

So anyone policing other people’s words can fuck off.

I have stated very clearly that the specific issues relating to the grooming gangs need to be properly investigated and confronted. I'm not suggesting that we should dilute anything at all, or that anything should be brushed under the carpet. I'm merely acknowledging that there is a wider context, and that we should look at that as well - not instead of, but as well. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a wider pattern of society turning a blind eye to the exploitation and abuse of vulnerable young girls, and it isn't purely about race, even though that was obviously a part of the picture in these particular examples. I would argue that class was also a significant factor.

And yes, the issue of children being abused in children's homes absolutely needs to be looked at in its own right, but also within the wider context of institutions which have failed to protect vulnerable children in other similar circumstances. Why on earth wouldn't you look at the bigger picture as well to get a broader and deeper understanding of where there may be parallels and where there may be differences etc.

I really don't see what is shameful or even remotely controversial about wanting to look at the bigger picture as well as the detail of individual cases. You can try to paint it as me trying to deflect away from the race issue if you like, but you'd be wrong. Race absolutely needs to be a part of the conversation. But if you want race to be the only part of the conversation, to the exclusion of other relevant factors, then that's when I start to question what your motives really are.

Oh, I agree that the training, as it has been reported, was obviously wildly inappropriate. Perhaps I should have said that, but I took it to be self evident.

All allegations of abuse or exploitation should be taken seriously. It's shocking if we haven't yet learnt that.

This is a horrendous safeguarding failure in itself. It's undermining of what is supposed to be the correct safeguarding culture i.e. every concern is taken seriously and investigated, people feel supported in reporting no matter who the allegation may be against. Victims can report using their own language and should be listened to.

It's an anti-safeguarding culture in schools these days as far as I can tell.

It's suppression of the ability to report any concerns. If children (or adults) can't feel free to raise concerns in their own language (in case it may be interpreted as racist / bigoted) then it's a safeguarding failure because they will be silenced and we will KEEP having paedophiles exploit those loopholes and 'taboo' subjects. HOW ON EARTH did this happen?

If the training material used 'football coach' or 'scout leader', the problem would be seen clearly. The assumption should never be that its false. It could be true, or it might not be. No one should assume its falsely targetting a particular group. Scout leaders shouldnt be a sacred group who should never be questioned.

Using these gangs has lead some people to believe that training is still attempting to give grooming gangs a protected status, others are saying the paper wouldnt be talking about it if it was about football coaches

But, if all the examples the training material used, they picked groaming gangs? Good grief.

I think your insinuations about people’s motives here, on the feminist board, are inappropriate. Thinking that this issue should be investigated as a discrete phenomenon and that it shouldn’t be diluted doesn’t mean you are a racist.

To be fair, I've done loads of safeguarding training as a governor over the years, and while I'm not denying that the training featured in the Telegraph was clearly out there, it absolutely doesn't reflect any of the training which I have received over the years, which has consistently emphasised the importance of taking all reported concerns very seriously.

I have rarely seen a clearer example than this thread of people saying the same thing while vehemently disagreeing that they are doing so.

Yes, this.

It's absolutely legitimate to look at different sexual offending patterns and modes in different demographics where clear evidence of those patterns exists, and it is necessary to do so to effectively tackle sexual offending.

So:

• The rich and famous using private jets, private islands, and payoffs to groom and abuse children. Not all rich men sexually offend, but those who do use their wealth to facilitate it.
• Pakistani Muslims using family ties to form grooming gangs, as seen in Rotherham, and selecting white and Roma kids and preying on kids in care. Not all Pakistani Muslim men sexually offend, but those who do use their family ties to facilitate it.
• White men in their twenties and thirties having school-aged "girlfriends" who they can wow with cars and cash. Not all white men in their twenties and thirties... You get the picture.
• The specific offending patterns found in certain professions, e.g. taxi driving (think of Worboys), the police, care work, and teaching.
• Trans-identified males using “I'm a woman" to bypass the safeguards of female-only spaces. The jail population figures support this assertion.
• The "pillar of the community" types, like Catholic priests and the perps in the Scout leader scandals, use their trusted status and reputation to facilitate offending. They use their knowledge of the community to identify kids from troubled families as being easier targets.
• Anyone with access to children will use that access to facilitate offending.
• etc etc

This kind of analysis is how we can decide that people in some roles (e.g. teacher, youth worker) need to be DBS checked and other people (e.g. shelf stacker, electrician) don't. It's how we can protect children by teaching them and their parents not to be blinded to risk by wealth, fame, status, and reputation. It's how we can identify the most likely victims to keep them safe. And it's how we can justify saying to a child "just because he has brought his brother/uncle/mate, doesn't mean you are safe with him".

When people are saying "shame on you" for even suggesting that there is a wider context that needs to be looked at, then I will absolutely question their motives because they're clearly trying to shut down the conversation.

I have no issue with the grooming gangs being investigated as a discrete phenomenon, and I think it's absolutely right that there should be a public enquiry which focuses specifically on those matters in order to get to the bottom of them.

I just don't think it's helpful for people to push the narrative that the grooming gangs are the only example of abuse and exploitation having been allowed to continue in plain sight, because I don't believe that's a fair reflection of reality.

No one is saying that grooming gangs don't exist. We're saying thst reform are using it to fuel racism and islamophobia. Theres just as many white grooming gangs. Terrible regardless of race

Who on this thread is “pushing the narrative that the grooming gangs are the only example of abuse and exploitation having been allowed to continue in plain sight”? It’s your straw man.

That was slowly dawning on me, yes.

Because they can say that it's terrible for any adult to act sexually with a child. Or explain how grooming works WITHOUT mentioning colour or taxi drivers or south asian men ect. It is racist to mention the latter.

I just don't think it's helpful for people to push the narrative that the grooming gangs are the only example of abuse and exploitation

In the post-Rotherham context, the training material was pushing that narrative, in the same way that saying "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" focuses Dorothy's attention on the man behind the curtain.

I don’t see anyone here denying that white men either alone or collectively abuse children, or that that abuse is often not punished and victims are silenced and go unsupported, with awful consequences. This thread isn’t about that abuse though.

Barely believable. The word 'Disinformation' pops up. This word has been used by virtually all despotic regimes throughout history. Absolutely disgusting.

I think its a legal requirement that every time the grooming gangs are mentioned, someone had to say the white men do it too, regardless of context.

The people who get upset when you suggest that the grooming gangs are part of a wider problem.

I've already acknowledged that the training was clearly wrong.

You have conflated the following three different things:

1. Criminologists analysing modes of offending, including being able to express their findings when they don't paint people of a particular demographic in a flattering light.
2. A child being able to safely say to a teacher, "Tessa told me that there's asian takeaway delivery men picking lasses up from the care home where she lives and one of them wants to be her boyfriend".
3. Teachers and parents telling kids to watch out for the scary brown men because they are brown.

We need (1) and (2) to keep kids safe. The training material undermined (2) and that is what this thread is about. (3) would be racist and ZERO people on this thread have suggested it.