Grooming gangs scandal

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Several government reviews have reported failures by British institutions in preventing, identifying and prosecuting the widespread cases of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation that mostly occurred between the 1990s and 2010s. [1] Allegations of governmental and institutional failures to respond to the problem or to downplay or cover up the issue have been described as a grooming gangs scandal. [2] [3]

Contents

Media coverage and political discourse around these crimes has especially focused on the ethnic and religious background of perpetrators in high-profile cases, many of whom were of Pakistani British origin, and whether this prevented proper investigation. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Data in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire shows that, in the 2020s, men of an Asian ethnic background are disproportionately represented among perpetrators in those areas, but there is insufficient data to draw conclusions about ethnicity of perpetrators across the UK. [9]

The National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse ("Casey audit") called for better recording of ethnicity by police forces to prevent misinformation, aid examination of the underlying issues, and restore public trust. [10] In 2025, following the Casey audit's recommendations, the British Government indicated it would fund a national inquiry into the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation, including the role played by the ethnic background of offenders and to what extent there were failings by local authorities in the prevention and policing of such abuse.

Scholars such as Shamim Miah, [11] Tufail Waqas, [12] Muzammil Quraishi, [13] Ella Cockbain, [14] Aisha K. Gill, Karen Harrison, [5] and others have accused politicians and the media of creating a moral panic over the issue that demonises Muslims. [6] [7] [15]

Terminology

Group-based child sexual exploitation and localised grooming are terms used to describe the sexual exploitation or grooming of children and adolescents by groups. Group-based child sexual exploitation was first defined in UK law in the Department for Children, Schools and Families' statutory guidance, Safeguarding Children & Young People from Sexual Exploitation. Supplementary guidance to Working Together to Safeguard Children in 2009. [16]

A 2013 report by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee describes a group first making contact with the child in a public place. After the group's initial contact with the child, offers of treats (takeaway food, cigarettes, drugs) persuade the child to maintain the relationship. Sometimes a boy similar in age presents himself as a "boyfriend"; this person arranges for the child to be raped by other members of the group. Children may end up being raped by dozens of these group members, and may be trafficked to connected groups in other towns. [17] [18]

Statistics

According to the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (2025), 28.5% of cases of contact sexual abuse can be described as sexual exploitation (17,000 in 2024), whether by individuals or groups. [16] The National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse noted that there is a lack of data on group-based offences, with the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset (COCAD) recording around 700 in 2023 (i.e., 4% of exploitation offences). [16]

This type of abuse tends to target girls who are particularly vulnerable, such as those who are in local authority care. [19] [18] The youngest recorded victim was 12 and the oldest was 18. [20]

The Jay Report suggested that the number of Asian victims may be underrepresented. According to the Muslim Women's Network UK, Asian victims may be particularly vulnerable to threats of bringing shame and dishonour to their families, and may have believed that reporting the abuse would be an admission they had violated their cultural beliefs. One of the local Pakistani women's groups had described Pakistani girls being targeted by Pakistani taxi drivers and landlords, but they feared reporting to the police out of concerns for their marriage prospects. The report suggested "the under-reporting of exploitation and abuse in minority ethnic communities" should be addressed. [21]

Offenders

In spite of high-profile cases being tied by media and public perception to the British Pakistani community, there is poor data regarding the background of grooming gang members on a national scale. [22] [23]

In December 2017, the anti-extremism think tank Quilliam released a report that said 84% of offenders involved in grooming gangs were of South Asian heritage. [24] Researchers Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail criticised the Quilliam report's conclusions, suggesting it had methodological and scientific flaws. [6] [25] [26]

In December 2020, a report by the Home Office found limited evidence to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders, citing poor quality and incomplete data. It concluded that the ethnicity of perpetrators likely reflected national demographics for child sexual abuse in general, meaning most perpetrators were likely white, and that there was insufficient evidence to indicate whether there was an overrepresentation of Asian and black offenders. It said that it was unlikely any one community or culture was uniquely predisposed to offending. [27] [28] In 2021, an investigation by the Times suggested South Yorkshire Police was not routinely recording the ethnicity of child sexual abuse suspects. In Rotherham, police omitted suspect ethnicity in 67% of cases. The force said it had increased reporting of ethnicity since 2019. [29]

The 2025 Casey audit stated that ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation was "not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level", but however that "there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination". [23]

Background

In August 2003, a television documentary reported details of an 18-month police and social services investigation into allegations that young British Asian men were targeting under-age girls for sex, drugs and prostitution in the West Yorkshire town of Keighley. [30] The Leeds-based Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop) sought to bring this behaviour to national attention from at least 2010. [31] In November 2010, the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal saw several convictions of child sexual abusers. In 2012, members of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring were convicted on various counts, and in 2016, following the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the UK, [32] 18 men in the Halifax child sex abuse ring case were sentenced to a combined total of over 175 years in prison. [33]

Following further child sex abuse rings in Aylesbury, Banbury, Bristol, Derby, Huddersfield, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Peterborough, Rochdale, Telford, and others, several investigations considered how prevalent British Asian backgrounds were in localised grooming. In 2011 and 2013, the National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) branch collected the available data on group-based child sexual abuse from police forces in England and Wales. It reported that, where ethnicity information was available, 28% (2011) and 75% (2013) of offenders had been recorded as "Asian" by the police. The Home Office said the figures should be treated with caution as the data was incomplete and was at particular risk of bias, and recorded ethnicity was based on police assigning offenders to broad categories, rather than on offenders' own self-report. [34] In December 2017, the think tank Quilliam released a report that said 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage. [35] This report was criticised by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, who said it was unscientific and had poor methodology. [6] [25]

A further investigation was carried out by the Conservative government in December 2020, which concluded that most offenders were probably white, as with most child sexual abuse cases generally, and that there was insufficient data in this area to suggest South Asians, or any other ethnic group, were disproportionately represented among perpetrators. [36] The government originally refused to release the report but eventually did so after public pressure. [37] In response to the report, then Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "This paper demonstrates how difficult it has been to draw conclusions about the characteristics of offenders." [28] Reviews of the Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford cases identified several common factors, with offenders often working in night-time industries like takeaways and taxis, providing access to vulnerable children. [28]

In 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that victims had been failed due to political correctness, and established a taskforce to target this specific issue. [38] [39] [40] In 2025, the Labour government commissioned Baroness Casey to make a detailed audit of these cases, published as the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. In her audit, Baroness Casey wrote: "Assertions that the majority of child sexual abuse offenders are White, even if true, are at best misleading. In a population with over of 80% of people of White ethnicity, it should always be a significant issue when people from a White background are not in the majority of victims or perpetrators of crime" [16] The review found that there were serious shortcomings in the recording of ethnicity data about perpetrators of group-based sexual abuse. [16] In one instance, Casey stated finding a case file where the word "Pakistani" had been tippexed out. [41] On 14 June 2025, having previously resisted launching an investigation, [4] [42] Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the British government would launch a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, [43] [44]

Investigations and inquiries

Rotherham grooming gang scandal

In 2013, Rotherham Council commissioned an independent inquiry led by Professor Alexis Jay, former chief social work adviser to the Scottish Government, into abuse that occurred between the city. In August 2014, the Jay Report published its recommendations and concluded that an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. The perpetrators were predominantly British-Pakistani men. [45] [46] The majority of victims were white British girls, but British Asian girls in Rotherham were also targeted and received less support or public attention. [47] [48] The failure to address the abuse was attributed to a combination of factors, including fear that the perpetrators' ethnicity would trigger allegations of racism; sexist and classist attitudes toward the mostly working-class victims; lack of a child-centred focus; a desire to protect the town's reputation; and lack of training and resources. [49] [50] [51] Several local authority and police staff members resigned after the report was published. [52] The Independent Police Complaints Commission and the National Crime Agency also opened inquiries in response to the report, with the latter expected to last eight years. [53] [54]

In 2014, the government appointed Louise Casey to conduct an inspection of Rotherham Council, published in January 2015. The Casey report concluded that the council was "not fit for purpose" and had a culture of bullying, sexism, covering up information and silencing whistleblowers. [55] [56] In February 2015 the government replaced the council's elected officers with a team of five commissioners. [57]

2013 House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Report

In June 2013, after a year-long investigation, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee published Child sexual exploitation and the response to localised grooming which reviewed evidence from Rochdale, Rotherham, and Oxford. [58] The report concluded that vulnerable children were being left "unprotected by the system", with "an appalling cost" paid by the victims. The report said that failures had occurred across multiple agencies and were still ongoing. It blamed "police, social services and the Crown Prosecution Service", and said local authorities were slow to act due to "a woeful lack of professional curiosity". [59]

2020 Home Office report

In December 2020, the Home Office published the report Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation: Characteristics of Offending, co-written by an external-reference group of members of academia, law enforcement, victim advocates and parliament workers. It concluded that most offenders were white, with some studies showing black and Asian offenders proportionally over-represented. It added that a large amount high-profile cases involved perpetrators of South Asian origin, but that there was a general lack of data to make a definite conclusion for over-representation in all cases of group-based sexual abuse. The report also stated that the external reference group "did not reach consensus around how the evidence should be presented, particularly with regard to cultural and community contexts." [36] [28] The British government released the report, originally due two years earlier, after a petition by The Independent garnering over 130,000 signatures. [37]

2025 Casey audit and future national inquiry

In 2025, after initially ruling out an investigation, [4] [42] the Labour government commissioned Baroness Casey to make a detailed audit of these cases, published as the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. The audit found serious shortcomings in the recording of ethnicity data about perpetrators of group-based sexual abuse and recommended improved reporting of ethnicity and nationality for all suspects. The review found that improved data collection by police forces in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire indicated Pakistani men were overrepresented among perpetrators in these areas, but that generally the data was "not good enough to support any statements about the ethnicity of group-based child sexual exploitation offenders at the national level." [1] Casey suggested the gaps in ethnicity data had led to competing and sometimes misleading claims, including by the media and academics, that had eroded trust in institutions. [60] She said the 2020 Home Office report's conclusion that perpetrators were "mostly White" had been widely cited but that this "does not seem to be evidenced in research or data". She said the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was the only source to treat the Home Office report with "any balance" when it said "significant limitations" in the data prevented drawing conclusions nationally. [16]

The Casey report also found the role of the night-time economy, particularly out of area taxi licencing, contributed to child sexual exploitation. In the UK taxi licensing is done by local authorities. In areas at risk of child sexual exploitation, such as Rotherham, licensing requirements exceeded national statutory minimums, but this was undermined by drivers acquiring licenses in other areas of the country and then working instead in higher-risk areas. [61] [62]

On 14 June 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the government would launch a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs, [43] [44] following the recommendations of the Casey audit, which found that the ethnicity of gangs had been "shied away from". Noting that ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation was "not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level", the report said "there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination". Casey said there had been institutional "obfuscation" instead of "examination". [63] [23] Under the Inquiries Act 2005, the minister who sets up an inquiry must appoint a chairman and set terms of reference by an instrument in writing. As of September 2025, the Government had not. [64]

Responses

Political

In 2011, Jack Straw, the former Labour Home Secretary told Newsnight that while most sex offenders were white there was a "specific problem" of men of Pakistani origin targeting white girls who they viewed as "easy meat" and urged the Pakistani community to be "more open" about the problem. His comments were criticised by criminologist Helen Brayley who said that racial stereotyping could lead to only looking for cases where Asians were responsible, and by the MP Keith Vaz who said he did not think there was evidence of a cultural problem and that it was not possible to stereotype entire communities. [65] [66] Subsequently throughout the 2010s, Conservative and Reform UK politicians, such as Rishi Sunak have reasserted that race was a factor in grooming gangs [6] [67] and that concerns were not dealt with because of political correctness. [39] [68] [69]

In 2013, Professor Alexis Jay, a retired social worker, led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (or Jay Report), [70] which said that such cases were not overlooked because of political correctness, and "found no evidence of children's social care staff being influenced by concerns about the ethnic origins of suspected perpetrators when dealing with individual child protection cases, including CSE". [21] [71] [72] . In 2015, Jay attributed the authorities' inaction to "their desire to accommodate a community that would be expected to vote Labour, to not rock the boat, to keep a lid on it, to hope it would go away". [73]

After a 2017 case in Newcastle, former Conservative policing and justice minister Mike Penning urged Attorney General Jeremy Wright to consider the offences against "young white girls" as racially motivated. [74] The judge presiding over the case in question later ruled that the girls were not targeted for their race. [75] [76]

In 2017, the Labour Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities and MP for Rotherham Sarah Champion wrote in The Sun that "Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls". Champion's remarks came after the prosecution and conviction of seventeen men from the Newcastle sex abuse ring, who were from Iraqi, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iranian and Turkish communities, for forcing underage girls to have sex. Champion said that a fear of being called racist was hampering police investigations. Following criticism, including from fellow Labour MP Naz Shah, Champion apologised for the article and resigned as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. [77] Following her resignation, Champion accused the left of failing to speak out on grooming gangs for fear of being branded racist. [78]

In 2023, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman said in an opinion piece that "grooming gang" members in the United Kingdom were "groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values". In response, the Independent Press Standards Organisation issued a correction stating that Braverman's article was "misleading", since it did not make it explicit that she was talking about the Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford child sexual abuse scandals in particular. [68] Many experts and organisations called on her to withdraw her comments, saying she was amplifying far-right ideologies and making it harder to address the issue. [79] [38] [80] The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said that by focusing primarily on South Asian men, Braverman was fuelling "misinformation, racism and division". [80] [67] The charity said that "a singular focus on groups of male abusers of British-Pakistani origin draws attention away from so many other sources of harm". [67] [79] Sabah Kaiser, ethnic minority ambassador for the Jay Report, said it was "very, very dangerous for the government to turn child sexual abuse into a matter of colour". [81]

In 2024, Jay said she was "frustrated" that the government had still not taken action two years after her report was published. [82]

In 2025, former Home Office minister Robert Jenrick said group-based child sexual exploitation was "perhaps the greatest racially motivated crime in modern Britain", [83] and said the British state had covered it up to protect community relations. [69] Journalist Nick Robinson said Jenrick had not raised the issue when he was a Home Office minister. [84] Simon Danczuk MP also claimed a Labour Party chairman had told him not to draw attention to the ethnicity of the gangs in his Rochdale constituency in case it affected the party's electoral chances. [85] Labour MP Nadia Whittome said the Conservatives and Reform were "weaponising the trauma of victims" for their own game. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the Conservatives were "playing politics with the safety of vulnerable children" by using the issue to fundraise for the party. [86]

Media

According to scholars, particularly within the social sciences, [12] [11] [15] [8] British media outlets such as The Times , MailOnline , The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph have especially focussed on the ethnicity of the perpetrators in their reporting of such cases. [5] [6] [87] [88] This has led to increased public awareness and politicisation of the issue. [6] [8]

In the context of media reporting around Rochdale child sex abuse ring scandal, Rochdale police chief Ian Hopkins stated that the The Times' sensationalist news reporting increased communal tensions. [89] [90] Rebecca Riggs, the lead on child protection and abuse investigations at the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), said the media focus on Pakistani men could leave other victims "feeling that their type of crime isn't a priority". [85]

Community groups like the Muslim Women's network and the Muslim Council of Britain, argue that sensational media reporting is responsible for increasing Islamophobia. [80] [67] According to Miqdaad Versi, director for media monitoring at the Muslim Council of Britain, the media does this by "conflating the faith of Islam with criminality, such as the headlines 'Muslim sex grooming'". [91] Right-wing figures, particularly Elon Musk in early 2025, have also been criticised of over-amplifying the issue in social media. [92]

In 2013, BBC Inside Out London investigated allegations made by members of the Sikh community that British Sikh girls living inside Britain were being targeted by men who pretended to be Sikhs. [93] An investigation by the Sikh scholar Katy Sian of the University of York found no truth to the allegations and instead found it was an allegation being pushed by extremist Sikh groups. [94] [95] Further reports compiled by the British government and child sex exploitation scholars also confirmed there was no evidence to this. [6] [96]

In April 2025, Channel 4 broadcast Groomed: A National Scandal (directed by Anna Hall), a documentary which revisits the theme of her 2004 film Edge of the City and centres on the stories of survivors of sexual abuse and the shortcomings of local councils in addressing the issue. [97]

Academia

Researchers in the social sciences—such as Shamim Miah, [11] Tufail Waqas, [12] Muzammil Quraishi, [13] Aisha K. Gill, Karen Harrison, [5] Vasil Karastanchev, [98] Aviah Sarah Day, [15] and others [8] —have described public perceptions of grooming gangs as a moral panic fuelled by sensationalist news reporting, [15] [99] with South Asian men portrayed as folk devils. [5] [100] Ella Cockbain, an associate professor in security and crime science at University College London, [38] suggests that "sweeping, ill-founded generalisations" in the discourse around group-based child sexual exploitation serves to "further a political agendum and legitimise thinly veiled racism, ultimately doing victims a disservice". [14] Cockbain writes that the concept of "grooming gangs" is ill-defined, defined based on unrepresentative samples to create a false narrative that Pakistani men are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse. [14] [6]

Public health and international studies scholars Yusra Ribhi Shawar, Phong Phu Truong and Jeremy Shiffman said that "the race element of the narrative" was amplified mainly by right-wing media, and sometimes individuals on the left, to "capitalize on wider anti-Muslim and xenophobic attitudes". They said that although this was "unhelpful", it had increased public awareness of the issue and led to increased government action on child abuse. [8]

References

  1. 1 2 Casey 2025, pp. 61, 74.
  2. ↑ Hanson, Martin (2018). "Muslim grooming gangs". The Open Society. 91 (4): 5–10.
  3. ↑ Wroe, Lauren Elizabeth; Vaughn, Leona (April 2025). "Race, class and the weaponisation of child safety". Critical and Radical Social Work (editorial). 13 (2): 148–154. doi: 10.1332/20498608Y2025D000000074 .
  4. 1 2 3 "Britain's Starmer announces national inquiry into 'grooming gangs'". Reuters. 14 June 2025. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Gill, Aisha K; Harrison, Karen (1 July 2015). "Child Grooming and Sexual Exploitation: Are South Asian Men the UK Media's New Folk Devils?". International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 4 (2): 34–49. doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i2.214. ISSN   2202-8005. The British media's construction of a specifically South Asian notion of hegemonic masculinity began long before the recent spate of high-profile cases of child sexual exploitation and grooming. The Ouseley report on the Bradford race riots (Ouseley 2001), and the Cantle Report on the Oldham, Burnley and Bradford riots (Cantle 2001), focused on cultural difference as the primary causal factor for these events, maintaining that British South Asians and white Britons led 'parallel lives'. Media coverage of the riots described angry young men who were alienated from society and their own communities, and had become entangled in a life of crime and violence, a vision that provided the bedrock for the construction of what Claire Alexander calls the 'new Asian folk devil' (2000).
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (2020). "Failing victims, fuelling hate: Challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative". Race & Class. 61 (3): 3–32. doi:10.1177/0306396819895727. S2CID   214197388. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  7. 1 2 Tufail, Waqas (2015). "Rotherham, Rochdale, and the Racialised threat of the 'Muslim grooming gang'". International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 4 (3): 30–43. doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i3.249.
    Meyer, Anneke (30 June 2015). Cree, Viviene E.; Clapton, Gary; Smith, Mark (eds.). "The Rotherham abuse scandal". Revisiting Moral Panics. Policy Press. pp. 113–122. doi:10.51952/9781447321873.ch010. ISBN   978-1-4473-2187-3 . Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Shawar, Yusra Ribhi; Truong, Phong Phu; Shiffman, Jeremy (1 June 2022). "The emergence of political priority for addressing child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom". Child Abuse & Neglect. 128 (105601): 8–9. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105601. ISSN   0145-2134.
  9. ↑ Casey 2025, pp. 61, 84: "Rates of collection and accuracy of ethnicity data were much higher in police data from Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. Their data shows there has been a disproportionality of group-based child sexual exploitation offending by men of Asian ethnicity in these police force areas." (p. 61) "The percentage of suspects of Asian ethnicity (35%) and White ethnicity (34%) compares with an ethnicity profile for West Yorkshire141 of 16% Asian and 77% White, suggesting a disproportionate over-representation of people of Asian ethnic background (roughly double) and disproportionately under representation of people of White ethnicity (roughly half) amongst child sexual exploitation suspects in West Yorkshire over the period examined." (p. 84)
  10. ↑ Casey 2025, pp. 4.
  11. 1 2 3 Miah, Shamim (18 April 2015). "The Groomers and the Question of Race". Identity Papers: A Journal of British and Irish Studies. 1 (1): 54–66. doi: 10.5920/idp.2015.1154 . ISSN   2058-6205.
  12. 1 2 3 Tufail, Waqas, and Scott Poynting. "Muslim and dangerous: 'Grooming' and the politics of racialisation." Fear of Muslims? International Perspectives on Islamophobia (2016): 79-92.
  13. 1 2 Quraishi, Muzammil (2016). "Child sexual exploitation and young British Muslim men: a modern moral panic?". Young British Muslims. London: Routledge. pp. 36–48.
  14. 1 2 3 Cockbain, Ella (April 2013). "Grooming and the 'Asian sex gang predator': the construction of a racial crime threat". Race & Class. 54 (4): 22–32. doi: 10.1177/0306396813475983 .
  15. 1 2 3 4 Gill, Aisha K.; Day, Aviah Sarah (30 November 2020). Ramon, Shulamit; Lloyd, Michele; Penhale, Bridget (eds.). "Moral Panic in the Media: Scapegoating South Asian Men in Cases of Sexual Exploitation and Grooming" . Gendered Domestic Violence and Abuse in Popular Culture. Emerald Publishing Limited. pp. 171–197. doi:10.1108/978-1-83867-781-720201011. ISBN   978-1-83867-782-4 . Retrieved 27 June 2024.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Casey 2025.
  17. ↑ Home Affairs Committee (10 June 2013). Child sexual exploitation and the response to localized grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 1 (PDF). London: The Stationery Office Limited. p. 5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 September 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
  18. 1 2 "EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CEOP thematic assessment" (PDF). ceop.police.uk. June 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 23 March 2014. Localized grooming is a form of sexual exploitation – previously referred to as 'on street grooming' in the media – where children have been groomed and sexually exploited by an offender, having initially met in a location outside their home. This location is usually in public, such as a park, cinema, on the street or at a friend's house. Offenders often act together, establishing a relationship with a child or children before sexually exploiting them. Some victims of 'street grooming' may believe that the offender is an older 'boyfriend'; these victims introduce their peers to the offender group who might then go on to be sexually exploited as well. Abuse may occur at several locations within a region and on several occasions. 'Localised grooming' was the term used by CEOP in the intelligence requests issued to police forces and other service agencies to define the data we wished to receive.
  19. ↑ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2023.
  20. ↑ Mooney, Jaime-Lee; Ost, Suzanne (2013). "Group Localised Grooming: What Is It and What Challenges Does It Pose for Society and Law". Child and Family Law Quarterly. 25 (4): 425. Archived from the original on 27 November 2022. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  21. 1 2 Topping, Alexandra (10 September 2013). "Abuse of Asian girls missed because of focus on white victims, says report". The Guardian.
  22. ↑ Syal, Rajeev (17 June 2025). "Public must 'keep calm' over ethnicity of grooming gang offenders, says Louise Casey". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  23. 1 2 3 "'Collective failure' to address questions about grooming gangs' ethnicity, says Casey report". BBC News. Retrieved 16 June 2025.
  24. ↑ Barnes, Tom (10 December 2017). "British-Pakistani researchers say grooming gangs are 84% Asian". The Independent . Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  25. 1 2 Malik, Kenan (11 November 2018). "We're told 84% of grooming gangs are Asian. But where's the evidence?". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 25 December 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  26. ↑ Colley, Sarah (2 September 2019). "Perpetrators of organised child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the UK: a review of current research" . Journal of Sexual Aggression. 25 (3): 258–274. doi:10.1080/13552600.2019.1673493. ISSN   1355-2600.
  27. ↑ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending" (PDF). Home Office . December 2020. p. 27. While some of the research set out above suggests that there are high numbers of offenders of Asian or Black ethnicities committing group-based CSE offences, it is not possible to say whether these groups are overrepresented in this type of offending [...] Based on the existing evidence, and our understanding of the flaws in the existing data, it seems most likely that the ethnicity of group-based CSE offenders is in line with CSA more generally and with the general population, with the majority of offenders being White.
  28. 1 2 3 4 Grierson, Jamie (15 December 2020). "Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men, Home Office report says". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077. Archived from the original on 1 April 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  29. ↑ "Rotherham grooming: South Yorkshire Police not recording ethnicity". BBC News. 30 December 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
  30. ↑ "Asian rape allegations". Channel 4 News. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010.
  31. ↑ "independent.co.uk: "'They like us naive': How teenage girls are groomed for a life of prostitution by UK gangs" 31 Jan 2010". The Independent. 31 January 2010. Archived from the original on 19 August 2017. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  32. ↑ "Child sexual abuse ring in Halifax: 25 men charged - police reaction". Halifax Courier. 9 February 2015. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 13 February 2018. police say is the largest child sexual exploitation (CSE) investigation in the country - bigger than high profile cases in Rochdale and Rotherham
  33. ↑ "Last two men sentenced in Calderdale's biggest child sex abuse case". Halifax Courier. 24 June 2016. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2018. Sentences imposed on the sexual offenders now total more than 175 years and an 18th man convicted only of supplying the girl with cannabis was also jailed for 10 months.
  34. ↑ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending | December 2020" (PDF). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2023. Law enforcement data can be particularly vulnerable to bias, in terms of those cases that come to the attention of the authorities [...] This can also lead to greater attention being paid to certain types of offenders, making that data more readily identified and recorded. [...] Police collected data on ethnicity uses broad categories and requires the police to assign an ethnicity rather than it being self-reported by offenders. Data is therefore not always accurate; Berelowitz et al. (2012) observed cases of offenders being initially classed as 'Asian' but actually coming from other backgrounds, such as White British or Afghan. [...] In 2013 CEOP undertook a second piece of work in this space. Data was requested from all police forces in England and Wales on contact CSA, and responses were received from 31. Of the 52 groups where data provided was useable, half of the groups consisted of all Asian offenders, 11 were all White offenders, 4 were all Black, and 2 were exclusively Arab. There were nine groups where offenders came from a mix of ethnic backgrounds. Looking at the offenders across all groups, of the 306 offenders 75% were Asian. However, as with CEOP (2011) these figures should be treated with caution due to the amount of missing data.
  35. ↑ Barnes, Tom (10 December 2017). "British-Pakistani researchers say grooming gangs are 84% Asian". The Independent . Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  36. 1 2 "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of Offending | December 2020" (PDF). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 12 February 2023. Beyond specific high-profile cases, 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 CSE offenders are most commonly White. Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending. This is due to issues such as data quality problems, the way the samples were selected in studies, and the potential for bias and inaccuracies in the way that ethnicity data is collected ... Based on the existing evidence, and our understanding of the flaws in the existing data, it seems most likely that the ethnicity of group-based CSE offenders is in line with CSA [child sexual abuse] more generally and with the general population, with the majority of offenders being White.
  37. 1 2 Lizzie Dearden (15 December 2020). Grooming gangs come from 'diverse backgrounds, says Home Office as review finally published . The Independent. Archived Version . Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  38. 1 2 3 Cockbain, Ella (4 April 2023). "Not even Suella Braverman's own department agrees with her about 'grooming gangs'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 10 January 2025.
  39. 1 2 "Rishi Sunak criticises political correctness over grooming gangs". 3 April 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  40. ↑ "PM to clamp down on Grooming Gangs". GOV.UK. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
  41. ↑ "Grooming gangs report author says word 'Pakistani' was 'tippexed out' of child's file". The Independent. 17 June 2025. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
  42. 1 2 "Key takeaways from grooming gangs report". www.bbc.com. 16 June 2025. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
  43. 1 2 Mason, Chris; Allen, Isabella (14 June 2025). "Sir Keir Starmer announces national inquiry into grooming gangs". BBC News . BBC . Retrieved 14 June 2025.
  44. 1 2 "UK announces national inquiry into 'grooming gangs' after pressure". Al Jazeera English . 14 June 2025. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  45. ↑ "Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997–2013)" . Retrieved 15 April 2024.
  46. ↑ Norfolk, Andrew (24 September 2012). "Police files reveal vast child protection scandal". The Times.
  47. ↑ Jay 2014 , p. 94: "The UK Muslim Women's Network produced a report on CSE in September 2013 which drew on 35 case studies of women from across the UK who were victims, the majority of whom were Muslim. It highlighted that Asian girls were being sexually exploited where authorities were failing to identify or support them."
  48. ↑ Jay 2014 , p. 94: "The Deputy Children's Commissioner's report reached a similar conclusion to the Muslim Women's Network research, stating 'one of these myths was that only white girls are victims of sexual exploitation by Asian or Muslim males, as if these men only abuse outside of their own community, driven by hatred and contempt for white females. This belief flies in the face of evidence that shows that those who violate children are most likely to target those who are closest to them and most easily accessible.' The Home Affairs Select Committee quoted witnesses saying that cases of Asian men grooming Asian girls did not come to light because victims 'are often alienated and ostracised by their own families and by the whole community, if they go public with allegations of abuse.'
  49. ↑ Jay 2014, 69, 101.
  50. ↑ Casey 2015, 9, 32–36.
  51. ↑ Helen Pidd (13 July 2015). "Alexis Jay on child sex abuse: 'Politicians wanted to keep a lid on it'", The Guardian.
  52. ↑ "PCC Shaun Wright resigns over Rotherham child abuse scandal". BBC News. 16 September 2014.
  53. ↑ "NCA begins two-stage investigation into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham" Archived 9 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine , National Crime Agency, 18 December 2014.
    "Operation Stovewood—Summary of Terms of Reference" Archived 31 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine , National Crime Agency.
  54. ↑ Andrew Norfolk (7 June 2016). "Rotherham abuse inquiry will run for eight years", The Times.
  55. ↑ Casey 2015, 6.
  56. ↑ Casey 2015, 9, 11, 30.
  57. ↑ "Government in Rotherham Council takeover after abuse inquiry". BBC News. 4 February 2015.
  58. ↑ Home Affairs Committee (10 June 2013). Child sexual exploitation and the response to localized grooming. Second Report of Session 2013–14, Vol. 1 (PDF). London: The Stationery Office Limited. p. 5.
  59. ↑ "Sexually exploited children are still being failed - Committees - UK Parliament". committees.parliament.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  60. ↑ Casey 2025, pp. 121, 126–7.
  61. ↑ Cheng-Morris, James; Hockaday, James (17 June 2025). "Four key takeaways from the grooming gangs report". Yahoo News . Retrieved 21 June 2025.
  62. ↑ Morton, Becky (16 June 2025). "Key takeaways from grooming gangs report". BBC News . Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  63. ↑ Casey 2025, p. 5.
  64. ↑ Hossein-Pour, Anahita (2 September 2025). "Ministers accused of making 'almost no progress' on grooming gangs inquiry". PA Media. The Independent. Retrieved 5 September 2025.
  65. ↑ "Jack Straw criticised for 'easy meat' comments on abuse". BBC News. 8 January 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  66. ↑ "White girls 'easy meat' to Pakistani men, says Straw". The Independent. 8 January 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  67. 1 2 3 4 Walker, Peter (25 May 2023). "'Inaccurate' grooming gang claims putting children at risk, Sunak and Braverman told". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  68. 1 2 Geiger, Chas (29 September 2023). "Suella Braverman UK-Pakistani grooming claim misleading, says press regulator". BBC News.
  69. 1 2 Laura Kuenssberg (5 January 2025). "Farage defends Musk after grooming gangs posts". BBC News. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
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  71. ↑ Shabnam Mahmood (24 November 2014). "Yorkshire Muslim girl speaks of grooming ordeal". BBC News. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  72. ↑ Khaleeli, Homa (3 September 2014). "Rotherham: 'It's sad that it's taken something so horrific to give voice to these girls'". The Guardian.
  73. ↑ Pidd, Helen (13 July 2015). "Alexis Jay on child sex abuse: 'Politicians wanted to keep a lid on it'". The Guardian.
  74. ↑ Martin Evans (11 August 2017). "'Racist' Asian sex gangs: MPs demand tougher sentences for grooming young white girls". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  75. ↑ Dearden, Lizzie (5 September 2017). "Newcastle grooming gang 'did not target white girls because of their race', judge rules". The Independent. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
  76. ↑ Halliday, Josh (5 September 2017). "Newcastle grooming gang members jailed for up to 29 years". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 6 January 2025.
  77. ↑ "Sarah Champion quits Labour front bench over rape article". BBC News. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2025.
  78. ↑ "Sarah Champion: Labour's 'floppy left' falls silent when issues touch on race". The Guardian. 2 September 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2025.
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  82. ↑ "Nigel Farage defends Elon Musk over grooming gangs posts". BBC News. 5 January 2025. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  83. ↑ Robert Jenrick (3 January 2025). "The truth about 'grooming gangs' is finally coming out". The Telegraph. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
  84. ↑ Listen: Robert Jenrick clashes with BBC's Nick Robinson over grooming gang row. 7 January 2025. Retrieved 9 January 2025– via www.independent.co.uk.
  85. 1 2 Hymas, Charles (10 January 2025). "Pakistanis up to four times more likely to be behind grooming". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 10 April 2025.
  86. ↑ Sparrow, Andrew (8 January 2025). "Tory and Reform MPs accused of 'weaponising trauma' of grooming victims, as Farage calls for inquiry to focus on Pakistani men – as it happened". the Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 9 January 2025.
  87. ↑ Gill, Aisha K. "Child sexual exploitation and scapegoating minority communities." In The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence, pp. 105-115. Routledge, 2023.
  88. ↑ Kanter, Jake (8 January 2025). "How Elon Musk's Intense Interest In A UK Grooming Gang Scandal Is Being Driven By Disruptive Right-Wing Network GB News". Deadline. Retrieved 9 January 2025. Peters' reporting has been amplified by colleagues who embellish GB News' output with outraged monologues. Presenters like Patrick Christys have consistently leaned into the racial dimension of the story, accusing the government of failing to act amid fears of offending the 'Muslim community.' And it has worked — coverage has resonated. 'Every time this story is connected to British-Pakistanis, ratings and traffic go up,' says someone familiar with GB News' internal audience data.
  89. ↑ Jenkins, Lin; Parveen, Nazia (21 February 2016). "Rochdale: police chief 'appalled' by Times 'sex grooming town' report after imam's murder". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 9 January 2025.
  90. ↑ Dodd, Vikram (8 December 2023). "Police still victim blaming in grooming gang cases, watchdog finds". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 9 January 2025. Any public perception that those responsible are predominantly from the Pakistani or south Asian community may be influenced by national media coverage of some of the cases ... Furthermore, we didn't find that this public perception was supported by the 27 group-based child sexual exploitation investigations we examined during the inspection.
  91. ↑ "Why the British media is responsible for the rise in Islamophobia in Britain". The Independent. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2024.
  92. ↑ Kanter, Jake (8 January 2025). "How Elon Musk's intense interest in a UK grooming gangs scandal is being driven by disruptive right-wing network GB News". Deadline. Retrieved 9 January 2025. Peters' reporting has been amplified by colleagues who embellish GB News' output with outraged monologues. Presenters like Patrick Christys have consistently leaned into the racial dimension of the story, accusing the government of failing to act amid fears of offending the 'Muslim community.' And it has worked — coverage has resonated. 'Every time this story is connected to British-Pakistanis, ratings and traffic go up,' says someone familiar with GB News' internal audience data.
  93. ↑ "British Sikh girls exposed to sexual grooming". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  94. ↑ Katy Sian (17 October 2017). Patriarchy, Islamophobia and Misogyny: On challenging the politics of Sikh Youth UK Archived 15 October 2023 at the Wayback Machine . Ceasefire Magazine. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  95. ↑ Sian, Katy P. (6 July 2011). "'Forced' conversions in the British Sikh diaspora" (PDF). South Asian Popular Culture. 9 (2): 115–130. doi:10.1080/14746681003798060. S2CID   54174845. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 July 2022. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  96. ↑ Jagbir Jhutti-Johal; Sunny Hundal (August 2019). The changing nature of activism among Sikhs in the UK today . The Commission For Countering Extremism. University of Birmingham. p. 14. WayBackMachine Link . Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  97. ↑ Hall, Anna (29 April 2025). Groomed: A National Scandal (Documentary). Channel 4. Retrieved 14 May 2025. A 2025 Channel 4 documentary highlighting survivor testimonies and institutional failures in addressing grooming gangs in the UK.
  98. ↑ Karastanchev, Vasil (Spring 2024). Moral Panics in a Globalised Media Landscape: Case Studies and Implications for Society and Policy (PDF) (Masters thesis). Malmö University.
  99. ↑ "PM attacks those 'spreading lies' on grooming gangs as he hits back at Musk". BBC News. 6 January 2025. Retrieved 9 January 2025.
  100. ↑ Dodd, Vikram (8 December 2023). "Police still victim blaming in grooming gang cases, watchdog finds". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 9 January 2025. Any public perception that those responsible are predominantly from the Pakistani or south Asian community may be influenced by national media coverage of some of the cases ... Furthermore, we didn't find that this public perception was supported by the 27 group-based child sexual exploitation investigations we examined during the inspection.

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