A damning grooming gang report reveals that authorities have long avoided recording the ethnicity of perpetrators. Baroness Louise Casey, who led the audit, found that two-thirds of offenders had no ethnicity data recorded. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper apologized to victims and announced a national inquiry.
The grooming gang report highlights systemic failures in tackling child sexual exploitation. Despite evidence from Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire showing a disproportionate number of Asian suspects, national data remains incomplete.
Baroness Casey stated, “We owe these women a debt they suffered appalling abuse while institutions looked away.” She criticized officials for fearing accusations of racism rather than protecting children.
Political and Public Reactions
Yvette Cooper pledged to implement all 12 recommendations from the grooming gang report. These include:
- Harsher charges for adults having sex with under-16s.
- A national NCA-led operation to pursue past grooming gang cases.
- Mandatory ethnicity data collection for suspects.
- Reviewing wrongful convictions of victims criminalized instead of helped.
Fiona Goddard, a survivor from Bradford, said most abusers were “Pakistani men.” She accused authorities of ignoring crimes due to “the race of perpetrators and the backgrounds of victims.”
The grooming gang report warns that ignoring ethnicity “only helps the criminals.” Baroness Casey argued transparency protects both victims and minority communities wrongly stigmatized by a few offenders.
A statutory inquiry will examine how agencies failed young girls. The NCA will reopen stalled cases, while stricter taxi licensing aims to prevent trafficking. Cooper vowed, “We must see children as children not blame them for their abuse.”
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