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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. Data in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire suggests that, in the 2020s, British Pakistani men are disproportionately represented among perpetrators, although national data is insufficient to draw conclusions about ethnicity elsewhere. 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. Some academics and media commentators have described the criticism as a moral panic demonising Muslims. In 2025, on the recommendation of the Casey Report, the British Government indicated it would fund an inquiry into the issue.

Initial reports

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Reports of organised sexual offending against children by groups of men of Pakistani heritage have been investigated in the north of England since the 1980s.[1] In August 2003, a television documentary reported details of an 18-month police and social services investigation into allegations that groups of British Pakistani men were targeting under-age girls for sex in the West Yorkshire town of Keighley.[2] In the 2010s, the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal resulted in the convictions of several child abusers. The Leeds-based Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (CROP) sought to bring this behaviour to national attention from at least 2010.[3]

In 2016, following the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the UK,[4] 18 men in the Halifax child sex abuse ring case were sentenced to a combined total of over 175 years in prison.[5] The existence of child sex abuse rings was subsequently exposed in Aylesbury, Banbury, Bristol, Derby, Huddersfield, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Peterborough, Rochdale, Telford, and other places.[6]

Scale

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An estimated 17,100 contact-based child sexual abuse offences are "flagged" as child sexual exploitation in police recorded crime data. The Casey report had access to the Complex Organised Child Abuse Dataset (COCAD), identified around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation in 2023.[7] The Casey report did not have access to additional datasets from the Home Office.[8]

Research

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In December 2017, the think tank Quilliam released a report that said 84% of offenders involved in grooming gangs were of South Asian heritage.[9] This report was criticised by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, who said it had not disclosed its methodology and was unscientific.[10][11]

A further investigation was carried out by the British 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.[12] The British government originally refused to release the report but eventually did so after public pressure.[13] 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."[14] 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.[14]

In 2025, the 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."[15] 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.[16] 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.[8]

Responses

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Political

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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 the 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.[17][18]

Several Conservative and Reform UK politicians have alleged that race was a factor in "grooming gangs" (a term which has been described by academics and child protection professionals as racially charged)[10][19] and that concerns were not dealt with because of political correctness.[20][21][22] After a 2017 case in Newcastle, former Conservative policing and justice minister Mike Penning urged Attorney General Jeremy Wright to consider the offences as racially motivated.[23] The judge presiding over the case in question had ruled that the girls were not targeted for their race.[24][25]

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 in an interview that such crimes involved "predominately Pakistani men", and that a fear of being called racist was hampering police investigations. She wrote in the Sun: "These people are predators and the common denominator is their ethnic heritage." Following criticism, including from fellow Labour MP Naz Shah, Champion apologised for the article and resigned as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities.[26] Following her resignation, Champion accused the left of failing to speak out on grooming gangs for fear of being branded racist: "In Rotherham, people's frustration is that if they all knew what was going on, why didn't the people who were meant to protect them do anything about it."[27]

In 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that victims had been failed due to political correctness.[28][20][29] 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.[21] 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.[30][28][31] 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".[31][19] 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".[19][30]

In 2025, former Home Office minister Robert Jenrick said group-based child sexual exploitation was "perhaps the greatest racially motivated crime in modern Britain",[32] and said it was covered up by the British state to protect community relations.[22] Journalist Nick Robinson said Jenrick did not raise the issue when he was a minister.[33] 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.[34] 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.[35]

Professor Alexis Jay, a retired social worker who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (or Jay Report),[36] had previously said in 2015 that such cases were not overlooked because of political correctness, instead attributing 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".[37] In 2024, Jay said she was "frustrated" that the government had still not taken action two years after her report was published.[38] 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".[39]

On 14 June 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the British government would launch a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs,[40][41] following the recommendations of the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, 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".[42][43]

Media

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British media has been criticised by academics,[44][45][46] journalists,[47] politicians,[48][49] the police,[49][50] and community groups[31][19] for its coverage of group-based child sexual abuse, including that it is sensationalist, misleading, and perpetuates Islamophobia.[10][51][52] 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'".[47]

A number of academics – including Shamim Miah,[45] Muzammil Quraishi,[53] Ella Cockbain,[54] Aisha K. Gill, Karen Harrison,[55] Vasil Karastanchev,[56] Aviah Sarah Day, and others – have described the controversy as a moral panic.[46] In one academic paper, Gill and Harrison describe media outlets including The Times, MailOnline, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph of boosting the moral panic by portraying young South Asian men as "folk devils".[55] Cockbain, a scholar of crime science at University College London,[28] 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".[54]

The Muslim Council of Britain has called on investigations to "adhere to the facts of the matter, rather than deploying deeply divisive, racially charged rhetoric that amplifies far-right narratives and demonises an entire community".[31] 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".[34]

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.[57] 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.[58][59] Further reports compiled by the British government and child sex exploitation scholars also confirmed there was no evidence to this.[10][60]

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.[61]

References

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  1. ^ Keynon, Megan (17 June 2025). "The Casey report reveals 15 years of establishment denial". The New Statesman. Retrieved 20 June 2025.
  2. ^ "Asian rape allegations". Channel 4 News. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010.
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ "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
  5. ^ "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.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ "Key takeaways from grooming gangs report". BBC News. 2025-06-16. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
  8. ^ a b Casey, Louise (16 June 2025). "National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse". GOV.UK. pp. 126–7. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ a b c d 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.
  11. ^ 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 2020-12-25. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  12. ^ "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.
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ a b 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.
  15. ^ Casey audit 2025, pp. 61, 74.
  16. ^ Casey audit 2025, pp. 121, 126–7.
  17. ^ "Jack Straw criticised for 'easy meat' comments on abuse". BBC News. 8 January 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  18. ^ "White girls 'easy meat' to Pakistani men, says Straw". The Independent. 8 January 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
  19. ^ a b c d 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.
  20. ^ a b "Rishi Sunak criticises political correctness over grooming gangs". 3 April 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  21. ^ a b "Suella Braverman UK-Pakistani grooming claim misleading, says press regulator". BBC News. 29 September 2023.
  22. ^ a b Laura Kuenssberg (5 January 2025). "Farage defends Musk after grooming gangs posts". BBC News. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  23. ^ Martin Evans (11 August 2017). "'Racist' Asian sex gangs: MPs demand tougher sentences for grooming young white girls". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
  24. ^ "Newcastle grooming gang 'did not target white girls because of their race', judge rules". The Independent. 2017-09-05. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
  25. ^ Halliday, Josh (2017-09-05). "Newcastle grooming gang members jailed for up to 29 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-06.
  26. ^ "Sarah Champion quits Labour front bench over rape article". BBC News. 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2025-06-14.
  27. ^ "Sarah Champion: Labour's 'floppy left' falls silent when issues touch on race". The Guardian. 2017-09-02. Retrieved 2025-06-14.
  28. ^ a b c Cockbain, Ella (2023-04-04). "Not even Suella Braverman's own department agrees with her about 'grooming gangs'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  29. ^ "PM to clamp down on Grooming Gangs". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  30. ^ a b Walker, Peter (2023-04-03). "No 10 denies using dog-whistle politics in grooming gangs crackdown". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  31. ^ a b c d "Suella Braverman describes grooming gang comments as 'unfashionable facts' after backlash". Sky News. 20 April 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  32. ^ Robert Jenrick (3 January 2025). "The truth about 'grooming gangs' is finally coming out". The Telegraph. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
  33. ^ Listen: Robert Jenrick clashes with BBC's Nick Robinson over grooming gang row. 2025-01-07. Retrieved 2025-01-09 – via www.independent.co.uk.
  34. ^ a b Hymas, Charles (2025-01-10). "Pakistanis up to four times more likely to be behind grooming". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2025-04-10.
  35. ^ Sparrow, Andrew (2025-01-08). "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 2025-01-09.
  36. ^ "Jay Report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham - Committees - UK Parliament". committees.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  37. ^ Pidd, Helen (13 July 2015). "Alexis Jay on child sex abuse: 'Politicians wanted to keep a lid on it'". The Guardian.
  38. ^ "Nigel Farage defends Elon Musk over grooming gangs posts". BBC News. 2025-01-05. Retrieved 2025-01-08.
  39. ^ Walker, Peter (2023-04-03). "NSPCC warns against framing grooming gangs problem as ethnicity-based". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-10.
  40. ^ Mason, Chris; Allen, Isabella (14 June 2025). "Sir Keir Starmer announces national inquiry into grooming gangs". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 14 June 2025.
  41. ^ "UK announces national inquiry into 'grooming gangs' after pressure". Al Jazeera English. 14 June 2025. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  42. ^ Casey audit 2025, p. 5.
  43. ^ "'Collective failure' to address questions about grooming gangs' ethnicity, says Casey report". BBC News. Retrieved 2025-06-16.
  44. ^ Tufail, Waqas, and Scott Poynting. "Muslim and dangerous: 'Grooming' and the politics of racialisation." Fear of Muslims? International Perspectives on Islamophobia (2016): 79-92.
  45. ^ a b Miah, Shamim (2015-04-18). "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.
  46. ^ a b 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.
  47. ^ a b "Why the British media is responsible for the rise in Islamophobia in Britain". The Independent. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2024.
  48. ^ "PM attacks those 'spreading lies' on grooming gangs as he hits back at Musk". BBC News. 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
  49. ^ a b Jenkins, Lin; Parveen, Nazia (2016-02-21). "Rochdale: police chief 'appalled' by Times 'sex grooming town' report after imam's murder". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
  50. ^ Dodd, Vikram (2023-12-08). "Police still victim blaming in grooming gang cases, watchdog finds". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-09. 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.
  51. ^ Gill, Aisha K. "Child sexual exploitation and scapegoating minority communities." In The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence, pp. 105-115. Routledge, 2023.
  52. ^ Kanter, Jake (2025-01-08). "How Elon Musk's Intense Interest In A UK Grooming Gang Scandal Is Being Driven By Disruptive Right-Wing Network GB News". Deadline. Retrieved 2025-01-09. 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.
  53. ^ Quraishi, Muzammil. "Child sexual exploitation and young British Muslim men: a modern moral panic?." In Young British Muslims, pp. 36-48. Routledge, 2016.
  54. ^ a b Cockbain, Ella. "Grooming and the 'Asian sex gang predator': the construction of a racial crime threat." Race & Class 54, no. 4 (2013): 22-32.
  55. ^ a b 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).
  56. ^ Karastanchev, Vasil. "Moral Panics in a Globalised Media Landscape: Case Studies and Implications for Society and Policy." (2024).
  57. ^ "British Sikh girls exposed to sexual grooming". BBC News. Archived from the original on 11 October 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2023.
  58. ^ 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.
  59. ^ 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.
  60. ^ 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.
  61. ^ Hall, Anna (2025-04-29). Groomed: A National Scandal (Documentary). Channel 4. Retrieved 2025-05-14. A 2025 Channel 4 documentary highlighting survivor testimonies and institutional failures in addressing grooming gangs in the UK.
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