Conspiracy No Longer: UK Gov’t Admits ‘Clear Evidence’ of Tie Between Pakistanis and Child Rape Grooming Gangs
Longstanding efforts by the legacy media and the political establishment to downplay the issue of ethnicity in the child rape grooming gang scandal have been overturned by a public inquiry from Baroness Casey of Blackstock, which found a direct tie between Pakistani men and the abuse of mostly young working class white girls.
A report from Dame Louise Casey has explicitly linked the grooming gang scourge to Pakistani-heritage men, whose crimes were “institutionally ignored for fear of racism”. The review also called for police in England to improve the collection of ethnicity data in child sexual exploitation cases.
Unveiling the findings of the report in the House of Commons on Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the audit “identified clear evidence of over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani-heritage men”, The Times of Londonreported. She further said that the report highlighted “examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions.”
“The sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes. Children as young as ten, plied with drugs and alcohol, brutally raped by gangs of men, and disgracefully let down by the authorities who were mean to protect them and keep the safe,” Cooper said.
The Home Secretary said the findings are “deeply disturbing” and are a “stain on our society” but noted that the Case review acknowledged “the fact that too many of these findings are not new” and that there have been “15 years of reports, reviews, inquiries, and investigations into these appalling rapes, exploitation, and violent crimes against children, detailed over 17 pages in her report, but too little has changed.”
“We have lost more than a decade, that must end now,” Cooper said, vowing that the government will adopt all of the Casey review’s recommendations on strengthening laws and enforcement against grooming gangs.
Previously, those who raised the issue of the ethnic component to the scandal were chastised as conspiracy theorists, and even as recently as January, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accused those calling for a national inquiry of jumping on the “bandwagon of the far-right” and of spreading “misinformation.” Starmer even went so far as to whip his own MPs to vote against a motion calling for an inquiry.
However, the forthcoming publication of the review prompted a dramatic u-turn from the PM over the weekend. He agreed to launch a full national inquiry upon Baroness Casey’s recommendation, saying that it was “the right thing to do.”
One of the Labour MPs to vote against an inquiry in January, Sarah Champion, said on Monday that she agreed with the about face from the party, noting that “there’s a real sense justice has not been handed out fairly and there has been a cover-up and intense frustration that there are still victims and survivors who haven’t received justice.”
The Rotherham MP, who was forced out from her cabinet position in 2017 for raising the issue of Pakistani men raping young white girls in her constituency and others, said that it will be important for the national inquiry to address the issue, arguing that “no-one has joined the dots up” between grooming gangs and Pakistani men.
“Are there any links between those different groups and gangs? Personally, I think it’s highly likely that there will be,” she said. Previous reports have indicated that young white working-class girls were seen as “easy targets” and “fair game” by grooming gangs, compared to Muslim girls, whom the groomers felt should be “protected”.
Meanwhile, police and local officials, in predominantly Labour-controlled areas of the country, have been accused of overlooking the plight of victims for fear of appearing racist, and even in return for votes.
On Monday, anti-child sex abuse campaigner Dame Jasvinder Sanghera told the BBC that local authorities were “dragging their feet” over grooming gang allegations over “fear of causing offence” given that an “overwhelming” number of grooming gang rapists were Pakistanis.
The issue of Muslim child rape gangs and the failure to confront them over politically correct fears rose to the top of the agenda earlier this year amid pressure from X boss Elon Musk and longstanding campaigners such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe was so keen to promote digging down on these matters he founded his own private inquiry in recent months.
According to solicitor Kate Hall, the increased focus on the issue has resulted in hundreds of child sex abuse victims coming forward, and over 450 inquiries have been launched by her Simpson Millar firm since January alone. Hall said that it would represent the “tip of the iceberg of people who have come forward to all the firms across the country”.
Ahead of the release of the Casey review on Monday, a Downing Street spokesman said that the national inquiry would specifically focus on “how young girls were failed so badly by different agencies on a local level.”
“By setting up a new inquiry under the inquiries act with statutory powers to compel witnesses, the local authorities and institutions who fail to act to protect young people will not be able to hide and will finally be held to account for their action.”
In addition to the national inquiry, the government has also ordered the National Crime Agency (NCA) to reopen investigations into at least 800 historic cases of alleged grooming in which the suspects faced no punishment.
Opposition politicians, including the Tory party’s shadow home secretary Chris Philp, said that the investigation and u-turn on a national inquiry represented a “desperate smokescreen cooked up over the weekend to distract from Labour’s failures”.
However, during the 14 years the Philp’s Conservative party was in power, the government had also refused to launch a national inquiry.
Concerns have also been raised that the report may amount to nothing more than talk, as has been the case in previous regional reports. Indeed, an eight-year review into grooming gangs in Rotherham completed in 2022 saw zero local officials or police held responsible, despite at least 1,400 young girls being sexually abused and groomed in the city as officials dismissed their plight, and having treated them like “child prostitutes”.
Former Greater Manchester Police detective turned grooming whistleblower Maggie Oliver said: “I don’t need an inquiry to tell me what’s wrong… This is about gross criminal neglect at the top of policing, at the top of government, at the top of social services.”
Oliver said that she had little faith in the national inquiry being any different from previous reports unless it is led by Baroness Casey, saying: “In all my time on this road, I think Baroness Casey has given me the most hope that somebody has listened, has heard, and really is committed.”
Former north-west of England chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal also expressed “doubts” about the prospects of the national inquiry, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Unfortunately, my experience with national inquiries is that they take forever and don’t deliver accountability.”
“Only criminal investigations can bring real accountability,” he said. “That’s what needs to happen. Not just for those who offended, but also those who stood by and didn’t do what they were meant to do.”
