In 2018 the Home Secretary Sajid Javid ordered research be carried out into the characteristics of child rape gangs, such as those that have blighted towns and cities up and down the country in places such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Keighley, Sunderland, Manchester, Oxford and Newcastle (and many more).
Writing to a Labour MP who has campaigned on the issue, Sajid Javid said he had directed officials to work with Police to learn more about how such gangs operate and how that compares to other forms of child sexual abuse.
He said he wanted to “establish the particular characteristics and contexts associated with this type of offending”, adding that officials were looking into the “characteristics of offenders, victims and the wider context of abuse; all of which have critical bearing on the effective targeting of prevention activity”.
Javid was responding to a letter from members of a cross-party working group on the issue that includes the Labour MP, Sarah Champion, whose Rotherham constituency was one of those to suffer at the hands of a Pakistani Muslim rape gang.
Champion wrote a column for the Sun in which she said: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”. She later stressed she had not sought to attack the entire British Pakistani community.
In 2019 Sajid Javid was accused of shelving his much-anticipated review into the ethnicity of grooming gangs.
Sarah Champion, told HuffPost UK she had seen “no evidence” to suggest the pledge was being honoured.
Nazir Afzal, the highly respected former Chief Crown Prosecutor in the North-West of England who brought the Rochdale grooming gang to justice, meanwhile said the lack of action was “seriously concerning.
He said he was “in despair” at the “shocking” lack of progress, and expressed surprise that neither he nor other leading experts on this issue had been approached by the Home Office.
He went on: “On subject after subject, you get the Home Office saying they are going to do something and they end up not doing it and hoping that you will forget about it.
Now fast forward to 2020 and to a change of Home Secretary Priti Patel who ordered officials to explain what has happened to the long-awaited review into the ethnicity of grooming gangs.
A frustrated Patel has been met with “obfuscation” from Home Office officials when asking about the probe, which campaigners believe is crucial in tackling child abuse and helping the fight against far-right racism.
A source in the Home Office suggested that Patel was being “given the run around by officials” who were “not being completely up front about this”, and stressed that the home secretary at least wants to see the results herself even if they are not eventually published.
“It appears civil servants in the Home Office believe if they ignore requests into grooming gang data for long enough, ministers will just move on to a different topic.
“I think they might be shocked by the persistence of Priti Patel (and the public) on this issue.
A Petition has been set up by Jonathan Wong to put further pressure on the Government to release the Report.
Within 48 hours almost 50,000 people had signed it demanding the government release its research
Having exceeded 10,000 signatures, the government must respond to the appeal, which is the result of an article in The Independent revealing that the Home Office refused to publish the document claiming “it was not in the public interest”.
The Petition states:-
“The Government is refusing to release official research on the characteristics of grooming gangs, claiming it is not in the “public interest”.
We, the British public, demand the release of the official research on grooming gangs undertaken by the Government in full.
It has been revealed earlier this year that an almost 19,000 suspected child sexual exploitation victims were identified by local authorities in just one year.
Sajid Javid promised the review as Home Secretary in July 2018, pledging that there would be “no no-go areas of inquiry”.
“I will not let cultural or political sensitivities get in the way of understanding the problem and doing something about it,” he said at the time.”
Analysis
It appears we the people have taken exception to the Civil Service deciding the findings are “not in the public interest”.
This national scandal has been covered up for far too long, the young victims deserve justice – they have been very badly let down by those in positions of authority paid to protect them.
At the time of writing this article the petition has garnered over 67,000 signatures and rising fast – see link below if you haven’t signed then please do so.
Lets get this petition to over 100,000 signatures and spark a debate in Parliament – the truth must be told!.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300239
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