THE predatory behaviour behind grooming gangs is “not a pattern of offending confined to any particular ethnic, cultural, or religious group”, the Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, said this week — a press release that appears to be at odds with the views of the independent auditor of those crimes in England and Wales.
He was speaking on Monday, the day that the Government announced a recent national inquiry on grooming gangs in response to Baroness Casey’s audit of group-based child sexual exploitation.
In her report, Baroness Casey says: “We found that the ethnicity of perpetrators is shied away from and continues to be not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we’re unable to offer any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data.”
Her report also found that there was a “disproportionate” connection between British Asian men and grooming gangs in data from three police forces within the north of England— West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and Greater Manchester — something she says that needs to be further investigated.
In an interview with Sky News, Baroness Casey said: “Just to present some type of balance, in Greater Manchester I asked for data on child sexual exploitation that took me to Asian heritage. I asked for data on child abuse and that took me to the overall population, which is essentially white.”
There were “do-gooders” who didn’t want this information to be found, Baroness Casey suggested, for fear that this might incite racism. But she continued, “those who are racist are going to make use of this anyway. All you’re doing with the hate mongers and the racists is giving them more ammunition.”
But Dr Walker, in his Thought for the Day on Radio 4 on Monday morning, was cautious about this connection. Greater Manchester, where he lived, had, he said, “seen greater than its justifiable share” of grooming-gang cases. “In the last three months two gangs have been convicted and sentenced. One, in Rochdale, comprising men of Pakistani origin, the opposite, in Bolton, all with names and appearances that suggest a White British background.
“This is just not a pattern of offending confined to any particular ethnic, cultural or religious group. I hope that the forthcoming Inquiry will help us find ways to maintain young girls secure from groups of predatory older men, whatever their origin.”
Giving the instance of abuse perpetrated inside religious communities, about which he had given evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), he continued: “It’s a natural human tendency to need to think that such horrendous crimes are only carried out by individuals who are usually not like us.”
Dr Walker went on to say that, while “gangs may dominate the news headlines, Child Protection experts affirm that the overwhelming majority of kid sexual exploitation is committed by the victim’s close members of the family or friends, something which accords with my very own experience over 24 years as a bishop. It is here, where children needs to be safest, that harm is more than likely to go unreported. It is here, where the words of Jesus may be hardest to listen to.
“Protecting young girls from the predations of gangs is a laudable aim, one which has my wholehearted support. But just as vital is the challenge which stays, of keeping all our kids, girls and boys, secure in the house and family.”
On Wednesday, Dr Walker issued a clarification, saying that he “greatly respects Baroness Casey and welcomes her report” and that he was “not contradicting her findings”.
The recent public inquiry on grooming gangs — considered one of the Casey report recommendations — was announced by the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper “to direct local investigations and hold institutions to account for past failures”. This is a U-turn on Ms Cooper’s previous child-protection announcements (News, 10 January; 11 April).
On Friday, seven men who groomed and sexually abused two girls in Rochdale between 2001, when the women were just 13, and 2006, were found guilty of fifty offences, including rape and indecency with a baby. The men were prosecuted at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court in a four-month trial.
In a press release to the House, Ms Cooper said that “the perpetrators included taxi-drivers and market-traders of Pakistani heritage, and it has taken 20 years to bring them to justice. . . These despicable crimes have caused essentially the most unimaginable harm to victims and survivors throughout their lives and are a stain on our society.”
Ms Cooper, who commissioned Baroness Casey to research, said that she had “specifically asked her to take a look at the difficulty of ethnicity, and the cultural and social drivers for this sort of offending” and that the findings were “damning” and never recent. There had been 15 reports, reviews, and investigations into the exploitation.
She accepted the 12 recommendations, including “recent ethnicity data and research so we resist the facts on exploitation and abuse”; recent laws to guard children and victims from being “blamed for the appalling crimes committed against them”; recent police operations; and further motion to support child victims and tackle recent types of exploitation and abuse online.
Ms Cooper also reiterated her commitment to implement the 20 core IICSA recommendations. This was welcomed by the Survivors Trust, which urged her “to accomplish that immediately, and to publish a transparent timetable for delivery”. The Trust’s chief executive, Fay Maxted said: “There is not any hierarchy of abuse, and no survivor needs to be left behind because their experience doesn’t fit a political narrative.”
The IICSA inquiry ran for eight years at a value of £185 million, and involved greater than 7500 of testimonies from survivors, including in a church context.
This article was updated on 18 June to incorporate Dr Walker’s clarification.
