Britain must confront the “profoundly racist” reality of Muslim grooming and rape gangs after the Newcastle case, a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service and Liberal Democrat Lord has said.
Lord Macdonald made the comments the day after the conviction of 17 mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi men for grooming, drugging, trafficking, and raping vulnerable white girls.
He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme there was “a major problem in particular communities” of men viewing young white girls as “trash” and available for sex.
There had previously been a “reluctance” to investigate such crimes, he said, agreeing with presenter John Humphrys when he categorised them as “by and large, Muslim men who have been targeting white girls”.
The Lord continued: “There has been, in the past, a reluctance to investigate a category of crime that people might believe attaches to a particular community in circumstances where men may be targeting young women.
“The fact that these sorts of cases are being brought successfully demonstrates that those sorts of so-called taboos no longer exist.
“But there’s obviously a serious issue about the way that young women are regarded in these cases—regarded as trash, regarded as available for sex.
“And this seems to be a recurring theme. This is a major problem in particular communities and it has to be confronted not just by law enforcement but by communities themselves.
“This is obviously disgusting and outrageous behaviour and it’s completely unacceptable. It’s not something that law enforcement itself solely can deal with.
“Not all sex crime belongs in a particular community, but there is a particular issue about some men in some communities who feel that these young girls are trash who are available for sex.”
The ‘Operation Sanctuary’ investigation in Newcastle identified more than 700 victims of abuse that spanned four years in the region, and was the largest case of its kind since Rochdale and Rotherham where more than 1,200 girls were targeted.
There have also been similar cases in Bristol, Derby, Oxford, Huddersfield, Peterborough, Telford, and Keighley, with the overwhelming majority of groomers being Muslim men. Ethnicity varies, however, with the Bristol gang being mainly Somali rather than South Asian.
Rape gangs have been operational for decades (from the late 1980s until 2010 in Rotherham, for example) with police taking little interest in complaints and largely ignoring the problem until 2001.
After the first prosecutions in Rochdale and the Casey report into the Rotherham scandal, a “culture of silence” and political correctness were blamed for the inaction, and other the cases were finally investigated.
Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, the head of Newcastle Council stresses the scandal was “not unique” to the city, adding: “Indeed, there has been evidence of similar [grooming gangs] offending in many other towns and cities.”