The Home Secretary has ordered research into the ethnicity of grooming gangs and is working to improve the “targeting” of child sex abuse networks and “prevention activity”.
Sajid Javid said that establishing the “particular characteristics” of the perpetrators was “critical to our understanding” of the crimes in towns including Rotherham, Telford, and Newcastle.
At the end of last year, researchers at the counter-extremism group the Quilliam Foundation published findings that 84 percent of those convicted since 2005 for the specific crime of gang grooming and rape were South Asian.
And on Wednesday, it was reported that Rotherham MP Sarah Champion had been targeted by Muslim and hard-left groups for speaking about the “problem” of white girls being sexually abused by Muslim men in her constituency and across the nation.
When she made the comment last year, she was forced from a front bench job in the Labour Party. Backing her, Mr Javid tweeted Wednesday: “MP’s should be able do their job without being threatened or intimidated in any way. Sarah Champion has my full support.”
Writing to Ms Champion Wednesday, he expanded: “My officials have been working with investigating officers in relevant cases, and with the National Crime Agency, to establish the particular characteristics and contexts associated with this type of offending.
“We are looking at what this data set can tell us about the characteristics of offenders, victims and the wider context of abuse; all of which have critical bearing on the effective targeting of prevention activity.”
Mr Javid added: “This is a complex topic and the work of the Centre of Expertise is critical to our understanding of the model of offending we have seen in Rotherham, Telford, Newcastle and elsewhere.
“The Centre of Expertise’s project to develop a typology of child sexual offending will help us to identify the similarities and differences between child sexual exploitation by organised networks and other types of offending which will support a more targeted response by the police and other agencies.”
Around two months ago, a group of 20 MPs called for concrete action against the “sickening” grooming gang problem and accusing the government of “letting down” thousands of victims.
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