[Reuters] British police will be ordered to record the ethnicity of gangs involved in organised child sexual abuse after a report on Monday detailed state failures to tackle the issue and a reluctance to recognise an "over-representation" of Asian men.
| One sector of the common folk partaking in a pleasure normally the privilege of powerful politicians and television/film personalities over there. |
For about 15 years, Britain has been shocked by revelations of so-called child "grooming gangs" exploiting thousands of children for sex, becoming one of the most contentious political issues amid findings that fears of being accused of racism had played a part in the failure of the authorities to intervene.
| As has looooong been known. |
Those on the political left have argued that far-right groups have used the issue to stigmatise entire Asian communities,
| Yeah? If even I know, waaaay over here in the middle of the suburbs of the American MidWest, how could those within the community claim ignorance? And given that they knew, how is their silence anything less than shared culpability? |
while others say the ethnicity question has been ignored, often at the expense of the victims.
| It was a tad more active than merely ignoring the situation. The authorities repeatedly threatened those who dared complain with prosecution, those who actually took the complaints with harm to their reputations and careers, and returned girls to their tormenters instead if removing them to somewhere safe. They were a good deal more actively involved than merely ignoring the situation. |
The scandal returned to the spotlight this year after U.S. billionaire Elon Musk criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government over its stance,
| …Mr. Musk is a hero many times over, imperfect though he might be… |
forcing him to commission a review by Louise Casey,
| …who had been pursuing the problem for years before her elevation to a life peerage for her work… |
a member of the House of Lords, into the scale and nature of the problem and who was responsible.
The report found data from three areas showed "clear evidence of over-representation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men", but that ethnicity was not recorded in two-thirds of cases.
| Lots of other categories of crimes do not have ethnicity recorded over there, I suspect… |
"Despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young white girls, the system has consistently failed to fully acknowledge this or collect accurate data so it can be examined effectively," the report said.
| They’ve acknowledged it repeatedly whenever yet another group of Asian men were tried, convicted, and jailed for this behaviour. And then it was ignored again until the next time. I’ll believe they’ve changed when they start reporting the statistics annually along with the rest of the crime statistics. |
The report found the questions about the ethnicity of those behind the abuse had "been dodged for years" and partly because of "fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems".
Interior minister Yvette Cooper apologised to victims in parliament saying there had been "too much reliance on flawed data, too much denial, too little justice, too many criminals getting off, too many victims being let down".
The government accepted all the recommendations of the report, including setting up a national inquiry into the grooming gangs after months of resistance.
Opposition parties, including Nigel Farage's Reform UK and the Conservative Party, have accused the government of delaying its decision and failing the victims.
To counter those accusations, the government announced that the policing agency that investigates serious crime would help track down the perpetrators of abuse.
The police have already identified more than 800 cases for review, with the figure expected to rise to over 1,000 in the coming weeks, Cooper said.
| Impressive. Will any of them be sent back to the Olde Countrie when they finish their prison sentences? And how will the victims be recompensed for the pain and abuse they suffered at the hands of both the miscreants and the state? Knowing their abusers are spending a few years in prison long after the fact is not nearly enough. |
Cooper said survivors of the abuse had been ignored for too long and "blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions all played a part in this collective failure".
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