Most grooming gang offences carried out by white men, police chiefs say
The vast majority of grooming gang offences are carried out by white men, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said.
New figures from the police database show that, where ethnicity data was available, 85% of “group-based” child abusers were white in the first three quarters of 2024.
The same data for the whole of 2023 showed 83% of offenders were white.
Richard Fewkes, the director of the NPCC’s Hydrant programme targeting child sexual abuse, said there is no “significant issue” with “any particular ethnicity or setting”.
Elon Musk
Mr Fewkes’ comments come after tech entrepreneur Elon Musk used his social media platform X to wage an online campaign against the government over the issue of grooming gangs.
The billionaire has accused the Prime Minister of being “complicit in the rape of Britain” over his record as a former director of public prosecutions, and called safeguarding minister Jess Phillips a “witch” and a “rape genocide apologist”.
Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Mr Fewkes said: “(The data) reflects what you would expect to see across the country in terms of ethnicity.
“Offences where grooming gangs are involved are predominantly white.
“There is not a significant issue here with any particular ethnicity or setting.”
The NPCC said the data, collated in this way for the first time, will now be used to inform the training of new officers and help chiefs at a “force-based level”.
“The data we collect now is a starting point,” Mr Fewkes said.
Farage
In recent days, the online and political debate has seen calls for an inquiry into child rape by Pakistani men, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage demanding a probe into “to what extent were gangs of Pakistani men raping young white girls.”
In 2023, the largest proportion of child sexual abuse suspects were white, accounting for 1,884 (83%), followed by 62 Pakistani suspects (2.7%), the NPCC’s data shows.
From January to September 2024, there were 1,623 (85%) white suspects, and 75 Pakistani (3.9%).
When data on abuse in institutions, such as within schools, churches and children’s homes, and offences committed within a family are removed, the figures for “group-based” child sexual exploitation show that in 2023, there were 224 (70%) white grooming gang suspects, compared with 22 Pakistani (6.9%).
From January to September 2024, there were 144 (63%) white suspects, and 31 (13.7%) Pakistani.
But the data is incomplete, as the NPCC said the information on ethnicity was available for only 34% of suspects in the whole of 2023 and for only 39% of suspects in the first nine months of 2024.
The NPCC added: “Quarter four 2024 is not included in 2024 data as it is still being worked on.”
Mr Fewkes said the focus on the issue of grooming gangs in recent days had turned attention away from other areas of child sexual abuse, including that carried out within a family.
Analysis
Grooming gangs are behind two child sexual abuse offences reported to police every day, The Telegraph reported.
The analysis reported by the newspaper said there were 4,228 offences of “group-based” child sexual abuse, which made up 3.7% of the 115,489 child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes, including those online, in 2023.
Mr Musk’s barrage of attacks against the Prime Minister have dominated Westminster over recent days and led Sir Keir to accuse critics of spreading “lies and misinformation”.
He has defended his tenure as director of public prosecutions and claims he tackled child sexual abuse charges “head-on”.
The Conservatives accused Labour MPs of having “turned a blind eye to justice” for victims of grooming gangs after their amendment to the Government’s child protection Bill calling for another national inquiry was rejected, while Mr Musk described it as “unbelievable”.
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government would begin to implement Professor Alexis Jay’s call for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, with further details expected to be set out in the coming weeks.
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Does it really matter what is the ethnicity of these criminals ? The standout feature of this type of offence is the reluctance of Old Bill to get out of his armchair and start rounding up the offenders. A good starting point is to listen to victims and follow up on allegations.
Where ethnicity crops up as a relevant issue the offender should be deported if proven not to be a citizen of our country.
The point is it seems many only care about kids when the perps are non-white. What does that say about their real motivation?
You are so right. They are using…”…The suffering of the poor children…” as an excuse for overt racism that they wouldn’t get away with in any other context.
All abuse of children is disgusting but I’m particularly disgusted by opportunist politicians using the horrific suffering these children went through as a political football. They should be utterly ashamed of themselves. Not one of them truly cares. They just want their face in a news story and their carefully crafted soundbites repeated on the news because it will advance their own careers. You are so right to say that the police utterly failed those children but the enquiries to fix the problems have been done. What’s needed now is not new, expensive and time-wasting extra enquiries. Now is the… Read more »
Also……. I would VERY MUCH APPRECIATE IT if every single member of the British government from every party and independents could all get on to their own Twaddle feed and tell Elon -losing his grip on reality – Musk to keep his nose out of British politics. Nobody is asking us to pay attention to the opinions of the owner of Snapchat or Tiktok about how we run our country. Why would we care about his opinion. Why do people feel like his comments are so important that they must be discussed on the news. Can we just send him… Read more »