Reform MS defends claim that Sudanese attacks in Wales are ‘inevitable’ amid racism row

Emily Price 

A Reform Member of the Senedd has defended comments suggesting that sexual assaults by Sudanese people in Wales are inevitable, arguing that such a view is not racist.

In a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday (July 29), Caerdydd Penarth MS Joe Martin said it was “common sense” to hold such a view.

“It’s the price you pay when you let thousands of unvetted Sudanese nationals enter your country illegally,” he said.

In the video, the Equality, Human Rights and Social Justice Senedd Committee member talked viewers through a hand drawn table on a whiteboard.

The table showed the number of “alleged sex crimes” in the UK in 2024 by nationals from Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea.

Mr Martin said that 226 alleged sexual offences were carried out by Sudanese nationals in 2024.

He claimed that with around 4.34 alleged sex crimes being reported each week, there would have been 25 more “attacks” since he raised the matter of Sudanese nationals in the Senedd on June 16.

Mr Martin said: “We don’t have to live like this. The BBC, Plaid Cymru, Labour, they might think that that’s an appropriate price to pay, but I do not.

“I think we need the mass deportation of anyone who enters this country illegally.”

The figures Mr Martin referenced in his video related to the total alleged offences rather than final prosecutions or convictions.

Official national conviction figures for the entirety of 2024 attribute 9 sexual offence convictions to Sudanese nationals.

The figures shared by Mr Martin appeared to originate from an April 2025 Daily Mail investigation, which reported that “police made 8,500 arrests of foreign nationals for sexual offences including rape in 2024 and start of 2025”.

The news outlet explained that “because the supplied data only looks at arrests, it does not mean they were all convicted. Suspects may have also been nicked multiple times”.

Mr Martin’s table omitted the total number of alleged sex crimes recorded in 2024, meaning it did not provide context on the full range of alleged offenders which would have included white British people.

Police recorded 205,465 sexual offences in England and Wales for the calendar year ending December 2024, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

This total included 71,227 recorded rape offences.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that around 900,000 adults experience sexual assault, including attempted offences, each year.

Of those victims, an estimated 739,000 are women and 162,000 are men.

Mr Martin’s video follows on the heels of a separate social media post in which he warned that oversees spending was the reason Cardiff’s Heath Hospital had fallen into disrepair.

Shortly before the Senedd broke up for its summer recess, Mr Martin claimed that white people in Wales were being racially discriminated against.

His remarks came after he prompted a walkout in the Senedd when he cracked jokes about children who cannot read and claimed that the recruitment of nurses from India was forcing Welsh nurses onto Universal Credit.

Mr Martin has also faced criticism for making “vile” and “disturbing” comments about asylum seekers during questions to the First Minister.

The 28-year-old claimed that supporters of the Welsh Government’s Nation of Sanctuary scheme oppose its abolition because no Ukrainian refugees had “beheaded people in the streets” yet.

“The same cannot be said for Sudanese asylum seekers,” he added.

Welsh ministers alleged that Mr Martin had breached the Senedd’s conduct rules, with Trefnydd Heledd Fychan branding his remarks “outright racism”.

The Senedd’s Presiding Officer issued a warning to all Members to “avoid using language that has the potential to inflame debate”.

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