Grooming Gangs
Baroness Casey made some vital notes in her invaluable report on grooming gang searlier this year (National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Baroness Casey of Blackstock DBE, CB June 2025). Hidden in the inevitable pages and pages lies an undeniable truth: the concept of ‘grooming gangs’ is neither clear nor consistent.
I’d go further. Grooming isn’t widely understood either.
In UK law there is neither a ‘grooming’ offence or a ‘grooming gangs’ offence. In fact neither are even defined.
Sex with a child is rape. At least that is what I believed, but the Casey report made the following observation: “the legislation on rape [must be] tightened up so that an adult having penetrative sex with a child under 16 is rape, no excuses, no defence.” To quote the author: “I believe many jaws across the country would drop if it was widely known that doing so is called anything but that.”
Currently sex with a child under 13 carries the heaviest penalties: Sentencing guidelines (under 13). (The general sentencing guidelines are here: Sex with a child, sentencing guidelines) The perpetrators future remains a consideration in sentencing, as does saying sorry. Forgive me for feeling that this is unfair. Victims engaging with the justice system have been traumatised repeatedly, having to live with the consequences for ever, and having had to publicly relive their experience(s) repeatedly. Why do you deserve that consideration if you’ve raped a child?
I digress. Casey’s report shows police recorded crime data weighing in at just over 100,000 child sexual abuse and exploitation offences annually, of which an estimated 17,100 are ‘flagged’ as child sexual exploitation. There were around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation in 2023.
“It is a failure of public policy over many years that there remains such limited reliable data in this area.”
Ethnicity
To quote the report, “Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years. Child sexual exploitation is horrendous whoever commits it, but there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination.”
This assertion was based on local data from THREE police forces (Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire). There are 48 police forces in the UK. Two of those covered Rotherham and Rochdale: in Rotherham (2010) five Asian men were jailed. In 2014 inquiry found more than 1,400 victims of ‘grooming and sex exploitation’ there between 1997 and 2013. In Rochdale, nine Asian men were jailed (2012) for grooming five young white girls.
There is an undeniable problem with male Pakistani culture. The Oxford rings noted a significant number of perpetrators of child grooming as "Pakistani and/or Muslim heritage" when they started looking at organised child sexual abuse (Operation Bullfinch, Operation Silk and Operation Spur).
We would like to see the government and Asian leaders engaged with this problem, as much for Pakistani wives and families as anyone else. But what’s very clear to us is that Asian men are not the only groomers. Our own data on groomers (of adults) shows that groomers can be of any race, and roughly tracks national ethnic breakdowns:
CAAGe data, 2025, based on answers from 280 respondents who self defined as having been groomed.
There are some massive questions to be asked.
Some police forces are institutionally racist, so have they unwittingly put more effort into tracking down Asian perpetrators than other perpetrators?
Has this profiling allowed them, frighteningly, to overlook other child groomers?
In December 2017, Quilliam’s report "Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation – Dissecting Grooming Gangs", concluding that 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage. The reports data was uncritically accepted, despite having since been discreditted, yet it continues to be quoted. South Asians make up 7.5% of the UK population. Breaking down our data on grooming revealed that, guess what, tey made up 7.6% of the grooming population reported to CAAGe.
The rhetoric is dangerous for victims.
Racist populists like the anti-Islam campaigner ‘Tommy Robinson’ (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) have been quick to pick up on it, claiming to support the victims. And the rhetoric will naturally appeal to those victims who have been passed around and abused by this cohort of men. The same pattern of hate can be seen, for example, against Gambian men who’ve groomed women for their British Indefinite leave to remain can provide masses of examples, calling them ‘Scambians’. This is a natural response - we associate the characteristics of our perpetrators with what we were subjected to.
Many women, like me, have been subjected to groping by a lad on a bike cycling past. Now, when I see a lad on a bike cycling fast toward me, I move myself. I’ve made that association on the basis of young man- bike- going quickly. Millions of young men ride bikes, my own sons included, but it’s a natural defence mechanism.Sexual grooming is a million times worse, so why wouldn’t these young women make that association. They are being taken advantage of, yet again, to suit someone else’s agenda.
What is Grooming?
Child sexual exploitation is very clearly defined in English law.
By contrast, grooming is poorly understood. In the context of ‘Grooming gangs’ their tactics and targetting show the same patters as grooming in general: target the victim, ‘lovebomb’ (flattery, gifts etc), make promises aligned with their target’s wants and desires, apply the slowly boiled frog principles (gradually change), make the victim complicit in their own demise, and then get to ‘the kill’, be that sex, money, indefinite leave to remain, before discarding - and in the case of groups, rinsw and repeat. (The targetting’s already been done for you!)
There are two elements to grooming that separate it from careless harmful acts - intent (it’s done purposefully) and (manufactured) consent. Sex with a child automatically falls into the latter category. There can be no legal consent.
What is a Grooming Gang?
A 2018 response to a UKIP question to the London Assembly addressed this as follows: “The term 'grooming gangs' can be interpreted in different ways - an online network facilitating the grooming of children, an urban street-based gang, or an organised criminal network where grooming may be a feature, amongst other criminality. This means that data are not readily recoverable and would require a lengthy and detailed examination of individual crime reports to determine number of arrests.”
It’s become an emotional term, and is rarely applied outside of the context of Pakistani-Asian - Muslim offenders.
Let’s play a ‘game’ with ten groups: ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Aylesbury: Aylesbury child sex abuse ring. One girl testified to sex, aged just 12, with 60 men, almost all Pakistani heritage. Six men were caught and charged, all of Pakistani origin. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Berkhamstead: Eight white men in a ‘paedophile network’ were convicted of various child sexual offences in a case which helped to uncover many other child abusers worldwide. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Bradford: The Keighley child sex abuse ring was a group of twelve men who committed serious sexual offences against two girls in Keighley and Bradford, West Yorkshire. Thirteen men, from their names of apparently Asian origin, were found guilty. Four other men were found not guilty (ethnicity unknown) ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Bristol: Thirteen men of primarily Somali origin were convicted of offences including rape, paying a child for sex, causing or inciting child prostitution (term makes my blood boil, sorry!), sexual acts with children and sex trafficking. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Derby: ‘Child sex abuse ring’ Six men (one white, five of apparent Asian origin) found guilty of child sexual offences, and a further three found guilty of drug supply charges. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Halifax: In what was believed to be the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the United Kingdom, as many as a hundred men may have been involved in child abuse. Twenty-five suspects were charged, 18 found guilty, followed by a further nine and a further three. Most, but not all, of those found guilty were of Asian origin. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
London Westminster: Paedophile dossier has gone missing, after being handed to Lord Leon Brittan. No convictions as yet. So we can’t play.
Nottingham:
Amberdale: One of the earliest recorded group abuses (UK) was at Amberdale children's home (Nottingham, 1980s). Staff collaborated in the abuse. Two white perpetrators jailed, one male, one female. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Beechwood: Hundreds of children horrendously sexually abused by collaborating staff in abuse spanning two decades (1970’s and 1980’s). Three white members of staff were convicted, and one of their wives received a suspended 1-year sentence in April 2016 for abusing her managerial position in Nottingham City Council. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Oxford:
Banbury sex abuse ring - five years abusing seven female victims, aged 13 to 15. Black abusers. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Plymouth: Five white women found guilty of repeated child sexual abuse. ‘Gang’ or ‘no gang’?
Who’s Speaking for the Victims?
Some of the loudest advocates in the field are keen to see the race element explicitly investigated, putting the likes of Jess Phillips and Sadiq Khan between a rock and a hard place.
Maggie Oliver has done a great job of raising the profile and giving some of the victims a voice. Her experience was as a police officer who left because the GMP were concerned about the race elements of the grooming there, and the portrayal of the victims.
Sammy Woodhouse was horrendously abused at 14 by Arshid Hussain, a decade older than her, who headed a child exploitation gang. She is known to admire ‘Tommy Robinson’, despite him nearly derailing a case. Given the horrendous abuse to which she was subjected by an Asian man, this is understandable.
The environment surrounding the current investigation is highly charged and political. Whilst this battling continues there can be no progress made for victims past or present. Am I surprised? Of course not.
Race, ethnicity, religion cannot be left off the agenda.
There has been a focus on Asian/Muslim/Pakistani - even the Casey report, which didn’t look into that closely, noted the need to.
But this isn’t something we should be afraid of. It could actually do some good, with ‘pyramids’ like Epstein’s - which does extend to UK waters - acknowledged as the same offences commited as Asian taxi drivers.
There are huge questions around who is being targetted and who is getting away with it. Very few female abusers have been brought to book, despite the sickening case of Vanessa George. There are serious mass church and religious abuses way beyond simply ‘Muslims’. Cult abuse isn’t even touched on in most reports, yet these are children often born into abuse.
Let’s stop fiddling while Rome burns! In a YouGov survey, 90% of Britons want the review to happen.
I realise that getting the right group of people together can be harder than herding cats. The main recommendations of review after review haven’t been put in place yet. The frustration and anger written over Jess Phillips’ face having spent so long trying to fight for victims is palpable. For her to be at the centre of a tug of war between victims is heartbreaking after everything she’s put in. It’s a political and emotional minefield.
If you really want to do it properly, look at race, but also at gender, at what is and isn’t being investigated. And how hard it is for boys to report. And why the ‘gangs’ seem to occur in groups where women are largely excluded.
And age, because even sentencing views the damage to a young woman over 13 as different to a younger child.
And the race and religion of victims - who’s coming forward, who’s not.
At immigration status.
And what’s happening to people who are autistic, disabled, trans….
And what happens when they turn up at police stations.
Better still, just get on with it! Instead of holding an enquiry.
Any child missing from school should be traced. (Yes, I know that sometime’s you can’t MAKE a teenager go to school, but we should know that’s the case, and it shouldn’t come out of the education budget!)
Why is the care system failing?
Join it all up - health, education, policing, social services, the justice system. S*d an enquiry. Get on with it. Involve victims in reform, not reviews. Because the current furore is expensive, and damaging. If this is what politics has sunk to - point scoring on party and lines and deliberate misinterpretaion of questions being asked - why would any sane person ever want to become a politician?
Time to Act
If people can’t get on well enough to agree solutions, get off your *rses and get the data. Get it anonymously from the public. Get it factually from police data - yes, get the geeks in to examine it. Go into schools and youth groups and get a sense of how they’re managing it. Get religious leaders condemning this sh*t show. Speak to the trafficking charities. We all agree that action needs taking. Anyone condoning child (or other) ‘grooming gangs’ is a danger to society. The time to talk is long since gone.
Perhaps a great place to start is that law: an adult having penetrative sex with a child under 16 is rape, no excuses, no defence.
Quickly followed by legal definitions of what grooming is, what grooming gangs are, and consent.
Only tough action counts now, not smooth words. Appoint a minister to go and get on with making the necessary changes. Or a working group. Report back to the country regularly - government can! They did it under COVID, they can do it now, and frankly we have many of the answers already.
As Jess Phillips is on record as saying: "There is no institution in our country that hasn't failed."
