Shock at child sex abuse failures as report spotlights Asian offenders

A study by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) found two-thirds of Local Safeguarding Children Boards are not meeting national guidelines.

Head of CEOP Peter Davies said he was “shocked, surprised and disappointed” at the lack of action.

The report also included figures which appear to suggest that a greater number of child sex offenders are Asian than other ethnicities, although Mr Davies warned the data is not comprehensive enough to draw firm conclusions.

Controversy erupted over the ethnicity issue when former justice secretary Jack Straw accused some Pakistani men in Britain of seeing white girls as “easy meat” for sexual abuse.

In January, Mr Straw said child sex grooming was a “specific problem” in the Pakistani community which needed to be “more open” about the reasons behind it.

Children’s charity Barnardo’s, Muslim youth group the Ramadhan Foundation and retired detective chief superintendent Max McLean, who led a previous investigation into sexual exploitation involving young girls in Leeds, all said Mr Straw was wrong to highlight one community.

He said: “Focusing on this problem simply through the lens of ethnicity does not do it service.”

Today’s report found there were 2,379 offenders recorded since the start of 2008, mostly men aged 18 to 24, and ethnicity had been identified in around half of the cases.

Of these, 26% were Asian, 38% were white, 32% were recorded as unknown, 3% black and 0.2% Chinese.

Around 90% of the victims were white.

The report was undertaken after the conviction of the ringleaders of a grooming gang in Derbyshire which preyed on girls aged 12 to 18.

Mr Davies said of some Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs): “They do not appear to have set up the basic processes that are expected in the national guidelines to tackle child sexual exploitation.”

He described the abuse of children as a “horrific systemic crime that is designed to take place under their radar”.

The study focused on “localised grooming” that takes place in person, for example on the street, rather than via the internet.

The report is based on testimonies from victims, police and child protection workers, as well as a review of existing research.

Mr Davies said: “This is a horrific kind of crime. It involves systematic, premeditated rape of children and needs to be understood in those stark terms. It needs to be brought out of the dark.”

The study found that victims had trouble engaging with police and were “hugely reluctant” to give evidence against their “ruthless” abusers in court.

Mr Davies said: “They did not expect to be believed, they did not expect to be supported.”

Victims are cut off from their normal support networks in the grooming process, are left “disorientated” and are emotionally manipulated as part of the abuse.

Children’s charities called for action to provide a clearer picture of the scale of the problem.

John Grounds, director of the NSPCC’s Child Protection Consultancy, said: “This is an important piece of work as it has underlined some vital issues around the street grooming of children.

“Worryingly it is virtually a hidden problem - as this report highlights - there is very little data to give a clear picture of how extensive it is.

“We would like to see better and more consistent data collection and improved training for professionals working in this field.

“Hopefully this research by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre will encourage the relevant agencies to adopt a much more coordinated approach to this type of grooming. It puts vulnerable children at risk of serious sex abuse and leaves them at the mercy of unscrupulous men who pretend to be their friends but in reality are dangerous predators.”

The Children’s Society’s policy director Enver Solomon called for a greater focus on the 100,000 children under 16 who run away each year.

He said: “For far too long child grooming has been a hidden issue, with dangerous perpetrators targeting vulnerable girls and boys in the shadows of our society.

“The CEOP assessment exposes the significant challenges faced in stamping out this shocking abuse. Critically it highlights that children who run away are particularly vulnerable to exploitation yet professionals are often unaware of this. Child grooming cannot be addressed without actively looking at the issue of children running away.”

Terina Keene, chief executive at Railway Children, said: “A much better grip on the numbers and evidence must be the first major step in tackling child sexual exploitation and grooming.

“The brakes also need to be put on the indiscriminate cuts into youth provision, otherwise a vital frontline link to those most at risk will be lost and the clearest possible picture of the problem will become a blur to both Government and police, making the safeguarding of these children pot luck.”

Mr Davies said more research will be carried out into the type of people guilty of sexually abusing children, including their ethnicity.

Their motivations will also be examined.