I am triply sickened by the British-Pakistani grooming scandal. Firstly, by the men who objectified and used young white girls and their families, and the communities and wrong-headed anti-racists on the left who still protect them.
Secondly, by far-right warriors – Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson, Reform heroes and some mainstream Tories too – spreading poisonous stories which, they hope, will bring down the Labour government. They, too, are objectifying and using the victims.
And thirdly, by the last government, which disregarded Professor Alexis Jay’s assiduous report on child sexual exploitation published in 2022.
Twitter trolls think I am somehow responsible for the grooming gangs simply because of my religion, as if I am a Muslim Ghislaine Maxwell. There’s no point in engaging with them. In fact, I have frequently condemned the crimes without fear or favour. For one article for another paper, I secretly interviewed three wives and one teenage daughter of convicted groomers from a northern town. One wife had left the man. Their young daughter never wanted to see her dad again. But the other two wives blamed “dirty” white girls.
This terrible prejudice, I know, is shared by many close to the perpetrators and some community leaders. Those who retreat into denial or find excuses for rapists are detestable. Today, thankfully, more insiders are prepared to expose such foul secrets and lies. It takes real bravery to do that. This present commotion must be affecting their lives and resolve, as they watch the issue being weaponised by racists.
Right-wing racism has reached a whole new level of hate. The Sunday Mirror’s exemplary investigation into the groomers of Telford in 2018 was instigated by Holly Archer (not her real name), a teenage victim of Telford’s grooming gangs. The town had the highest number of cases in the UK. The men were mostly of Pakistani heritage. Archer, who helps and empowers other victims, told The Mirror she has been made “sick” and “tearful” by Musk’s online rants: “I feel like our voices, all of our hard work, has been twisted and our experiences have been exploited for… politics or radical racist reasons.”
She and other survivors have also stood up for MP Jess Phillips, a doughty, lifelong fighter for women’s rights, who, after being savaged by Musk, is getting death threats.
Reform’s Richard Tice was all red and furious about cover-ups when being interviewed by LBC’s Lewis Goodall last week. “But we also know there have been plenty of examples of white grooming gangs as well, which gets far less attention, isn’t that right?” Goodall asked. “Frankly, I’m not aware of that, no,” Tice replied. For people like Tice, it is a race and faith issue, not a rape issue. But white men do this bad stuff too. Get real.
Labour must expose Farage for what he is
Read MoreA report, Child Sexual Abuse in 2022/2023 by the Centre for Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, contained data on the ethnicity of defendants prosecuted for child sexual abuse offences. Out of 5,955 cases, five-sixths were white British (4,943). This could be, the report notes, because of “overall under-identification of child sexual abuse in minority ethnic communities”. We do need more and better data. But these stats matter. They should not be used to excuse the brown rapists who target white girls. But in the present fomented hysteria, the numbers enable us to challenge the liars manipulating public opinion.
Right-wingers pursuing the PM are like wild dogs on a fox hunt. Back in 2022, Boris Johnson claimed Starmer, when the director of public prosecutions (DPP), failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile. It was a nasty slur. Now they accuse the ex-DPP of letting groomers roam free. But as BBC Verify states: “We have been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir personally in any of the reports on the scandal, nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any decisions not to prosecute.”
Now, the key question: why didn’t the Tory government implement any of the 400 recommendations in the Jay report? Robert Jenrick et al are now barking for another inquiry, when what we need, as Jay said on the Today programme, is action, locally and nationally. Starmer has spoken, this time, with real passion: “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they are not interested in victims”. He is so right.
Groomers, their protectors, and right-wing extremists have all treated the children like lifeless puppets. A plague on all their houses.
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