Grooming gangs from “diverse backgrounds” says Home Office after long-awaited review

Grooming gangs come from “diverse backgrounds”, a long-awaited review by the Home Office has concluded.

Prompted by high-profile cases of sexual grooming in towns including Rochdale and Rotherham, the work was commissioned by former Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to better understand the scale and nature of group-based child sexual exploitation, including the characteristics of offenders, victims and the context in which these crimes are committed.
 

Read more: Government to publish paper into understanding grooming gangsPublished: 26 May 2020

The research was published on Tuesday (15 December) after the Home Office had initially said releasing the paper 'would not be in the public interest'.

The paper sets out the limited available evidence on the characteristics of offenders including how they operate, ethnicity, age, offender networks, as well as the context in which these crimes are often committed, along with implications for frontline responses and for policy development.

The paper said that whilst a number of high-profile cases mainly involved men of Pakistani ethnicity, 'offender groups come from diverse backgrounds' and 'group-based CSE offenders are most commonly white'.

However, the Home Office said that: “Some studies have indicated an over-representation of Asian and Black offenders. However, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders as existing research is limited and data collection is poor.”

The report also said that those who perpetrate group-based CSE are 'predominantly male and often under the age of 30' – but can be older.

Offenders can come from a range of social backgrounds – some have been stable middle-class professionals, some of whom were married, whilst others have had more chaotic lifestyles. Some studies have found that abusers are more commonly unemployed or in lower-paying jobs than the general population, suggesting motivation by a desire to profit from the exploitation.

The report notes: “Motivations differ between offenders, but a sexual interest in children is not always the predominant motive. Financial gain and a desire for sexual gratification are common motives and misogyny and disregard for women and girls may further enable the abuse.

“The group dynamic can have a role in creating an environment in which offenders believe they can act with impunity, in exacerbating disregard for victims, and in drawing others into offending behaviour.”

Police who have investigated CSE cases told the Home Office they believe abusers may seek to distance themselves from their victims to reduce their inhibition to offending, including 'othering' people (treating those different from the group as inferior), because they are from a different community or gender.

The report said gangs’ structures and mode of operation vary, but frequent elements include initiating contact with victims in the shared local area; grooming the victims and significant adults into believing the victim is in a legitimate relationship with the abuser; and the use of parties, drugs and alcohol to reduce victims' resistance and willingness to report.

The report adds that abuse often takes place in private or commercial locations, and victims of grooming gangs are most commonly girls aged 14-17 years old, with a peak at 14-15 years. Those with vulnerabilities were cited as having the 'clearest documented association with the risk of CSE', indicating vulnerabilities that abusers might seek to exploit, include: being in care; experiencing episodes of going missing; and having a learning disability. Other documented factors which may be exploited by abusers include drug/alcohol dependency, mental health issues, and experience of previous abuse.

Some of these risk factors, the report adds, also act as barriers to disclosure, meaning much abuse is never identified.

In August 2018, three members of the Rochdale grooming gang – Abdul Aziz, Adil Khan and Qari Abdul Rauf – lost an appeal to avoid being deported, and it was announced they would be stripped of their British citizenship.

A fourth member of the group, Shabir Ahmed, also lost his appeal against deportation but is still in prison, serving a 22-year term for rape.

However, since then, none of the men appear to have been deported – or be facing deportation – with local residents having reported seeing them in town.

Both local MPs, Chris Clarkson and Tony Lloyd, have previously urged the Home Office to seek the deportation of three members of the Rochdale grooming gang, asking for them to be stripped of their British citizenship.

Responding to the report, Mr Lloyd said: "This is a disappointing report that the government originally wanted to suppress, and it doesn’t take us very much further.

"We know the things that went wrong and let young women down so badly in Rochdale and other parts of the country. A failure of people in positions of responsibility to treat young women as victims and potential victims, a failure of different agencies to act together to offer a culture of protection, could and would have made a difference.

"Those lessons that had been learnt have got to be remembered, but cuts to police, cuts to our children’s services, cuts to our schools and even the added pressure on our NHS means that joint working is more difficult now. But this must be a priority.

"There can be no tolerance for those who would exploit and attack our vulnerable young people, whoever they are,  they deserve the prison sentences they get. But tough talk from Priti Patel  does little when we know that some of the attackers are now free to roam the streets when we were promised they would face deportation.

"Once again I am calling on the Home Secretary to honour that commitment."

Chris Clarkson, MP for Heywood and Middleton, said he welcomed the decision to publish the report. He said: "For the first time we have a comprehensive understanding of the nuanced and complex workings of grooming gangs and I am confident that this will enable us to better protect young people and prevent further such wicked acts in the future.

"The paper rightly observes that perpetrators can come from a range of social backgrounds – by acknowledging this we can ensure that the terrible failings of the past are not repeated and that the dead hand of political correctness does not crush the victims’ right to justice.

"Community and cultural factors are clearly relevant to understanding the motivations behind this evil behaviour and essential to preventing it in future.

"For that reason, the commitment to improve the collection and analysis of data on group-based child sexual exploitation, including in relation to characteristics of offenders such as ethnicity and other factors is a welcome inclusion in the forthcoming Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy.

"Survivors of these disgusting criminal gangs were woefully let down by the state and those who turned a blind eye to this should hang their heads in shame – in many ways they are no better than the rapists themselves.

"Last night I spoke with the Home Secretary and it was clear to me that she is resolute in her determination to make sure this is never allowed to happen again. She was frank about her disgust at what had happened and her commitment to getting justice for victims of CSE cannot be in doubt.

"I will continue to work with the Home Office constructively to make sure that this cannot happen again and that those who are guilty are not allowed to get away with it."

Materials used in the government paper included published academic research, official statistics and published work by organisations working in the child sexual exploitation area, as well as a series of interviews with police officers and safeguarding officers involved in investigating CSE. An External Reference Group, consisting of independent experts on child sexual exploitation and survivors, reviewed and informed this work.

Insight gained from this paper will be used to improve guidance to local agencies in identifying and disrupting this form of offending, and work with police to tackle organised exploitation by using improved analysis and sharing of data.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: “Victims and survivors of group-based child sexual exploitation have told me how they were let down by the state in the name of political correctness. What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.

“This paper demonstrates how difficult it has been to draw conclusions about the characteristics of offenders.”

Ms Patel said a forthcoming Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy would improve the understanding of child sexual abuse, including around ethnicity.

She added: “This will enable us to better understand any community and cultural factors relevant to tackling offending – helping us to safeguard children from abuse, deliver justice for victims and survivors, and restore the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system’s ability to confront this issue.”

The Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy will outline a whole system response to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse, including grooming gangs.