Fury over Councillor’s sex exploitation comments

A Rochdale Councillor was slammed at a meeting of full Council tonight (Wednesday 26 January 2011) for comments he made to a Rochdale newspaper regarding chid sex exploitation.

Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families, Surinder Biant, was quoted following the news of arrests in Rochdale and Heywood as part of an investigation into child sex exploitation.

Councillor Biant pledged to speak to the Asian community about the issue.

Councillor Biant was quoted as saying: “I want to re-assure the public that nothing like this will ever happen again under my watch. If this is happening then I want to know why? It is of really dire concern to me and I will do whatever is in my power to stop it.”

Tonight councillors expressed their anger at his words.

The Leader of the Independent Alliance Party, Councillor Greg Couzens, said: “If you knew anything about this issue you would note it is not simply an Asian problem. Your remarks directly make it one and have allowed extremist groups to jump onto a band wagon. There are so many blogs now as a direct response of your opportunity to seek publicity.”

Referring to Councillor Biant’s comment about reassuring the public this won’t happen again, Councillor Couzens asked: “How can you make this guarantee? Are you willing to share how you propose to do this?”

Councillor Dale Mulgrew said the comments had created “ill feeling” and said the comments should have been made based on facts, not on personal views.

Councillor Shah Wazir said links between the mosques and crime shouldn’t have been established, adding: “A criminal is a criminal.”

Reacting to the stinging critcism Councillor Biant said he thought there had been some “confusion” and said the issue had been raised by Mohammed Shafiq of the Ramadhan Foundation not just himself.

He said: “This is not a religious issue, it is an issue about abusing children.”

Councillor Biant said he wanted to “stop it ever happening again.”