Does the national policing lead understand grooming gangs?
To BBC Newsnight, where DCC Becky Riggs – the national policing lead on child protection and abuse investigations – has hit back at claims by shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick about grooming gangs. Speaking on the programme, Riggs said it was 'not true' that these types of crimes are from predominantly British Pakistani men – despite acknowledging that they are 'overrepresented when you look at their share of the population'. So what is true?
Well, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population, according to figures from the Hydrant Programme, which investigates child sex abuse. Around one in 73 Muslim men over 16 have been prosecuted for 'group-localised child sexual exploitation' in Rotherham, research by academics from the universities of Reading and Chichester has revealed.
'All of these issues need tackling,' Riggs added, insisting: 'I'm not here to lessen any of this type of offending in the slightest.
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