Grooming gangs reviewer Baroness Casey condemns woke 'do-gooders' who failed victims - revealing that she found 'Pakistani' Tippexed out of file
The architect of the bombshell grooming gangs review has condemned 'do-gooders' who ignored ethnic factors for fear of being branded racist.
Baroness Casey vented fury at the failure to tackle the issues over a decade, saying she was 'raging' on behalf of the victims.
Speaking following the publication of her report, the Whitehall troubleshooter revealed she had found the word 'Pakistani' Tippexed out of a child sex abuse file.
But Lady Casey said turning a blind eye to many offenders having Asian heritage only gave racists 'more ammunition'.
The long-awaited review was published yesterday, finding that councils, police forces and the Home Office repeatedly 'shied away' from dealing with 'uncomfortable' questions about the ethnicity of rapists preying on thousands of vulnerable girls.
Despite years of warnings, she said, the quality of data collected at a national level remained 'woeful and a dereliction of public duty'.
With ethnicity still recorded in only a third of cases, the baroness said it was impossible to be certain about patterns of offending at a national level.
The report said there was a 'blind spot' in the way institutions approached child sexual exploitation
But her report highlighted data collected by police in Rotherham, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire which showed a 'disproportionate number of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds' among those suspected of grooming offences.
In Rotherham, an investigation into historic cases by the National Crime Agency found that two-thirds of suspects were of Pakistani heritage, despite them accounting for just 4 per cent of the local population.
The report also examined a dozen major live police operations into grooming gangs and found a 'significant proportion' of suspects are asylum seekers or were born abroad.
In interviews following the publication, Lady Casey said that 'establishing the facts' on ethnicity could 'take the pain out of this'.
'I think you've got sort of do-gooders that don't really want this to be found because, you know, 'Oh, God, then all the racists are going to be more racist',' she told Sky News.
'Well, actually, people that are racist are going to use this anyway. All you're doing with the hate mongers and the racists is giving them more ammunition.'
The cross-bench peer said she came across examples of people deliberately ignoring racial factors in Rotherham.
'I was following through on a children's file in archive and found the word 'Pakistani' Tippexed out,' she said.
'I thought whoever did that inadvertently was giving ammunition to the English Defence League that were every week, in and out, campaigning and doing their stuff in that town.
'I think the problem is that people are worried about being called racist.... if good people don't grasp difficult things, bad people will, and that's why we have to do it as a society.'
Lady Casey also swiped at the Tories for 'politicising' the response to the report, rather than 'coming together' to fix the issues.
Speaking on BBC Newsnight, the peer said: 'What really has got to me a bit about doing this particulatr report is that ten years ago I could have been clearer about what was happening in Rotherham.
'I said at the time there are national implications, this isn't the only place this is happening in.
'Over a long period of time there have been lots of initiatives, lots of reviews... and yet it doesn't feel it has come to anything.
She added: 'I am raging actually on behalf of the victims... it's been awful to realise that as a society we still don't see these girls as girls.'
In one case in Newcastle, an asylum seeker convicted of offences 'spoke in a derogatory way about lack of morals in British girls and the ease with which he was able to access sex, drugs and alcohol'.
Lady Casey said it was 'not racist to want to examine the ethnicity of offenders'. But she pointed to a culture of public bodies avoiding the issue 'for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems'.
Her report said most local reviews had shown 'a palpable discomfort in any discussion of ethnicity'.
And it said 'flawed data' was being 'used repeatedly to dismiss claims about 'Asian grooming gangs' as sensational, biased or untrue'.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper issued a public apology on behalf of the state to the victims of the gangs.
She said she offered 'an unequivocal apology for the unimaginable pain and suffering that you have suffered, and for the failure of our country's institutions, over decades, to prevent that harm and keep you safe'.
Ms Cooper said she was accepting the recommendations of Lady Casey's 'damning' report in full – including ordering a public inquiry which Labour has resisted.
The report triggered angry clashes in the Commons, where Kemi Badenoch rounded on Keir Starmer for smearing those pressing for a public inquiry of jumping on a 'far-Right bandwagon'.
The national inquiry will be time-limited and is likely to investigate offending in only a handful of local areas, despite warnings that similar activity may have taken place in 50 towns and cities across the country.
But it will have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Immigration is the biggest burden on NHS, say Labour voters
Labour voters now believe immigration is the biggest burden on the NHS. Britons who backed Sir Keir Starmer's party at the general election last year think high levels of immigration are having more of an effect on the health service than the ageing population. A poll of 2,000 Labour supporters by Merlin Strategy also found that one in five Labour voters would now consider casting their ballots for Reform UK. It comes as Nigel Farage's party continues to enjoy a comfortable opinion poll lead after promising to effectively freeze non-essential migration and put an end to illegal Channel crossings. Research carried out on May 24 asked people who voted Labour in 2024 which of five factors they believed was 'the biggest burden' on the NHS. Some 24 per cent said high levels of immigration, with 22 per cent saying the mental health crisis. Thirteen per cent said a lack of social care provisions, while 12 per cent blamed junk food and obesity. A further 10 per cent said the biggest burden was people vaping. The remaining 19 per cent did not pick an option or said they did not know. Sir Keir said in a major speech last month that record levels of net migration to Britain in recent years had placed a heavy strain on the country's public services. Maxwell Marlow, the director of public affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, which commissioned the poll, said: 'It is clear that the British people have felt the impact of mass immigration on healthcare. 'Unless the government moves quickly, urging immigrants to purchase private health care as a requirement for any visa other than tourism, then they will continue to hold the Government accountable for the very rapid deterioration in their access to healthcare.' Sir Keir has been criticised for a lack of vision during his first year in office, with only 51 per cent of Labour voters saying the Government was prioritising issues that mattered to them. More than one in four (28 per cent) now regretted voting Labour and more than one in five (22 per cent) were now considering whether to vote for Reform at the next election. Two in five respondents (40 per cent) said they approved of Mr Farage, while 41 per cent disapproved. Scarlett Maguire, the director of Merlin Strategy, said: 'Labour voters are clear that they want to see action on cost of living, healthcare, and immigration. 'The Government needs to show that it is in tune with these priorities and that it understands what matters to their core voters.' Merlin Strategy also conducted a focus group in Runcorn and Helsby, one of the safest Labour seats at the 2024 election, before the party lost the seat to Reform by six votes at last month's by-election. Respondents said Sir Keir's Government was 'afraid of upsetting people', while another member of the group said: 'I don't think they give a toss about us.' The group were also unconvinced by the timing of Sir Keir's plans to clamp down on tobacco and vapes, which have banned disposable vapes and will raise the smoking age by one year, every year. 'How is that really relatable to the working person?' one member asked, adding that it was 'just something shiny to put in the media'.
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Reform on course to win next election
Reform UK is now on course to win an outright majority at the next general election, a new poll suggests, with more than a third of voters saying they intend to back Nigel Farage's party. The Ipsos opinion poll puts Reform on 34 per cent, nine points ahead of Labour on 25 per cent, with the Conservatives a distant third on 15 per cent. It is the highest level of support for Reform shown by any poll to date, and would almost certainly be sufficient to give Mr Farage a comfortable overall majority in Parliament. Mr Farage told The Telegraph: 'This poll shows Reform can and will win the next general election.' Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that if the poll result was reproduced in the 2029 election, Reform could win in excess of 400 seats, giving the party a majority of almost 200 and making Mr Farage prime minister. The Tories could be reduced to fewer than 10 seats with Labour on around 140, losing some 270 of the seats they currently hold. However, national opinion polls are notoriously difficult to translate into seat numbers because voting percentages in individual constituencies can vary hugely from the overall average. The poll contains further evidence of the collapse in support for Labour, which is now at levels not seen since October 2019, when Boris Johnson was at the height of his popularity. Sir Keir Starmer is shown to be the least popular prime minister at this stage of his term in office since Ipsos began compiling such records almost half a century ago. Just 19 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the job he is doing, with 73 per cent dissatisfied. Only Gordon Brown (22 per cent satisfied) has come close to such levels of unpopularity after 11 months in office. For comparison, 68 per cent of people were satisfied with Sir Tony Blair at the same stage, while Sir John Major satisfied 54 per cent of people and Baroness Thatcher 43 per cent. The news is no better for the Tories, whose support, at 15 per cent, is the lowest since Ipsos's records began in 1976. Just 29 per cent of 2024 voters are satisfied with the job Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is doing, a figure which drops to 11 per cent when all voters are taken into account. The Ipsos survey of 1,180 people reflected the growing likelihood that Reform will be helped by a splintering of the vote among other parties, with the LibDems taking 11 per cent of the votes and the Greens 9 per cent, suggesting that other parties will struggle to win many seats. A Reform UK source said: 'This is big Reform majority territory.' Both the Conservatives and Labour have lost the support of half of those who voted for them in 2024, with the Tories losing 48 per cent of their voters and Labour 54 per cent. Most of the Tory defectors (37 per cent of the 2024 total) have switched to Reform, while Labour has lost 12 per cent of its 2024 vote to Reform and another 13 per cent split between the LibDems and Greens. In contrast, Reform has retained the backing of 95 per cent of those who voted for the party last year. Gideon Skinner, senior director of UK politics at Ipsos, said: 'The last year has indeed been a long time in politics, with our first voting intention poll since the election showing just how much the political landscape has transformed since then. 'Reform UK has continued to build on its success, helped by high levels of enthusiasm among its own support and among working class voters in particular, and taking votes from both Labour and especially the Conservatives, who show little sign of recovery.' He added: 'The disappointment with Labour is clear, even among those who voted for the party in 2024. 'We know from Ipsos research how difficult it has been to shift entrenched public pessimism over the cost of living, immigration, and the state of public services, and so far, Britons do not think Labour is delivering the tangible change they were hoping for in 2024. 'This is reflected in satisfaction ratings for the Government and Prime Minister that are well below the average we usually see coming up to a one-year anniversary. Indeed, they look remarkably similar to the poor ratings received by Gordon Brown in 2008 after the financial crash.' Surveys were carried out between May 29 and June 4, before Zia Yusuf resigned as Reform's chairman and subsequently returned to the party, and before Rachel Reeves announced her controversial spending review. The poll marks the relaunch of Ipsos's Political Monitor survey, which uses an online panel of voters selected using random probability sampling. Letters are sent to randomly selected addresses inviting the recipients to join an online panel, and the results from those who agree to take part are adjusted to take account of the adult population profile on age, gender, ethnicity, employment and other factors. The poll also gathered information on who Reform's supporters are. Six in ten are aged under 50; more than half (53 per cent) are in the lower social classes known as C2, D and E and 42 per cent are non-graduates. More than a quarter of people who did not bother to vote in 2024 now say they would turn out and vote for Reform.
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
European puppy-smuggling gangs targeted by Government
European puppy-smuggling gangs are being targeted by new legislation capping the number and age of dogs that can cross the border into Britain. The Government-backed private members' bill will close loopholes that were exploited by the gangsters before Brexit, when the UK was a member of the EU pet passport system. The UK is expected to rejoin the EU passport for dogs, cats and ferrets scheme as part of Sir Keir Starmer's reset deal with Brussels. 'We would urge the Government to ensure that the UK-EU agreement does not have a negative impact on the measures included within the Bill,' warned Claire Calder of Dogs Trust. The passport was abused by criminals, many from Eastern Europe. They used forgeries or corrupt vets signing the travel documents without the proper checks to bring hundreds of thousands of poorly treated puppies into Britain. The Government insists the Bill, which has its third reading on July 3, will prevent a surge in puppy smuggling after the UK rejoins the scheme. Dr Danny Chambers, a Liberal Democrat MP and vet, said: 'So long as my Animal Welfare Bill continues to enjoy broad cross-party support and we get it passed into law, then when combined with pet passports, I'm fully confident the government will have the necessary powers to properly crack down on puppy smuggling.' The Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill raises the minimum age for commercially imported puppies and kittens from 15 weeks to six months. It gives the Government powers to ban the import of heavily pregnant and mutilated dogs and cats. It cuts the number of dogs, cats and ferrets that can be brought into Britain to five per vehicle or three per foot or air passenger. Currently there is a five animal limit per person, rather than per vehicle. A Government spokesman said rejoining the pet passport scheme would make taking pets on holiday easier and cheaper and that the Bill 'will end puppy smuggling'. Senior Tories in Boris Johnson's government hailed Brexit as an opportunity to end puppy smuggling, but a bill to curb the illegal imports was shelved in 2023. The trade has continued even though Brexit meant far more stringent and costly health checks and paperwork requirements to move animals between the EU and UK. The number of pets involved in 'non-commercial' moves to the UK rose from 100,000 in 2011 to more than 320,000 in 2023, raising concerns that puppy smuggling was rife. The EU is working on new legislation to improve minimum common standards for breeding and keeping cats and dogs and to improve cross-border traceability. But there were warnings this week that it won't stop European 'puppy mills' because it does not cover breeders with three litters or fewer. Animal rights campaigners say that it is about 80 per cent of all breeders and that just one unregulated breeder can produce 100 puppies over one animal's lifetime. The RSPCA said it hoped the UK would be back in the EU pet passport scheme by the summer, but added that proper border enforcement was vital. 'Whilst the Government supported Bill raising the minimum age for puppy imports to six months will help enormously tackle the illegal puppy trade, it must be backed up with well-funded enforcement controls,' said David Bowles, of the RSPCA. Northern Irish politicians this week warned that the region could become a back door into the UK for puppy smugglers because of its Brexit deal, which keeps the border with EU member Ireland invisible. Ulster Unionist Party MLA Robbie Butler said of the Bill: ' What we risk doing here is creating an alternative route where animals are brought legally into the Republic, then re-registered, and quietly moved across the border into Northern Ireland and on to Great Britain without triggering enforcement.'
