Rape scandal council areas label term ‘Asian grooming gangs’ as racist

Councils where young white girls were groomed and raped by British-Pakistani men have endorsed a definition of Islamophobia that brands the phrase “Asian grooming gangs” as racist.

Oxford, Newcastle, Manchester and Calderdale are four areas where the local councils have adopted a report that critics claim will silence whistleblowers trying to speak out against child abuse.

The report cautioned the phrase “Asian grooming gangs” was a modern repetition of “age-old stereotypes and tropes about Islam” of “sexual profligacy and paedophilia, or Islam and violence”, claiming that they “heighten the vulnerability of Muslims to hate crimes”.

The Labour Party formally adopted the report, which was written by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for British Muslims, co-chaired by health secretary Wes Streeting.

Now, the Government is considering a formal definition of anti-Muslim hate to be used nationally, which critics have hit out at, calling it a “blasphemy law”.

Former Labour MP Ann Cryer, who first raised concerns of the grooming of girls as young as 11 in Keighley, claimed local councils “were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness”.

Big groups of mainly British-Pakistani men have been convicted of grooming white girls in Oxford, Newcastle, Greater Manchester and Calderdale.

On Friday, shadow home secretary Chris Philp called the definition an “insult to the victims”.

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He said: “It’s bad enough to hear these ideas coming from the Labour Party, but it is an insult to the victims that the very same councils who covered up these appalling crimes are attempting to manipulate the definition of Islamophobia to make it forbidden to even talk about the rape gangs.”

He added that the proposed definition was “dangerous,” claiming it “risks the persecution of people who tell the truth about issues like the rape gangs.”

In Newcastle, 18 people were convicted in 2017 of offences including rape and trafficking, in a case believed to involve over 100 girls as young as 13.

The girls were drugged and passed around by men for sex who acted as if they were in a “relay race,” with one member of the group referring to white women as “only good for men like me to f*** and use as trash”.

During the men’s trials, the court heard that this could have been stopped by police on two occasions, including when police arrived at the rape location, but instead two men were given warnings for cannabis possession and three girls were taken home to their parents.

The incident, which happened three years before the gang was dismantled, was put on the police log to say “nothing untoward” had happened.

The council then unanimously adopted the APPG definition in full in 2019.

In Calderdale, 20 men were given sentences totalling over 200 years for exploiting four girls in the area.

Calderale borough council adopted the APPG definition in 2020, despite some councillors believing it could restrict freedom of expression.

In Oxford, 21 men were convicted of offences against girls ranging from the late 1990s to the late 2000s.

One girl was branded by the initials of a man who claimed to “own her”, and was forced to have an illegal abortion.

A serious case review from 2015 looking at Oxfordshire found that around 373 children may have been targeted in the area over a 16-year period.

The review found that Thames Valley force and social services had made “many errors” which “failed to see that these children were being groomed in an organised way by groups of men”.

Nevertheless, Oxford city council adopted the APPG definition of Islamophobia in 2019.

A spokesman for Manchester city council said members were asked to vote on a definition that made “no reference to grooming gangs”.

“In Manchester we are confronting and tackling the evil of child sexual exploitation, leaving no stone unturned,” he said. “Past crimes, dating back to the early 2000s, have been the subject of a rigorous independent review and an ongoing police investigation which we support.

He added: “Arrangements for identifying and tackling this issue are much stronger now, as endorsed by inspections, and the council, police and other services are united in our determination to protect our children and young people.”

The APPG said Islamophobia was “so prevalent” in Britain that it deserved to be seen as “Britain’s bigotry blind spot.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the definition made people “scared to tell the truth.”

MPs hit back at this, saying the report referred to the “collective smear and trope being used against all British Muslims.”

A spokesman for Calderdale borough council told The Times it “takes the safeguarding of children and young people very seriously. All allegations of child sexual exploitation made to the council are investigated thoroughly.”

Newcastle city council said: “While the city council did unanimously adopt the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims definition of Islamophobia in 2019, we dispute the claim that we believe the term ‘grooming gang’ on its own is a racist term.”

“Newcastle has zero tolerance to all forms of child grooming and sexual exploitation of women and girls.