Authorities were “in denial” as they ignored warnings that many perpetrators of child rape in grooming gang cases were of Pakistani descent, a review ordered by the British government has found.
The ethnicity of perpetrators will be a key focus of a new national inquiry into grooming gangs, which was confirmed on Monday by British home secretary Yvette Cooper. It will parse data and have the power to compel testimony from witnesses in a slew of high-profile cases, including in abuse hotspots such as Rotherham and Rochdale.
The issue has sparked a bitter political row in Westminster. British prime minister Keir Starmer had previously blocked opposition calls for a national inquiry into the rape by grooming gangs of mostly white British girls. He has been accused being “dragged” into a U-turn.
Mr Starmer’s government had previously accused its opponents of jumping on a “far-right bandwagon” by focusing on ethnicity amid long-running calls for a national inquiry. The prime minister insisted he only changed his mind after reading the review into the issue by cross-bench peer, Louise Casey, which was published on Monday.
Ms Cooper rose to her feet in the House of Commons just after 3.30pm on Monday to confirm the launch of the national inquiry, a key recommendation in Casey’s damning report. The national inquiry will also oversee several smaller, regional inquiries that had already been ordered in some areas, predominantly in England’s north and midlands.
Ms Cooper told a hushed chamber that over many years, too many vulnerable young girls had been raped and assaulted “in filthy flats and down alleyways” by gangs of men who groomed and exploited them.
As she revealed the details of Ms Casey’s report, the home secretary said it had found “a deep-rooted failure to treat children as children” by various authorities. Too often, they had been portrayed as being “in love with” their abusers or as “collaborators in their own abuse”, she said.
Ms Cooper said Ms Casey’s report had found a failure to collect proper data on the ethnicity of offenders – the ethnic background of offenders had been recorded in only one-third of known cases, she said. Ms Casey found that, even then, it was still clear there was an “over-representation” of Asian and specifically Pakistani men, and this was ignored.
Ms Casey’s report was ordered by Starmer in January at the height of a furore on the issue, fed by angry tweets from Elon Musk. It was supposed to be a “short, sharp” audit of cases and delivered in three months. The peer sought an extension, however, and her report ultimately delivered a scathing review of perceived inaction by the British state.
She said the relevance of ethnicity in abuse cases was “shied away from” by authorities and people had kept quiet out of fear of being seen as racist. She laid bare a 16-year timeline of inaction by various authorities, from 2009 until 2025.
Ms Cooper attempted to head off criticism by Labour’s political opponents, especially the Tories, by highlighting that the Conservatives had been in power for 14 of the 16 years of inaction. But this seemed only to enhance the fury from opposition benches.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch angrily lambasted Labour MPs by pointing out that they had previously voted against a national inquiry on three occasions. As Ms Cooper returned to the dais to defend the government, Ms Badenoch could be seen repeatedly waving three fingers at the home secretary.
As well as the inquiry, Ms Cooper also confirmed other measures, including a new police operation targeting offenders and deeper research to gather ethnicity data.
Mr Starmer, meanwhile, has emerged from the debate politically damaged after spending months resisting a national inquiry, only to allow the perception to take hold that he had been bounced into holding one by the opposition.
