'Major failing' not to gather ethnicity data on grooming gangs

THE LACK of data showing the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs is "a major failing over the last decade or more," a new report has found.

- ANAHITA HOSSEIN-POUR, MARGARET DAVIS and WILL DURRANT

Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said officials had dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, even though available data showed suspects were disproportionately likely to be Asian men.

Speaking as a review of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey was published yesterday, Ms Cooper told MPs: "While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities."

She said Baroness Casey found examples of organisations "avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions".

Ms Cooper said: "These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new."

Currently, ethnicity is only recorded for around 37% of suspects.

The report found that: "The appalling lack of data on ethnicity in crime recording alone is a major failing over the last decade or more. Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years.