Grooming gangs - ethnicity questions 'dodged for years'

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.

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Officials have 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, the Home Secretary told the House of Commons. Speaking as a review of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey was published yesterday, Yvette 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 whol