Grooming gangs are responsible for two reports of child sex abuse every day, police figures suggest.
The data, which comes from all 43 forces in England and Wales, records 717 grooming gang cases in 2023 and a further 572 in the first nine months of last year.
The figures were collected as part of the Hydrant Programme, which collates and analyses statistics on ‘group-based’ sexual abuse, including the ethnicity of perpetrators.
The initiative was set up on the recommendation of Professor Alexis Jay, author of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, after she warned of the lack of good quality data on groomers and their victims.
The scandal over grooming gangs has reignited in recent weeks after Labour rejected calls for a government-led inquiry into offences such as those committed in Oldham.
Labour veteran and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham gave his support to a new national inquiry yesterday, as he said locally-led probes do not have the same legal powers as nationwide ones.
This puts him at odds with Labour ministers, who insist they are focusing on delivering action for victims by enacting the recommendations of Professor Jay’s 2022 review.
The Hydrant Programme analysis reveals that in 2023 ‘group-based’ offending, which is defined as involving two or more people, accounted for 4,228 offences, or 3.7 per cent of all 115,489 child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes.
Sir Keir Starmer – pictured yesterday – has faced calls for launch a new inquiry into grooming gangs
Out of the group-based offending cases, 717 – or 17 per cent – involved grooming gangs. Another 26 per cent of group offences took place within families.
The majority of perpetrators, 83 per cent, were white, with another 7 per cent defined as Asian, 5 per cent as black and 3 per cent as mixed race.
The Hydrant Programme has now provided an ethnic breakdown among suspected groomers in 2024. This showed that in January to September 2024, 13.7 per cent of suspects were from a Pakistani background, compared to 63 per cent who were white.
Officials have emphasised that these figures should be treated with caution.
They note that it only covers a minority of alleged offenders because ethnicity is only recorded after suspects have been interviewed by police and confirmed their ethnic background.
The Jay report, which was published in 2014, found that the majority of ‘known perpetrators’ of grooming in Rotherham ‘were of Pakistani heritage’.
It comes as Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy rejected Andy Burnham’s calls for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs but left the door open for a future investigation.
Ms Nandy, the MP for Wigan, said she disagreed with her party colleague after the Greater Manchester mayor expressed his support for a new investigation into historical child sexual abuse in areas including Oldham and Rochdale.
Out of the group-based offending cases, 717 – or 17 per cent – involved grooming gangs. Another 26 per cent of group offences took place within families. Source: Hydrant Programme
However, she said the Government would not rule out launching a further investigation ‘if it’s needed’.
Ministers have said their priority is acting on the 2022 recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s seven year inquiry into child sexual abuse, which have not yet been implemented.
Asked during this morning’s broadcast round about Mr Burnham’s intervention, Ms Nandy told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘I get the point that Andy’s making.
‘He said that there was a case for a smaller, more limited national inquiry into the specific issues that the inquiry that he instigated could not pick up.
‘I do understand that because the inquiry that we had here in Greater Manchester, astonishingly, some of the Greater Manchester Police officers refused to even take part, and the local inquiry couldn’t compel them to do so.’
She added: ‘But I do disagree with Andy actually. The reason that the Theresa May government set up a national inquiry, which ran for seven years and took evidence from thousands of victims, is precisely because of the points that Andy made.
‘That inquiry found what every inquiry has found, that young girls weren’t believed because they were young, they were female, and they were working-class, and that the systems that were supposed to protect them protected themselves instead of protecting those brave young victims.’
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned that launching a further inquiry, as opposition critics have demanded, could delay action on tackling child sexual abuse.
Andy Burnham has backed calls for a new national inquiry
On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government would begin to implement Prof Jay’s call for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, with further details to be set out in the coming weeks.
Labour veteran Mr Burnham told BBC Radio Manchester on Thursday: ‘I did hear last night coming out of that debate, ministers saying they are open to discussing issues now with survivors.
‘I will add my voice into this and say I do think there is the case for a limited national inquiry that draws on reviews like the one that I commissioned, and the one we have seen in Rotherham, the one we have seen in Telford, to draw out some of these national issues and compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account.’
The mayor said a series of reviews he commissioned into abuse in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale were limited compared to what a national investigation could achieve.
MPs on Wednesday rejected a Tory amendment to the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which called for another national inquiry and, if approved, would have derailed the legislation.
Survivors groups have warned that the ‘excessive’ focus on grooming gangs is obscuring the fact that they account for a small minority of overall sexual abuse and putting victims off revealing their stories.
