This is Northumberland Calling 17.6.25

The Casey Report on Grooming Gangs

Hello America (particularly Central Ohio), this is Northumberland calling. I know midweek and all that but…

Because Baroness Casey’s report was released yesterday and it makes for sickening reading, I thought it important that people be aware of what is actually being said.

First this is the report and the Government’s response: It is damning and points to a continuing culture which hides and excuses in the name of ‘community relations’. There is for example that more recent ‘groom gang’ activity includes asylum seekers and other recent arrivals. The lack of data on ethnicity makes it impossible to say how much. Where there were 3 forces which did have decent data, there was a huge over representation of Asian, particularly Pakistani men. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-audit-on-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse

The Telegraph highlight some of the more damning passages and says it is basic cowardice which allowed the scandal to develop and to continue. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/16/the-key-passages-from-the-damning-review-into-grooming-gang/ or https://archive.ph/n5cng

This is an exclusive interview in the Times with Baroness Casey who started off with the view that no national inquiry was needed and ended up appalled. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/baroness-casey-interview-grooming-gangs-xqbqvtdww or https://archive.ph/KdUsj

This is a Telegraph cartoon about the reaction to Andrew Norfolk who would not let the story go and raised to it to prominence. Everyone shouting ‘racist’ at him. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/telegraph-cartoons-june-2025/

It is the same sort of reaction that many still get when they try to raise concerns about the crime. Well-meaning? The road to hell is supposedly paved with good intentions and it is no different in this case. Casey in her interview tells the story of someone redacting the word ‘Pakistani’ on a case file because they wanted to ensure good community relations.

The problem is that the lack of robust data (some of which appears to be wilfully not collected) and the ‘nothing to see here’ attitude has been exploited by the far right who wish to sow division. To be clear the far right in Britain are against all immigration and there is often a strong whiff of antisemitism in their output. They have exploited this issue, not the least because authorities decided to hide the extent of the problem. If people who raise the issue are ‘far right’ as Starmer claimed in January, then by that measure, we should all be ‘far right’. In truth, it was never merely a ‘far right’, nothing to see here issue but a terrible scandal which was covered up using the public’s repugnance of the ‘far right’ bully boy tactics as a tool to obscure.

As Tom Holland (The Rest is History) pointed out on TwiX ISIS amply demonstrated that certain passages of the Koran could be exploited to give justification for sex slaves including the use of children in such practices. There are other passages which forbid it. And fatwas have been written against it, but certain sections, particularly within the takfiri movement persist with the justification. (Much as there can be problems with child abuse etc within fundamentalist Christian groups) It is something which does need to be discussed so that ways to combat it can be found, particularly as the political Islamist movements have small but significant footholds in the West. This is Holland giving the Christopher Hitchens lecture on the subject back in 2015. His book on the early history of Islam In the Shadow of the Sword is well worth a read.

As Baroness Casey revealed, a significant number of the ‘live’ cases involve non-British nationals and may include asylum seekers. Grooming gangs which indulge in all sorts of vile behaviour are ongoing. They are not historic and the cover up has continued. This must stop and hopefully will now stop. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/16/asylum-seekers-behind-new-grooming-gang-cases/ or https://archive.ph/UFCGs

In short it is a massive and unfortunately ongoing scandal. Until institutions actually grasp what is going on and are unafraid to say that there is a ‘community’ element to this type of offending as well as prosecuting those who were involved in the cover up, the institutions will continue to fail the children in their care. They also ill serve those ethnic communities by treating them as somehow unable to keep basic laws, such as the age of consent. They inadvertently smear all in that specific community through the cowardly approach.

Suzanne Moore has done a good op ed on the need to ensure all children are safeguarded properly and that includes the accountability of prosecutions where necessary. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/16/i-welcome-the-grooming-gang-inquiry-but-people-need-to-be/ or https://archive.ph/z9cN4