It is wrong to say group-based child abuse is predominantly committed by Pakistani men, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said.
Figures from the police database show where ethnicity is recorded, that in the first three quarters of 2024 – 85% of group-based child abusers were white, while 3.9% were of Pakistani origin.
The figure increases for Pakistani offenders to 13.7% if you remove institutional groups, such as sports groups, schools and church-based group offenders, and group child abuse committed in a family setting.
The same calculation for 2023 showed 70% of offenders were white, and 6.9% were Pakistani.
So, in this specific category, there is a disproportionate representation to the number of Pakistanis in the population. However, this only relates to a very defined, and small section of the overall child abuse data.
It is the first time data has been collated in this way, but it is important to note that because data is collected early in an investigation, often data on “self-defined ethnicity” has not yet been recorded. As a result, only 30% of records have ethnicity.
However, group-based child abuse is only a fraction of all child abuse.
For example, out of 28,556 offences in the third quarter of last year, only 986 were group based. In addition, based on the first three quarters of last year, only 18% of these group-based offences fall into the category of street-based grooming.
Read more:
Grooming gangs are ‘in every single part of our country’
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The recent debates on Pakistani grooming gangs has “marginalised victims”, said Assistant Chief Constable Becky Riggs, the NPCC’s lead for child protection and abuse investigation.
The officer told a press briefing that based on recent focus on grooming gangs of one ethnicity, victims of other types of sexual crimes might feel “their type of crime is less valid”.
She said: “We need to make sure people of all types of crime feel heard.”
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ACC Riggs also said recent headlines will have caused “victims to relive their crimes”, and that it’s important to address “all the threats from all races and ethnicities”.
The police have released their data in the wake of heated debate in the House of Commons over whether there should be a national statutory inquiry into Pakistani grooming gangs.
The political heat was triggered by a series of tweets from Elon Musk on the subject.
Gabrielle Shaw, chief executive for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, who also attended the news conference, said: “The weaponisation of people’s trauma is reprehensible.
“Someone’s trauma should not be used to score political points, or as clickbait.”
