Tim Dieppe, head of public policy at Christian Concern, says that only a national inquiry into grooming gangs will get to the bottom of the problem. He reiterates the need to stop denying how Islam is a motivation behind this barbaric abuse.
Grooming gangs back in the news
There has hardly been a day in this still relatively new year when Islamic grooming gangs have not been in the news.
The story has reverberated around the world, to the shame of Britain. People wonder how we ever allowed these Islamic grooming gangs to continue for over 50 years and why no one has been held accountable for the lamentable failures of policing and social services.
Pressure has grown on the government to call for a national inquiry with many national and international politicians and celebrities joining these calls.
The Home Secretary’s statement
The media storm over grooming gangs kicked off at the end of last year with news that the government had refused a formal request from Oldham Council for a national inquiry into grooming gangs. Following continued media and political pressure, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper made an announcement in the House of Commons last week.
For some context, it is worth noting that the Home Secretary admitted that there are currently 127 major police investigations underway on child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs across 29 different police forces.
While she mentioned Pakistani heritage gangs, she also admitted that the data on ethnicity is still inadequate. She promised that action will be taken to improve this, including a new rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country. Overseen by Baroness Louise Casey, this will look at the demographics of the gangs and their victims and examine “cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending amongst different ethnic groups.”
This is encouraging to hear and a step forwards, but there is still a reluctance to mention or consider any role for religion in these offences. Religion is not mentioned in the Home Secretary’s statement. It has been studiously avoided in previous inquiries and reports into the subject.
Back in 2020, Lord Pearson specifically asked whether the religious characteristics of offenders would be taken into account in a government report, and received the answer that “We are not excluding any characteristics from our consideration.” Nevertheless, when the report came out, there was no mention of ‘religion’.
The Islamic connection
There is plenty of evidence of the Islamic connection with these crimes. To illustrate this, it is worth quoting some paragraphs from a witness statement of a Rotherham grooming gang survivor §24 – §28 (this contains some strong and graphic language [square brackets are my insertions]):
I was told that I must respect their religion. This was the first of many confusing lies I was forced to believe. I was told that to show them (Muslims) respect, I mustn’t eat pork. I was told that Muslim girls are good and pure, and stay virgins until marriage, but all the white girls are slags, and they sleep with hundreds of people. I was told white girls are trash. They are all whores. They are lower than s*** under your shoe. They don’t obey Allah, so they deserve to be punished. They don’t dress modestly. Muslim women are pure because they cover down to their ankles, and down to their wrists, and the hem of their top comes down below their knees. White girls show the curves of their body so they are asking for it. They should be raped as punishment for not obeying Allah. Kaffir girls are worthless. Sex with a kaffir girl doesn’t count as adultery (only sex with a Muslim woman counts as adultery). If you’re not a virgin before marriage you should be beaten. Many times I was told that the Quran says, “If one of your wives disobeys you, beat her.” [Q 4:34] This was often quoted to me before they beat me with their hands.
They believed they had a position of religious moral superiority over ‘non-believers’. They believed it was their duty to punish us, as they believed doing so made them good Muslims. This is what they were taught by their mothers. They were taught that witches in Pakistan are blonde, so blondes are more evil, and they deserve worse punishment. I was told that in Islam, if a girl or a woman looks at a man who isn’t her brother, father or her husband, they that means she wants to have sex with him. So I was told to look at the floor when I was around Muslim men. So when I did look at a waiter in a restaurant, I was then taken away to be gang-raped as ‘punishment’. I was told that according to their faith community, girls are old enough for sex when they start their periods (at age 11). Many of us had to endure the sexual act of ‘thighing’ which I’m told is a religiously sanctioned way of molesting children according to some Islamic scriptures. (You have to lie down on your back with your legs straight together and they straddle you and f*** between your thighs).
I was beaten, strangled, suffocated, and my head held under water, tortured, kicked, and raped over 100 times. I was told that if you don’t scream when you’re raped, then you’re consenting to the rape, so you should be stoned to death. I was told that Muslim girls know this (because the Quran says that Alisha’s [ should be Aisha’s] silence was her consent to the marriage to Mohammed). [actually this is from the Hadith, Sahih al-Bukhari 6946] So Muslim girls know to scream, but white girls don’t so that’s their fault then, because they’re not Muslim. When I did wear a headscarf to try to protect myself from being raped, I was told to get it off, and they raped me again. (I know now that all these so-called ‘ways to protect yourself from being raped’ are ‘rape-myths’ used to excuse a perpetrator’s criminal behaviour).
They threatened to kill my parents if my parents tried to stop me seeing them. I was intimidated with guns and threatened with body parts being cut off with knives. When I tried to escape, I was told that I had offended their honour, so they had to spill my blood. They did this in an honour attack.
All of the sexual abuse that I experienced was linked to spiritual abuse, or religious abuse. Religious scriptures were used as tools of control to force me to conform to their will. I was not allowed to question these religious beliefs. They used their religious ‘moral authority’ and self-proclaimed elitism to control me through use of scripture, forced confessions, censorship of decision making, requirement of secrecy and silence, isolation, excessive shaming and punishment around sexuality, and requiring unquestioning obedience. I experienced this as a deeply personal, terrifying physical, emotional and spiritual attack. Every time they quoted scripture it was very hard to argue with; to them it was like I was arguing with God. To me it was actually like I was arguing with the devil. They used their so-called ‘religious moral authority’ to do the most horrific, immoral acts imaginable.
Many more examples could be cited of victims being forced into sharia marriages, forced to read the Qur’an, forced to have abortions, and told that Islamic doctrine justifies their abuse.
‘Islamophobia’ definition contributing to the problem
I am pleased to see that the government has also come under pressure about the notorious APPG definition of ‘Islamophobia’ which I have critiqued several times before. The Labour Party has formally adopted this definition into its Code of Conduct. Kemi Badenoch raised this problematic definition in Prime Minister’s Questions on 8 January. She said:
“The Labour Party has adopted the APPG definition of “Islamophobia”. The same APPG report said that talking about sex groomers was an example of Islamophobia. This is exactly why people are scared to tell the truth, and the lack of clarity means that innocent British Muslims are smeared by association. That is not fair, and only a national inquiry can solve this. Will the Prime Minister look again at the Labour Party’s adoption of the definition of “Islamophobia” and its chilling effect, and rule out introducing it in government?”
The Prime Minister ignored the point about the Islamophobia definition in his reply.
The APPG report which launched the infamous definition says:
“As such, the recourse to the notion of free speech and a supposed right to criticise Islam results in nothing more than another subtle form of anti-Muslim racism, whereby the criticism humiliates, marginalises, and stigmatises Muslims. One, real life example of this concerns the issue of ‘grooming gangs’”
In its conclusion, the report gives examples of what would be deemed ‘Islamophobic’. One example is:
“Using the symbols and images associated with classic Islamophobia (e.g. Muhammed being a paedophile, claims of Muslims spreading Islam by the sword or subjugating minority groups under their rule) to characterize Muslims as being ‘sex groomers’, inherently violent or incapable of living harmoniously in plural societies.”
Let’s set aside the fact that Mohammad married Aisha when she was six years old and consummated the marriage when she was nine years old according to Islamic scripture. Let’s also set aside the fact that as a matter of historical record Islam did indeed spread by the sword as this fatwa openly admits. I would certainly not describe all Muslims as ‘sex groomers’, but this example appears to want to characterise any suggestion that Muslims have been responsible for grooming gang offences as ‘Islamophobic’. There is no doubt that fear of being called Islamophobic has motivated police and other authorities to avoid tackling these grooming gangs.
It is encouraging that the government is coming under pressure over the Labour Party’s adoption of the APPG definition. In September last year, a government minister was forced to admit that the APPG definition contradicts the Equality Act. Yet it remains formally adopted by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and all the main Scottish political parties, as well as multiple local councils.
The latest government statement from 15 January on Islamophobia was an answer to a written question about how the APPG definition affects free speech and the ability to criticise grooming gangs. This said that the government is “carefully looking at the issue of a definition of Islamophobia” but that this “would not be legislative and would be used as guidance for institutions.”
I have always said that ‘anti-Muslim’ is a clear and sufficient term which should be used instead of ‘Islamophobia’ because it does not inhibit criticism of Islam as an ideology. I hope the pressure on the government leads them to see the sense of this approach.
Longer prison sentences long overdue
Some of the policies announced by the Home Secretary will help.
Longer prison sentences for perpetrators are long overdue and were on my list of recommended policies to action.
Just last week, one of these gangs was sentenced for raping a girl aged between 13 and 14 at the time. The victim said she was “plied with drugs and alcohol to numb the abuse.” She recalled one instance when men were “queuing up” in the corridor to rape her.
The gang members were sentenced to a range from three years to fourteen years in prison for their offences. Given that they are likely to only serve half of the sentence, this is a mere 18 months for one of the gang members and still only seven years for those most culpable.
Sentences like this are pathetic. Consider the lifelong effects on those subjugated to this abuse. This kind of treatment is literally life-changing.
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Jenrick, says that these sentences run counter to current sentencing guidelines, and that he has written to the Attorney General requesting he review these ‘unduly lenient sentences’ and send them to the Court of Appeal.
The Home Secretary also gave the welcome announcement that victims have the right to seek an independent review of their case no matter how long ago the abuse took place. All chief constables will be asked to look again at historic gang exploitation cases where ‘No Further Action’ was taken, and to re-open investigations where appropriate.
New locally-led inquiries
The Home Secretary also announced new locally-led inquiries in Oldham and up to four other pilot areas. This is in spite of Oldham Council specifically asking for a national inquiry, rather than a locally-led one. This is also in spite of the fact that we know that these gangs have been operating in over 40 towns across the country. Further, there is evidence that some victims were trafficked across county borders to be handed on to other abusers.
One victim was “relentlessly trafficked” across England to towns and cities where she was “raped hundreds of times in takeaways, warehouses and in empty flats, by men who paid her abusers.” Another says she was trafficked to Telford, Blackpool and within Wales, and raped “almost every single day.”
How are up to five locally-led inquiries supposed to deal with trafficking across counties? Why is there no inquiry for the more than 30 other towns? We know 29 police forces have current investigations. Five locally-led inquiries is just not going to get to the bottom of this problem.
Another problem with local inquiries is that they have no statutory power to compel witnesses to attend. Only a national inquiry has this power. This means there is still scope to cover up and avoid facing up to the full extent of what has been happening.
IICSA inquiry recommendations to be implemented
The Home Secretary also said that the government would set out a timetable for implementation of all 20 recommendations of the IICSA [Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse] report.
Many, if not all, of these recommendations relate to care homes and sexual abuse of children more generally such as improvements to the Disclosure and Barring Service, and online age verification measures. Mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse would help. This will make it a criminal offence for carers, teachers, social workers and police officers to fail to report suspected child abuse. Since many victims of Islamic grooming gangs were ignored or even told to go home by police, this would make those police liable to criminal sanctions.
Related to this, it remains the case that no police officer or social worker has lost their job or faced criminal sanctions for failing to tackle grooming gangs. This is in spite of multiple examples of police turning a blind eye or failing to investigate when it was clear that an under-age girl had been raped.
Until we see people taking responsibility for these failures, we are unlikely to see a change of culture in the police or social services.
Bradford could be “bigger than Rotherham”
Experts are warning that there have been Islamic grooming gangs operating in Bradford for many years, but so far council chiefs have refused to launch an inquiry. Lawyer David Greenwood, who has represented hundreds of grooming gang victims says he thinks Bradford will be “bigger than Rotherham” when it all comes out. Greenwood says that many of the victims he has represented were trafficked in and out of Bradford. According to the 2021 census, 30.5% of the population of Bradford described themselves as Muslim. It is one of the towns with the highest proportion of Muslims. Grooming gang victim Sammy Woodhouse said: “I guarantee Bradford will be the biggest gang rape cover up in the UK. I’ve said it for years, Bradford needs a full investigation.”
Conclusion
Undoubtedly there is more to come out about these Islamic grooming gangs and how they have been allowed to operate for many decades across multiple towns. Only a full national inquiry with statutory powers to summon witnesses will really get to the bottom of all this. It will take time and cost a lot of money, but will be worth it and will finally enable the victims to see some justice. Those in authority must be held to account. The Islamic connection must be fully investigated and not covered up. We have had enough of cover-ups. I hope that the pressure on the government over this issue continues and I am glad that more people have become aware of just how horrific these crimes are. I pray for evil to be exposed and light to overcome the darkness.
Read ‘Time for action on grooming gangs’ by Tim Dieppe.
You can sign up to receive our weekly newsletter to stay informed about how to pray and act on the many issues affecting our nation.