An official report warns that asylum seekers and foreign nationals are involved in a “significant proportion” of current police investigations into child sex ‘grooming’ gangs. It was published just as 2,000 ‘small boat’ Channel migrants were recorded as making the illegal crossing into England that week.
Baroness (Louise) Casey’s late-arriving omnibus report into group-based child sexual abuse in select local settings grabbed the headlines as the formal explanation of the Labour government reversing its earlier stance and initiating a national inquiry into grooming gangs, so-called because of the way vulnerable girls are exploited by men posing as their boyfriends.
Casey’s report rightly emphasises the importance of male, predominantly Pakistani heritage networks in the scores of historic cases which go back decades—something the British establishment has long sought to ignore or deny. However, it also highlights a worrying new trend: recent, open cases which appeared to
involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK.
Since this observation is based on ongoing cases, the report does not go into specific detail for fear of prejudicing fair trials. It does reflect a demographic shift in this most heinous of crimes. UK home secretary Yvette Cooper responded to this aspect of the report in the House of Commons on Monday, June 16th, to say that
those who groom children or who commit sexual offenses will not be granted asylum in the U.K.
Cooper plans to change the law to exclude anyone with a sex offence conviction from being given refugee status, while pledging to “immediately pursue” abuse suspects who are asylum-seekers.
