Grooming gangs scandal
Several government reviews have reported failures by British institutions in preventing, identifying and prosecuting the widespread cases of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation that mostly occurred between the 1990s and 2010s. Allegations of governmental and institutional failures to respond to the problem or to downplay or cover up the issue have been described as a grooming gangs scandal.
Media coverage and political discourse around these crimes has especially focused on the ethnic and religious background of perpetrators in high-profile cases, many of whom were of Pakistani British origin, and whether this prevented proper investigation. Data in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire shows that, in the 2020s, men of an Asian ethnic background are disproportionately represented among perpetrators in those areas, but there is insufficient data to draw conclusions about ethnicity of perpetrators across the UK.
The National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse called for better recording of ethnicity by police forces to prevent misinformation, aid examination of the underlying issues, and restore public trust. In 2025, following the Casey audit's recommendations, the British Government indicated it would fund a national inquiry into the issue of group-based child sexual exploitation, including the role played by the ethnic background of offenders and to what extent there were failings by local authorities in the prevention and policing of such abuse.
Scholars such as Shamim Miah, Tufail Waqas, Muzammil Quraishi, Ella Cockbain, Aisha K. Gill, Karen Harrison, and others have accused politicians and the media of creating a moral panic over the issue that demonises Muslims.
Terminology
Group-based child sexual exploitation and localised grooming are terms used to describe the sexual exploitation or grooming of children and adolescents by groups. Group-based child sexual exploitation was first defined in UK law in the Department for Children, Schools and Families' statutory guidance, Safeguarding Children & Young People from Sexual Exploitation. Supplementary guidance to Working Together to Safeguard Children in 2009.A 2013 report by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee describes a group first making contact with the child in a public place. After the group's initial contact with the child, offers of treats persuade the child to maintain the relationship. Sometimes a boy similar in age presents himself as a "boyfriend"; this person arranges for the child to be raped by other members of the group. Children may end up being raped by dozens of these group members, and may be trafficked to connected groups in other towns.
Statistics
According to the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, 28.5% of cases of contact sexual abuse can be described as sexual exploitation, whether by individuals or groups. The National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse noted that there is a lack of data on group-based offences, with the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset recording around 700 in 2023.This type of abuse tends to target girls who are particularly vulnerable, such as those who are in local authority care. The youngest recorded victim was 12 and the oldest was 18.
The Jay Report suggested that the number of Asian victims may be underrepresented. According to the Muslim Women's Network UK, Asian victims may be particularly vulnerable to threats of bringing shame and dishonour to their families, and may have believed that reporting the abuse would be an admission they had violated their cultural beliefs. One of the local Pakistani women's groups had described Pakistani girls being targeted by Pakistani taxi drivers and landlords, but they feared reporting to the police out of concerns for their marriage prospects. The report suggested "the under-reporting of exploitation and abuse in minority ethnic communities" should be addressed.
Offenders
In spite of high-profile cases being tied by media and public perception to the British Pakistani community, there is poor data regarding the background of grooming gang members on a national scale.In December 2017, the anti-extremism think tank Quilliam released a report that said 84% of offenders involved in grooming gangs were of South Asian heritage. Researchers Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail criticised the Quilliam report's conclusions, suggesting it had methodological and scientific flaws.
In December 2020, a report by the Home Office found limited evidence to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of offenders, citing poor quality and incomplete data. It concluded that the ethnicity of perpetrators likely reflected national demographics for child sexual abuse in general, meaning most perpetrators were likely white, and that there was insufficient evidence to indicate whether there was an overrepresentation of Asian and black offenders. It said that it was unlikely any one community or culture was uniquely predisposed to offending. In 2021, an investigation by the Times suggested South Yorkshire Police was not routinely recording the ethnicity of child sexual abuse suspects. In Rotherham, police omitted suspect ethnicity in 67% of cases. The force said it had increased reporting of ethnicity since 2019.
The 2025 Casey audit stated that ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation was "not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level", but however that "there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination".
The report more closely looks at "multi-victim/multi-offender cases" in the Greater Manchester area over a three-year span, in which 52% of offenders were recorded as being of "Asian" ethnicity, the largest subgroup of which being Pakistani, and 38% "White". The report cites the local population as being 21% Asian descent.
Background
In August 2003, a television documentary reported details of an 18-month police and social services investigation into allegations that young British Asian men were targeting under-age girls for sex, drugs and prostitution in the West Yorkshire town of Keighley. The Leeds-based Coalition for the Removal of Pimping sought to bring this behaviour to national attention from at least 2010. In November 2010, the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal saw several convictions of child sexual abusers. In 2012, members of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring were convicted on various counts, and in 2016, following the largest child sexual exploitation investigation in the UK, 18 men in the Halifax child sex abuse ring case were sentenced to a combined total of over 175 years in prison.Following further child sex abuse rings in Aylesbury, Banbury, Bristol, Derby, Huddersfield, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Peterborough, Rochdale, Telford, and others, several investigations considered how prevalent British Asian backgrounds were in localised grooming. In 2011 and 2013, the National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection branch collected the available data on group-based child sexual abuse from police forces in England and Wales. It reported that, where ethnicity information was available, 28% and 75% of offenders had been recorded as "Asian" by the police. The Home Office said the figures should be treated with caution as the data was incomplete and was at particular risk of bias, and recorded ethnicity was based on police assigning offenders to broad categories, rather than on offenders' own self-report. In December 2017, the think tank Quilliam released a report that said 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage. This report was criticised by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, who said it was unscientific and had poor methodology.
A further investigation was carried out by the Conservative government in December 2020, which concluded that most offenders were probably white, as with most child sexual abuse cases generally, and that there was insufficient data in this area to suggest South Asians, or any other ethnic group, were disproportionately represented among perpetrators. The government originally refused to release the report but eventually did so after public pressure. In response to the report, then Home Secretary Priti Patel said: "This paper demonstrates how difficult it has been to draw conclusions about the characteristics of offenders." Reviews of the Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford cases identified several common factors, with offenders often working in night-time industries like takeaways and taxis, providing access to vulnerable children.
In 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that victims had been failed due to political correctness, and established a taskforce to target this specific issue. In 2025, the Labour government commissioned Baroness Casey to make a detailed audit of these cases, published as the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. In her audit, Baroness Casey wrote: "Assertions that the majority of child sexual abuse offenders are White, even if true, are at best misleading. In a population with over of 80% of people of White ethnicity, it should always be a significant issue when people from a White background are not in the majority of victims or perpetrators of crime" The review found that there were serious shortcomings in the recording of ethnicity data about perpetrators of group-based sexual abuse. In one instance, Casey stated finding a case file where the word "Pakistani" had been tippexed out. On 14 June 2025, having previously resisted launching an investigation, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the British government would launch a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.