Rape and “grooming gangs” – the key issue is not race but “police corruption, collusion and cover up”. Publish the evidence! Punish the police perpetrators!
The recent furore generated by Elon Musk and the Conservative Party calling for more inquiries on the grooming and rape of white girls in the UK by Muslim men is the latest racist attempt to divert attention from police and CPS refusal to prosecute rapists.
The central issue remains unanswered: Why did police protect the perpetrators? What did they have to gain by not arresting them? Were some officers being paid or afforded favours to keep quiet? What about councillors and social workers? We have been asking this since 2014 when we submitted pointed questions to the Home Affairs Committee investigating the “grooming gangs” scandal …We never got answers.
The police have the social power to get away with crime as well as to discredit, threaten and terrify victims and whistleblowers. As a most powerful arm of the state, they can shield criminals and their connections in high places, giving perpetrators cover and power over victims and any allies they will gather. Nothing will change unless the police are made accountable.
1. “Corruption, collusion and cover up”.
On 16 Jan 2025, Channel 4 News revealed there had been two IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) investigations on policing in Rotherham – Operation Linden and Operation Amazon. Whistleblowers had come forward naming corrupt senior officers but the police intervened to discredit their information. One of them, Jayne Senior, commented: “It felt like battling the Mafia.” The result: Operation Linden went on for eight years and its report did not name the officers involved. Operation Amazon apparently names some of the high-ranking officers but was never made public. Although several officers were suspected of misconduct, no action was taken against any of the senior officers who had been allowed to retire on full pensions. Only two junior officers had misconduct hearings and kept their jobs. No one was prosecuted for “corruption, collusion and cover up”.
We echo the demand for the release of the IOPC’s Amazon report. We demand the details of alleged “corruption, collusion and cover up” between police and perpetrators. No officer should be able to avoid being investigated and prosecuted by resigning or retiring. This is key to tackling the rape of children now and in the future – and not only in Rotherham.
2. Protecting the rapists in Rotherham and elsewhere.
Group-based child abuse has been rife in almost every institution – from children’s homes, to churches to boarding schools to the BBC
In 2014 Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Rotherham concluded that over 1400 teenage girls, some well under 14, many of whom were in “care”, had been sexually abused by adult men over more than a decade. They had been given class A drugs, tortured, threatened with guns and trafficked to other men for money. When their families tried to stop it, they were also threatened. Police, councillors and social workers refused to provide protection and safety when youth workers told them, and instead protected the rapists. Police labelled victims “trash” and accused them of having made a “lifestyle choice” by taking gifts or engaging in prostitution, blaming them for the abuse and even prosecuting some of them for minor offences. So the rapes continued.
Everyone agrees that child abuse is rampant all over the UK and that all the institutions are involved. Over 500 children suffered racist and sexual abuse at Shirley Oaks Children’s Homes. The survivors who gave evidence to Baroness Jay’s second inquiry (the IICSA seven-year national enquiry which reported in 2022) recently released a video about the “Metropolitan Occult” – testimonies of victims raped by children’s home staff, social workers, foster fathers and police officers, backed by judges, whose cases have been time barred. We echo their demand that the time bar should be lifted. There is no time bar on the trauma victims suffer especially when they are denied justice. The only reason for a time bar is to protect the guilty.
Since 2011 when Jimmy Savile died, thousands of girls and boys in towns and cities all over the UK have come forward, crying out for justice against rape. He too had been protected by police and others in high places. This prompted one of his victims, a former resident at Duncroft School for Girls, to describe that they were assumed to be disposable and say of the abuse they suffered, “That’s what we were for.”
3. Police perpetrators.
We have long complained of the IOPC (& formerly the IPCC) protecting corrupt senior officers who are allowed to determine police policies and practices. In 2014, when Jay published her first report, the extent of police violence and illegality had not fully emerged. Their racism was known but not their sexism. The convictions of serving officers Wayne Couzens for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard and of David Carrick for multiple rapes, together with many other shocking cases*, changed that. Our movements for justice came together and refused to be intimidated by the police illegality.
Following these, the public was told that corrupt, sexist, racist and violent officers would be sacked and prosecuted. How can this happen when some aren’t even named?
The Establishment’s persistent refusal to clean out corruption in its ranks opened the door for the far-right to use the mass rape of children to unleash racist riots against Muslims and immigrants in general. Just like we saw last summer.
4. Racist misuse of facts – who are the victims and who are the perpetrators?
The myth that rapists who are Asian/Muslim are uniquely immune from arrest because the police fear being accused of racism is absurd. The police have no problem using stop & search, or the Prevent programme against men and children of colour, with or without reason. Musk & Co’s focus on “Muslim grooming gangs” is reigniting this myth. But, look at the figures.
- The claim that 88% of “grooming gangs” are Pakistani/Muslims is inaccurate and racist. Published by Quilliam International and peddled by the media, this figure is discredited by academics and criminal justice experts.
- 86% of people in the UK are white and 7.5% of UK adults say they suffered sexual abuse as a child. (ONS 2020). National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) figures show that 85% of group-based child abusers were white, while 3.9% were of Pakistani origin (in first three quarters of 2024). The Home Office (2022) found that 80% of UK child abusers are white.
- Asian/Muslim women’s organisations report that they work with girls who suffer similar sexual abuse, including by “grooming gangs”. Some of their attackers were jailed, but this got little media coverage. Groups of white men operating in similar “grooming gang” style, have been prosecuted, but again with little media coverage.
The IICSA confirms that disabled children and children in “care” are the most vulnerable to sexual and other abuse. Yet tens of thousands of children are taken into “care” each year, separated from their mother, their natural protector. Asylum-seeking children made vulnerable by their insecure immigration status, are not acknowledged anywhere.
5. The daily terrorism women and children suffer must be stopped.
We understand why some victims are calling for more inquiries but we’re sick of inquiries where nothing changes because they don’t expose the deep institutional corruption, and their recommendations aren’t even implemented.
The reality is that thousands of children and women have begged the police to act. Instead, rape has been practically decriminalised – less than 2% of rapists reported are even charged. And it takes an average of two years to get a case to court.
Women are denied financial and other support to escape violent men and protect their children. As a result, two or three women are murdered every week by a partner or ex-partner, typically after reporting him to the police many times. An even higher number are driven to suicide because they cannot get protection, including mothers whose children are taken from them by social services and often given to the same violent men who have made their lives a living hell.
Social services and judges have colluded with organisations that lobby on behalf of violent men. The power of men over women and children – not only in the family but in all institutions – is only now beginning to be more fully acknowledged. Even women in Parliament who were approached by victims to get help were fobbed off and expected to back the police no matter what.
Instead of investigating rapists, police have targeted “terrorism”, crimes against property, and protesters who are campaigning for justice – from violence, discrimination and impoverishment, to climate change and genocide.
6. Victims demand concrete protection, justice and compensation.
- Name and prosecute officers, including those who have resigned or retired, accused of “collusion, corruption and cover-up”. They must not be eligible for a pension unless they have been cleared.
- All officers, social workers and other public servants have a duty to report illegality by colleagues, and must be protected when doing so.
- Hold to account institutions who employ/protect/promote/collude with abusers and ensure they are sacked and prosecuted.
- Make it easier to get Criminal Injuries Compensation and other resources.
- Scrap the time bar which stops victims issuing proceedings for child abuse three years after they pass age 18. The government announced its commitment to put this into law this year – a major victory! Let’s hold them to it!
- Recognise that mothers are the first protectors and need financial and other support to escape violent men.Support mothers rather than take children into “care” where they are unprotected and more likely to face sexual and other abuse.
- Stop legislation that increases police powers which are then used against victims of violence, protesters, sex workers and others.
*Shocking illegality and violence by police which has emerged includes: rape and/or domestic violence vs other women including 100s of policewomen and police wives/partners; selfies with the bodies of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman; devaluing Stephen Port’s gay victims; the killing of Dalian Atkinson and Chris Kaba; corruption in Daniel Morgan’s murder; Child Q and other strip searches of children; sexist, racist, homophobic and anti-disability WhatsApp messages; the violent arrests of anti-rape and other peaceful protestors.
Contact us: war@womenagainstrape.net