Rotherham: The Perfect Storm
Posted on December 30, 2015 by Baron Bodissey
The following report by Anne Marie Waters examines the “grooming” phenomenon — actually, the sexual enslavement of underage girls by Muslim men— that has been making headlines in the UK for the past few years. In addition to the obstruction and obfuscation displayed by public officials and the police, much of the meaningful data on these crimes is either uncollated or altogether absent.
This report was published previously in a slightly different form on the author’s website.
[The grooming of young girls by Muslim gangs: sexual slavery in the UK]
Rotherham: The Perfect Storm
An investigation in to Muslim grooming gangs
by Anne Marie Waters
Introduction
I did not intend to publish this, as I could not complete the work I had set out to do, but I have decided instead to write a personal account of an attempt I made to find out how many girls have been groomed, gang-raped, and prostituted by organised gangs in England over the last five years. I do it obviously not to provide ground-breaking statistics — but to contribute to the national discussion on the phenomenon of so-called “Asian” grooming gangs that has been taking place since the publication of the Jay Report on widespread sexual abuse, gang-rape, and torture of at least 1,400 young girls in the town of Rotherham in Yorkshire.
The first thing to report is that this figure is simply not obtainable by a member of the public, at least not if you hope to be in any way close to accurate. I am not the first to undertake this effort. A similar attempt was made by the office of the Children’s Commissioner in 2012. That investigation also concluded that an accurate figure could not be obtained.
However, in investigating the matter myself, I found widespread and continuing (despite the Jay Report) lack of any coherent recording of or response to organised gang-rape. What stands out particularly is the lack of data held by local authorities, who in almost all cases kept no numeric data on children under their care who have reported sexual assault or rape. In almost all cases I was informed that this information could not be provided as it would take authority staff outside of the 18 hour working time they are obliged to perform on freedom of information requests. The reason it would take longer than 18 hours to provide the data, is that it would entail reading separately through the individual files of all children in their care. In other words, even post-Rotherham, most councils are not attempting to separately record sexual assaults on children under their care, or to paint a broader picture of the problem.
[Defendants in grooming cases in Rochdale, Oxford, and Bradford]
Police records present the same problems. Recording of ethnicity or nationality is widely inconsistent; in many cases the ethnicity of the alleged offender is not recorded, and it is not recorded for victims at all. It is impossible therefore to know just how often this happens, or how many times it has happened.
What we do know is that some police officers and public sector workers have publicly stated that this child grooming by Muslim men has been occurring for decades, and with almost complete impunity. The reasons for this I intend to explore.
My guess is that some justification for the fact that the ethnic identity of alleged offenders is not recorded is that many in the public sector believe it to be irrelevant. Religion of offenders is not recorded, again I suspect because of an underlying and cultural view within the public sector that religion is irrelevant as well. The question I ask here is: What if it isn’t? What if religion has played a part in fostering attitudes to women, white women in particular, that increase the likelihood of pre-meditated, repeated, and organised gang-rape? This question has not been asked, and is not being asked, in the public domain. I think this is a mistake.
What has been widely discussed however, by the media and others in public life, is the culture of fear that pervades public services and has almost certainly prevented thorough investigation and prevention of these crimes — the fear of racism or “Islamophobia” accusations. In the course of this investigation, I found that fear to be palpable. People simply do not want to discuss this issue. They most certainly don’t want to discuss any ethnic or religious element. This, it seems, has not changed since the Jay Report.
Britain is not the only country to suffer this phenomenon. Scandinavian countries have seen large increases in rape figures in recent decades. Sweden is now the rape capital of the Western world, and Norway has seen a disturbing rise in violent rape. In very many cases, the perpetrators have been migrants from Muslim-majority countries. Despite a clear pattern involving Muslim men, Western countries are failing to ask why. By contrast in fact, media and political leaders place much emphasis on ignoring the religious identity of the men altogether, and instead have taken to labelling them “Asian”. This, I would submit, is yet another mistake. It deliberately prevents us from forming a complete picture of the problem, and thus how to prevent it from recurring.
I discovered that little has changed in this regard. Despite testimony from public sector workers and police that fear of racism or “Islamophobia” accusations actively prevented people from confronting this issue, the same fear is rife today. Even formal reports into the matter, including Parliamentary inquiries, often only mention the issue of ethnicity in order to discount it as insignificant. Religion is scarcely mentioned at all.
[Newspaper stories about Muslim grooming gangs: sexual slavery in the UK]
The horrific crime that took place in Rotherham and elsewhere occurred, and is still occurring according to women I have spoken to, for a number of reasons. The most significant I believe to be these:
A crippling fear of accusations of racism and the racialising and politicising of policing and law enforcement
A disorganised social service with little accountability
A bloated bureaucracy which appears to believe that the solution to issues of all kinds is discussion rather than action
A disregard for individual and personal responsibility and a distaste for criminal punishment — simple enforcement of rape laws was not widely viewed as the most appropriate course of action
Insular Muslim communities which regard the law of the land as none of their concern, and regard themselves as self-policing
An appalling attitude towards women, especially white women, that is extensive throughout minority communities in Britain. This attitude towards women is enforced and legitimised by clerics and so-called “community leaders”
An insidious multiculturalism and pervading anti-white racism which separates racial groups and applies the law without consistency — often with white people suffering more severe punishment
The policing of language via so-called “hate speech” laws. These laws can be vague and therefore inevitably cause confusion among police and public sector workers as to what is or is not permitted.
The combination of all of the above created the perfect storm in Rotherham, and was the soil from which mass rape would grow. It is a soil that is been spread all over England.
I will begin with my freedom of information requests.
Police
I sent the following Freedom of Information request to every police force in England:
1. Please send me the number of allegations, arrests, and charges with regard to the following offences, recorded by you, from December 2009 — December 2014:
Sections 1 — 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (inclusive)
I would also be grateful if you could provide statistics relating to cases involving male perpetrators (alleged) and female victims (alleged) only.
Please also provide recorded information on:
The ethnicity and nationality of the alleged perpetrator
2. Have any/all officers in your service/constabulary received training in equality and diversity (or similar) during the time period mentioned above, and which group/organisation has provided this training?
Sections 1— 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 includes:
1. Rape
2. Assault by penetration
3. Sexual assault
4. Causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent
The same question was asked with regard to sections 5 — 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which are:
5. Rape of a child under 13
6. Assault of a child under 13 by penetration
7. Sexual assault of a child under 13
8. Causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity
9. Sexual activity with a child
10. Causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity
11. Engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child
12. Causing a child to watch a sexual act
13. Child sex offences committed by children or young persons
14. Arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence
15. Meeting a child following sexual grooming etc.
The same question was asked with reference to Section 58 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
58. Trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation
Not all of England’s 32 police forces replied to this request. The responses that were received revealed that the one consistency was a complete lack of consistency. Police forces throughout England keep records in varying ways and for various crimes. Ethnicity of offenders, for example, was not always recorded and when it was, there were inconsistencies as to how it was recorded. For example, both “Asian” and “Pakistani” appear as ethnic options, making it impossible to know how many were actually Pakistani, because we cannot know exactly which groups are covered by “Asian”. “Oriental” also appears, making it even more difficult to distinguish between sections of Asia. The ethnicity of the victim is not recorded in most cases.
Convictions
Police records do not reveal the number of people convicted of sexual offences, but only those charged, cautioned etc.
Therefore, the following Freedom of Information request was sent to the Ministry of Justice:
Please send me the number of convictions with regard to the following offences, recorded by you, from December 2009 — December 2014:
Sections 1 — 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (inclusive)
Section 58 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003
I would also be grateful if you could provide statistics relating to cases involving male perpetrators (alleged) and female victims (alleged) only.
Please also provide recorded information on:
The ethnicity and nationality of the alleged perpetrator
The Ministry of Justice replied stating that the information could not be obtained within the 18 hour limit afforded by the Freedom of Information Act.
I was advised to contact the Home Office (crime statistics) for further assistance. I duly wrote to the relevant department but did not receive a reply. Therefore, as with arrests, cautions, allegations and reports, an accurate picture cannot be drawn using the publicly available statistics on convictions.
Police Training
Given the failure of police, across England, to pursue obvious cases of (at least) statutory rape, and given that some police officers said that they feared accusations of racism if they were to intervene, it is important to understand what formal training police officers receive in England on how to deal with these crimes. This information, again, was difficult to obtain.
The following Freedom of Information Request was sent to every police force in England:
1. Please inform me, in as much detail as possible, what training officers in your service receive regarding child sexual exploitation, and by whom this training is provided.
2. Has this training changed or been updated since the publication of the Jay report in to child sexual exploitation in the town of Rotherham, and what changes to training have been made (if any)?
Though police forces do provide detail on training courses etc, they do not, on the whole, supply information as to what is included in the training.
I sent the following email to the College of Policing:
I am currently engaged in some research regarding child sex exploitation and would appreciate your assistance on the matter of police training in this area.
I recently wrote to every police force in England in the form of freedom of information requests, asking what instruction and guidance is given to police on the investigation and detection of so-called “grooming gangs”, and whether training/instruction was altered or updated in the wake of the Jay report in to child sex exploitation in Rotherham. To my surprise, none of the police forces that responded had updated or altered the training given.
I have tried in vain to obtain full details on exactly what guidance/training is provided to police in England around child sex exploitation, and I wonder if you may be able to supply this. Are there any plans to update or review police training in this area in the future, given the extent of this crime and its obvious continuation — indicating that perhaps current training may not be sufficient?
This was the reply:
The College provide guidance to all forces via our Authorised Professional Practice (APP). Please see the following link:
www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/major-investigation-and-public-protection/child-sexual-exploitation/ The National Crime Agency (NCA) CEOP Command also provide guidance:
www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/about-us/what-we-do/child-exploitation-online-protection-ceop www.ceop.police.uk/ The College of Policing’s guidance can be read on this link:
www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/major-investigation-and-public-protection/child-sexual-exploitation/ READ MORE
http://gatesofvienna.net/2015/12/rotherham-the-perfect-storm/
