Rishi Sunak to set out grooming gangs taskforce plan

Plans for a police taskforce to help officers tackle grooming gangs will be set out by the prime minister later.

Specialist officers will be sent to help local forces with their investigations, the government said.

It also promised better ethnicity data to help ensure abusers "cannot evade justice because of cultural sensitivities".

Labour said it called for expanded police specialist teams nearly a decade ago but the government "failed to act".

Mr Sunak will be in Leeds and Greater Manchester on Monday to meet victims and local police, to mark the launch of the taskforce.

He said: "The safety of women and girls is paramount.

"For too long, political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women.

"We will stop at nothing to stamp out these dangerous gangs."

The plans also include introducing legislation to make membership of a grooming gang an aggravating factor during sentencing, Downing Street said.

And it said improved data on the ethnicity of perpetrators would also be used to help ensure suspects "cannot hide behind cultural sensitivities as a way to evade justice".

But Sabah Kaiser, ethnic minority ambassador to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said it was "very, very dangerous" to turn child sexual abuse "into a matter of colour".

She told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: "Child sexual abuse does not have a skin colour, it doesn't have a religion, it doesn't have a culture. Child sexual abuse does not discriminate."

It comes after the government said people who work with children in England will be legally required to report child sexual abuse or face prosecution, under its plans.

The move - which is subject to a consultation - was recommended last year by IICSA.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the BBC she wanted to correct one of the "biggest national scandals".

Ms Braverman said while the fault lay with the perpetrators for "carrying out heinous and vile acts of depravity", there was also "a wilful turning of the blind eye" among authorities.

She said that in towns around the country, "vulnerable white girls living in troubled circumstances have been abused, drugged, raped, and exploited" by networks of gangs of rapists, which she claimed were "overwhelmingly" made up of British-Pakistani males.

Ms Braverman added that "cultural sensitivities" and concerns about "being called bigoted" had played a role in high-profile abuse scandals including in Rochdale and Rotherham.

An independent inquiry found at least 1,400 children had been subjected to sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, with the perpetrators predominantly men of Pakistani heritage.

Later, Home Office-commissioned research found that, more generally, there was not enough evidence to suggest members of grooming gangs were more likely to be Asian or black than other ethnicities.

Dr Ella Cockbain, associate professor at University College London's Department of Security and Crime Science, said the government was "disregarding and contradicting" its own research.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "She (Ms Braverman) is choosing to mainstream hard-right talking points, and to push discredited stereotypes. "That is really dangerous and reductive. "It allows other offenders to get away with abuse."

The Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, called Ms Braverman's comments a "dog whistle" - meaning a coded message designed to appeal to a certain group.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Ministers have known about the role of organised gangs in child exploitation for years - yet when Labour called for mandatory reporting and expanded police specialist teams nearly a decade ago, they failed to act and have dragged their heels ever since.

"Only 11% of child sexual abuse cases ends with a charge - down from 32% seven years ago, and the court delays have got far worse with victims waiting years for justice.

"Short term headlines aren't enough. We need a comprehensive plan that listens to survivors and victims and properly tackles child exploitation and abuse, including online, to keep children safe."