Grooming gangs: Missing ethnicity data is a 'gift to racists,' says Baroness Casey
| Updated:
Baroness Louise Casey tells The News Agents how Tipp-Ex was used to remove the word 'Pakistani' from a child's file in Rotherham, as her new report exposes how missing ethnicity data in two-thirds of grooming gang cases has fuelled political exploitation and forced Keir Starmer into a U-turn on holding a national inquiry.
Listen to this article
Read time: 3-4 minutes
In brief:
- After initially resisting calls for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs, Keir Starmer changed his position following the publication of the Casey Report, and announced he would proceed with a full statutory inquiry.
- The Casey Report found that ethnicity data was missing in two-thirds of cases, making it impossible to draw definitive national conclusions about perpetrator demographics, though there was evidence of "over-representation" of Asian and Pakistani heritage men in three specific areas with better data collection.
- Baroness Casey warns that the failure to properly investigate difficult issues gives "a gift to the racists" and allows bad actors to exploit the situation.
What’s the story?
Keir Starmer was very reluctant to hold a national public inquiry into grooming gangs - but that all changed this week.
The Casey Report, a new audit into abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales, has been published, with its findings prompting the PM to have a change of heart - now calling for a new, full national statutory inquiry into the issue.
The issue of grooming gangs was thrusted back into the spotlight earlier this year after Elon Musk made it his mission, for a few weeks, to pressure the British government to open a new inquiry into the issue of Asian grooming gangs, suggesting that there had been a cover up.
Keir Starmer initially resisted the tech billionaire’s demands, arguing that the Jay report, a seven-year investigation on grooming gangs that concluded in 2022, had thoroughly explored the issue and another inquiry wasn’t needed.
However, he asked Baroness Louise Casey to assemble the facts on what we do know about grooming gangs.
After the report was published yesterday (16 June), Casey, who herself initially thought that there was no need for another national inquiry, recommended that Starmer go ahead with one - and he agreed.
Ethnicity of perpetrators was a key issue for Casey’s report, with a central question remaining - and often being highlighted on the right of politics and right-wing media - of whether previous offenders were disproportionately men of Asian ethnic background.
What did the report find, and how does the issue continue to be politicised?
Baroness Casey on grooming gangs: Missing ethnicity data is a 'gift to racists'
What did The Casey Report find?
To many people's shock, The Casey Report found that the ethnicity of perpetrators had not been recorded in two-thirds of cases, leading her to conclude that accurate assessment of data cannot be collected.
“The facts are that the preceding government did not do a good enough job to collect data to establish ethnicity,’ Baroness Casey tells Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall on The News Agents.
Casey found that in recent times, whenever she visited authorities, including the police, they would say that the majority of people that commit child sexual exploitation in groups are white.
“They're making that finding on the basis of 34% of completion of the data. You can't make that. So people were leaning into a finding that they wanted.”
She found in one instance, in Rotherham, Tipp-Ex had been used to remove the word ‘Pakistani’ on a child’s service file.
Casey believes it “was probably done in a well meaning way,” assuming that the person who did it was worried about the racism that would follow.
But, she says, these instances are actually a “gift to the racists.”
“If good people don't look at difficult issues, bad people will - and even worse people will then exploit them.”
While conclusions into ethnicity of perpetrators could not be gathered a national level, Baroness Casey said she found evidence of “over-representation” of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects in local data – collected in Greater Manchester, West and South Yorkshire
“There is enough in the audit, looking at these three areas, and the disproportionality in those areas - and these are fully accurate details - to take you to a position of disproportionality,” Casey says.
While that may be the case in the three areas with enough data to draw conclusions from, she adds; “My view is we cannot say that it is a disproportionality issue into the Asian and Pakistani community, full stop.”
“We should say, and it is true to say, there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation and a good look at it, and that's where I'm at.”
Was Kemi Badenoch’s "we won" email after Starmer agreed to a grooming gangs inquiry in good taste?
How does the issue of grooming gangs continue to be politicised?
In January, as Musk obsessively tweeted about a ‘grooming gangs scandal’, Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives joined the X owner in calling for another national inquiry.
At the time, the PM accused them of “calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right”.
“He's seen Louise Casey's report, he's realised that he can no longer hold that message," Emily says.
Upon hearing of Starmer’s u-turn, Badenoch reportedly celebrated the news by claiming “we won” in an email to supporters.
“They were in office for 14 years,” Lewis thinks she’ll do well to remember.
Baroness Casey - who admits she was somewhat “naive” in thinking the issue wouldn’t become “so political” - urges anyone who has been in a government role to “not cast too many stones.”
“I would just urge enormous caution of the opposition leader making political football out of anything,” Casey says.
“I just wish people wouldn't, because at the heart of it is the victims and the Pakistani heritage communities, the vast majority are law abiding.”
“I called for a reset yesterday in terms of how we discussed this and sorted it out - I don't appear to have achieved that so far,” she adds.
Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.
