There was a dead silence in Westminster Hall as right-wing politician Rupert Lowe read the deeply harrowing testimonies of survivors of ‘grooming gangs’ during a parliamentary debate on the issue. Later, the MP posted on X, “For those mainly Pakistani men who have inflicted the very worst pain imaginable on innocent British children, please know this. There will come a day when the power of the British state that concealed your atrocious crimes for so very long is turned against you. It will be swift. It will be brutal. It will be severe.”

Grooming gangs refer to groups involved in the sexual exploitation of children in the UK. The issue is extremely sensitive and divisive, with some high-profile cases revealing a disproportionate number of British men of Pakistani descent involved in this heinous crime. The recent debate was sparked by a large online petition demanding the mandatory collection and public release of data on offenders’ nationalities, ethnicities and religions, which had previously been considered confidential. The police are accused of an institutional cover-up and of reluctance to record and disclose this information, purportedly driven by concerns about political correctness and a fear of accusations of........

© Dawn