A recent article in The Telegraph by Hardeep Singh reignited a divisive narrative that most grooming-gang offenders in Britain are “Pakistani Muslim men,” and that political correctness has kept this truth hidden.
This framing is not only false but dangerously misleading. It distorts verified evidence, ignores the complexity of group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE) and risks inflaming racial and religious tensions in a society already grappling with polarization.
Group-based CSE in the UK is a deeply complex issue rooted in systemic failures, poor policing, inadequate data collection and insufficient victim support — not in ethnicity or religion. The UK government’s own findings, including the National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (Baroness Louise Casey, June 2025) and the Home Office’s 2020 literature review, debunk Singh’s claim. The Casey Audit states unequivocally: “Ethnicity is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we are unable to provide any accurate assessment from nationally collected data.” In other words, any claim that Pakistani or Muslim men dominate these offences is statistically indefensible. Even the Home Secretary admitted to Parliament that missing ethnicity data for 66% of suspects “is not good enough to support any statements” about offender demographics.
The Home Office review further clarifies that the idea of Asian overrepresentation emerged from small, non-representative studies and incomplete datasets. It also debunked the 2017 Quilliam Foundation report, which falsely claimed that 84% of grooming-gang offenders were Asian. It was widely circulated despite being methodologically flawed. Yet these falsehoods persist in public discourse. The label “Asian grooming gangs” is itself a distortion, lumping together diverse ethnicities — Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi — into a single, stigmatizing category. Singh’s narrowing of this label to “Pakistani Muslim men” goes further, weaponizing nationality and faith to serve populist agendas rather than truth.
Data from the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Program (VKPP) show that in 2022, there were around 107,000 child sexual abuse offences in the UK and group-based CSE accounted for only about 5%. Of a sample of 4,000 offenders, 42% were White or White British, 17% Black, 14% Asian and 22% had unrecorded ethnicity. There is, therefore, no majority ethnicity among offenders. This fact completely undermines the radicalized narrative.
The real story is about institutional accountability and victim neglect, not nationality. Focusing on Pakistani identity distracts from reforming systems that failed to protect victims. Ethnic framing of CSE not only distorts policy but hinders safeguarding by alienating communities whose cooperation is crucial. When journalists or politicians reduce such crimes to a specific ethnicity and stigmatize the problem, they do more than misrepresent data — they vilify innocent communities and deepen Islamophobia. British Pakistanis, barely 2% of the UK population, already face disproportionate suspicion; scapegoating them for systemic failures is unjust and socially destructive. Britain’s ongoing national inquiry must focus on truth, not tribal blame. Justice for victims lies in accuracy, transparency and compassion, not sensationalism. It is time to end statistical witch-hunts and confront the real failure of a system that let too many children down. Moreover, irresponsible journalism only deepens division and distorts reality. It fuels prejudice and is indeed a disservice both to victims and to the integrity of journalism itself.
—The writer is an alumnus of QAU, MPhil scholar and a freelance columnist, based in Islamabad.
