I'm not saying a fear of being branded racist has never come into a potential child abuse investigation,including some you've mentioned. But it needs to be seen in terms of the overall picture ,not just what the popular press might highlight.

You cite Oxford as an example,presumably because most (but not all) of the gang of abusers were of pakistani origin.

The independent review into what went on there concluded:

"The report follows the jailing in 2013 of seven members of a predominantly pakistani gang in Oxford which groomed girls as young as 12 over a period of eight years. Five of them were given life sentences.

At least 300 victims of child sexual exploitation are known in Oxfordshire At least 300 victims of child sexual exploitation are known in Oxfordshire In his report the independent reviewer, Alan Bedford, said that scores of professionals had failed to pick up on the child sexual exploitation and appeared to blame victims, seeing them as adults rather than as vulnerable children with a long chaotic history.

He said what had happened to the six girls who were the focus of his report was “indescribably awful” but said there had been no evidence of wilful professional neglect or misconduct by organisations.

He also said there was no evidence of professionals failing to act because of racial sensitivities – the charge levelled against the authorities in Rotherham in a more critical report last year.

However he said that there had been a “worrying lack of curiosity to follow through” and much work should have been “considerably different and better”.

I think the main reason for child abuse going undetected has been a lack of resources devoted to tacking it in the past and an unwillingness by some in positions of authority to take it seriously when its easier to brush it under the carpet.

The Department for Education last year recorded 48,000 kids needing protection from abuse last year.Its a nationwide issue and abusers come in all shapes sizes.races and ethnicities.

The NSPCC reckons 1 in 20 children have been abused.That's an average on some on almost every street.Thee NSPCC reckon over 90% of kids abused knew the abuser.

Edited by legaleagle (20 Aug 2015 8.11pm)

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Evening Legal, just out of interest - do you have an opinion as to why so many of these paedophile gangs are of pakistani decent?
I would be interested to know what you think are the reasons why it is predominately men of pakistani heritage who are involved in large scale systematic child abuse.

I can't disagree with any of that other than to say that because this country has experienced home grow criminality it does not make imported criminality any more acceptable or any less criminal.
Rotherham etc, have shown that race has become an issue when bringing people to justice, and that is not acceptable.

In terms of sexual abuse I'd be surprised if the figure were quite that high.

In terms of abuse in general.....And by abuse I mean behaviour that has resulted in a disturbed child by degrees....I'd say the figure could be somewhere between 10 and 15 percent.

That's just my opinion as a teacher.

Tom,to be fair you made a sweeping generalisation:

"I would be interested to know what you think are the reasons why it is predominately men of pakistani heritage who are involved in large scale systematic child abuse."

Now Oxford I know was a group of predominantly but not exclusively men of pakistani origin.Bradford may have been exclusively people of pakistani origin but as far as I'm aware it wasn't exclusively,though predominantly .

My point is,given the evident extent of child abuse all over the place,I can't say if I agree with your proposition its generally nationally overall men of pakistani origin as opposed to not being the case.The high profile big press coverage examples you give ,yes.But that doesn't go to the point of whether or not a propensity to engage in systematic child abuse is attributable to people from a particular group or not.As an example,take a look at this lot,who were also systematic abusers in Yorkshire.

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