Here I first discuss what the report says, and then – under subtitle “Boys” – what it misses.

The Casey Report

Baroness Casey’s report, the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, is currently topical. Rightly so as it provides some valuable insights into the UK’s so-called “grooming gangs” problem that has become a worldwide scandal. However, it is far from definitive, as Casey herself is careful to emphasise.

The public want to know if, as many suspect, this “grooming gang” phenomenon is predominantly, or at least disproportionately, perpetrated by men of Pakistani heritage, or from other Muslim cultures. By the shorthand (and rather euphemistic) term “grooming gang” I refer to the particularly heinous crime of industrial scale sexual exploitation and abuse of children by groups of men against (usually) groups of child victims, sustained over time and typically involving the most horrific violent sexual abuse by multiple men on multiple occasions. The nature of the abuse has been described by MP Katie Lam.

The dominant narrative has forbidden any claims that there might be degrees of heinousness in sex crimes, especially rape. But to deny it, even in rape cases, is to deny a distinction between the crimes of “grooming gangs”, as described above, and cases of “ordinary sex” after a night out in which consent is later disputed.  Ken Clarke got into a lot of trouble suggesting there might be degrees of rape in 2011 and mainstream politicians universally shy away from the topic. Yet the variation of heinousness of crimes categorised as sexual, even when described as “group-based”, is central to the obfuscation that has prevented a clear picture emerging from the data on the topic that the public want clarified.

Casey makes clear in her report that the existing data is inadequate to provide credible data on the very matter that exercises the public so much. She wrote,

“We were unable to provide an assessment on the scale of group-based child sexual exploitation.”

“The ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation is not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level.”

This arises precisely because what data is collected lacks the specificity either to identify separately the heinous “grooming gang” phenomenon, or to identify the ethnicity of perpetrators in the bulk of cases of sexual assault or exploitation.

However, that does not prevent the report providing evidence to suggest that there is indeed a strong association between the “grooming gang” phenomenon and perpetrators of Pakistani heritage, or other Muslim cultures. The Casey report provides a timeline of key events in this unfolding issue, including the many local enquiries and serious case reviews, and a compilation of the convictions in cases of the “grooming gang” type. In that compilation of 21 cases, 18 involved perpetrators who were almost all described as “Asian” or “Pakistani heritage”, or sometimes Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Somalian, Syrian, Kuwaiti or Eastern European. Just three cases involved predominantly White perpetrators, of which one involved “White Travellers”.

Some have claimed that this picture may be distorted by a biased press coverage. This is why better hard data is required. At present, the inadequacy of the data serves the purpose of those to whom it is politically inconvenient to associate the “grooming gang” phenomenon to Muslim heritage men. Such detractors are left grasping at straws after the Casey review.

Casey notes that in 2015 West Midlands Police published a Child Sexual Exploitation Problem Profile with information from the region’s seven local authorities. Of the 75 grooming suspects identified, 62% were from a Pakistani ethnic background compared to 12% who were White and 5% African Caribbean. The 62% figure compares with 2021 census data which indicates that 17% of Birmingham are of Pakistani heritage, and 9.6% of the West Midlands. The report also identified almost 500 children in Birmingham and the West Midlands as victims of, or at risk of, child sexual exploitation. Police knew that grooming gangs were targeting Birmingham schools by 2010 but did not alert the public because of concerns over community tensions due to the links to Pakistani men.

Casey also lists Operation Bullfinch in Oxfordshire in 2015 having identified 373 children at risk of sexual exploitation. The associated Serious Case Review (SCR) concludes that “The association (not of all CSE, but group-based CSE) with mainly Pakistan heritage is undeniable”.

Baroness Casey’s main conclusions from her review are as follows,

“We found that the ethnicity of perpetrators is shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we are unable to provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data.

“…there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination. Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it. The system claims there is an overwhelming problem with White perpetrators when that can’t be proved. This does no one any favours at all, and least of all those in the Asian, Pakistani or Muslim communities who needlessly suffer as those with malicious intent use this obfuscation to sow and spread hatred.”

“Despite the lack of a full picture in the national data sets, there is enough evidence available in local police data in three police force areas which we examined which show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination.”

It has frequently been observed that the suppression of the alignment of “grooming gangs” with Pakistani heritage or other Muslim demographics has been caused by the desire to avoid being thought racist. But this is only half the truth. Brendan O’Neill has it right in a recent Spectator article in which he observes that it is more accurate to say that it is the elites’ fear of the masses – us – that has led to the elites’ denial of the nature of what has been happening for decades.

Boys

Whilst I welcome Baroness Casey’s report for the reasons discussed above (essentially its focus on the need for greater protection of poor white girls in the context of “grooming gangs”) in one important respect it perpetuates another prejudice, that against boys.

Casey states baldly, “This audit is focused on group-based child sexual exploitation of girls by ‘grooming gangs’.”

Casey also wrote, “Child sexual abuse, rape and group-based child exploitation is, overwhelmingly, committed by men on girls”.

Casey repeatedly gives the impression that we are dealing with exclusively, or almost exclusively, male offenders in the context of “grooming gangs”. I do not doubt that those “grooming gangs” which are virtually entirely Pakistani or other Muslim heritage are also virtually entirely men. Indeed, of the 18 cases of convictions mentioned above, there was only one woman perpetrator. Nevertheless, I take issue with Baroness Casey on this issue.

While “grooming gang” cases which predominantly involve White offenders would seem to be substantially less common (contentiously, but based on the convictions noted above) these cases can involve female perpetrators. In all 21 “grooming gang” cases the sex of the perpetrators is stated in the Casey report – with one exception. Of this one, in 2023, she wrote,

 “21 perpetrators were convicted for sexual offences against seven children aged 12 and under, spanning almost a decade in Walsall and Wolverhampton. All perpetrators were of a White ethnic background”.

She fails to mention that of these “21 perpetrators”, 8 of them were women. There is too little evidence to be sure of the sex of offenders overall in “grooming gang” cases involving White offenders, but this rather emphatic counter-example might suggest that virtually exclusive male perpetration is confined to the Muslim demographic. The existence of a substantial proportion of female perpetrators in White “grooming gangs” is lent credibility by the significant fraction of female perpetration in more general sexual offences, and even in those categorised as “group based”, as we will see below.

However, what exercises me more is the airbrushing away of the victimisation of boys. Why, I ask, is Casey’s report focussed on “group-based child sexual exploitation of girls” (only)? Boys are also at risk, whether the perpetrators are male or female, White or non-White.

That boys feature in the victims of the Pakistani heritage “grooming gangs” is something we already know from previous reports. To quote chapter 20 of my book The Empathy Gap,

“…the public are largely unaware that not all the victims of the Rotherham and Oxfordshire grooming and rape gangs were girls: at least 50 and 80 respectively were boys. The report by the independent inquiry into the  Rotherham abuses noted that none of the boy victims had been flagged by social workers as “risky business” and stressed the importance of ‘making sure that judgments about child sexual exploitation are consistent and gender neutral, for example by asking if the same level of risk would be acceptable if the child was the opposite gender’, Jay, 2014, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (1997 – 2013).”

“This bias in the perception of sexual abuse according to the sex of the victim reappears in the context of sexual trafficking and exploitation of minors. An exposé in the UK came in 2014 from the charity Barnardo’s which criticised the stereotypical belief that boys are less vulnerable to child sexual exploitation, observing that this has led to boys receiving insufficient protection from front-line services. Barnardo’s stated that new findings indicate up to a third of child victims in the UK are male (Malik, 27 August 2014, Barnardo’s: Sexual exploitation of boys ‘overlooked’ and here).”

Casey herself quotes several sources whose contents reveal the victimisation of boys, but which she omits to mention (the Jay report being one). For example, Casey quotes Operation Bullfinch in Oxfordshire having identified 373 children at risk of sexual exploitation but without mentioning that the Serious Case Review (SCR), to which she links, noted that 43 of those were boys, and that the SCR states “Both girls and boys are at risk of sexual exploitation.”

Casey also links to a 2011 report from Barnardo’s but fails to mention the following content of that report.

“Girls and young women were more than six times as likely as boys and young men to be identified as being at risk, but it was widely understood that actual risks to males were probably underestimated.” From a case history of grooming of male victims, “The boys felt like they were being treated as adults; in fact they were being groomed for sexual exploitation.”

There are 111 mentions of the word “girl” or “girls” in the Casey report and 13 mention of “boys”. Several of the latter do relate to boys’ victimisation, namely,

• “Boys are less likely than girls to disclose abuse during childhood, although this under-reporting might be linked to sexual abuse of boys being under-identified by professionals rather than lower overall prevalence.”
• “…52% of perpetrators are now under 18 as those making and sharing images are likely to be younger in age profile. It has also had an effect on the gender profile of sexual abuse increasing the proportion of boys within the victim profile and increasing the proportion of girls as perpetrators.”
• Three academic or charitable references about boys’ victimisation: (i) Barnardo’s 2016 report ‘I Never Spoke About It’… Supporting sexually exploited boys and young men in Wales, (ii) Cockbain, Brayley and Ashby (2017) Immaterial boys? A large-scale exploration of gender-based differences in child sexual exploitation service users, (iii) Davis and Marsh (2020) Boys to men: the cost of “adultification” in safeguarding responses to Black boys.

However, one of the uses of the word “boys” in the Casey report I find most objectionable, namely this,

“Child sexual abuse, rape and group-based child exploitation is, overwhelmingly, committed by men on girls. We all know the vast majority of men are good men but, if boys grew up into men who did not commit violence against women and girls, then we would not be in this position – so we must make it our shared endeavour to help those boys as they navigate the world.”

Well, if boys grew up into men who did not commit sexual offences against women or girls there might still be men who commit sexual offences against boys, and women who commit sexual offences against girls and boys.

What’s wrong here, as I pointed out forcefully in chapter 20 of The Empathy Gap, is that, even if you are only concerned about sexual offences against females, to tackle it requires women’s sexual offending against children – especially against boys – to be addressed. The reason is that most sex offenders have a history of having been sexually abused as children themselves, and about half of those were sexually abused by adult women, most often acting alone. It would be perverse not to presume there was a causal connection.

I also object most strongly to Baroness Casey’s suggestion that…

“The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year-olds received mandatory charges of rape,”

Only men? Why? There seems to be a trend towards proposing laws against men that do not apply to women. There is no shortage of adult women who groom and sexually exploit male minors. See chapter 14 of The Illustrated Empathy Gap, or this post, where I compare cases involving adult female perpetrators with the Rolf Harris case. This involved a large number of cases from about the same time as the Harris case, in the UK, of women, generally in positions of trust, who were convicted of grooming and sexual exploitation of boys (or girls). The bulk of these cases were clearly more serious than Harris’s yet these women were not universally vilified and, in many cases, did not even receive a custodial sentence, despite the criminality of their actions. But in the case of female offenders, whatever the age (or sex) of the victim, or the circumstances, or the nature of the offence, the offence is not “rape” in English law because rape is a gendered offence.

Casey states, “Child sexual exploitation has also emerged as a key feature in children who are victims of modern slavery (a term that includes any form of human trafficking, slavery, servitude or forced labour)”. As regards specifically sexual exploitation, girls are the majority of victims under Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking, boys being 16.5% of victims. But it is misleading to use modern slavery data in this restricted manner. In fact, considering the whole Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking area, not just sexual exploitation, men and boys are victims twice as frequently as women and girls. Confining attention to children, exploitation of boys is more than double that of girls (these data from 2018 and 2019, see chapter 25 of The Illustrated Empathy Gap or this post).   

And finally, COCAD. This is the Complex Organised Child Abuse Dataset originating from the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), Hydrant Programme. This is the only UK source of group-based child sexual exploitation data. Casey leans heavily on it, though stressing its limitations. The report in question is The Group-Based Offending Publication, November 2024. The data in it relates to 2023.

Do not make the mistake of interpreting “group-based” as implying “grooming gangs” in the sense I have defined above. Of the 115,489 crimes identified in the report, 33% do not involve physical contact; of the 78,078 that do only 4,228 (5.4%) were classed under COCAD, i.e., as Complex Organised Child Abuse, and only a subset of that 4,228 would be potentially “grooming gang” type offences.

The Group-Based Offending Publication notes the following definitions,

 “The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse defined group based offending as a network of two or more individuals (whether identified or not) who are known to (or associated with) one another and are known to be involved in or to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children and young people.

Being involved in the sexual exploitation of children and young people includes introducing them to other individuals for the purpose of exploitation, trafficking a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation, taking payment for sexual activities with a child or young person or allowing their property to be used for sexual activities with a child or young person.”

“Child” here means under 18 years.

The 4,228 Complex Organised Child Abuse (COCAD) crimes break down in terms of the sex of victims and sex of suspects as illustrated in Figure 1, taken directly from the report.

Of victims, 78% were female and 22% male. Of suspects, 24% were female and 76% male. The percentage of male victims is far from negligible, and the percentage of female suspects is equally substantial.

Figure 1

58% of these crimes were recent (reported within 1 year of incident), but 35% were not recent, and for 7% this was unknown.

However, these bald statistics must immediately be put in context with the nature of the offences. They were categorised as,

• Familial 26%
• Exploitation 17%
• Institutional 9%
• Other 35% (of which over half, 21%, are by other children)
• Unknown 9%

It is unclear what the “other” category includes. Group-based offending predominantly takes place within the family environment. A large proportion of these COCAD offences are committed by other children. The Casey report quotes COCAD as having “identified around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation in 2023”. This aligns with the above 17% of 4,228 (719). However, Casey adds’

“Given how under-reported child sexual exploitation is, the flaws in the data collection and the confusing and inconsistently applied definitions, it is highly unlikely that this accurately reflects the true scale of child sexual exploitation, or group-based exploitation.”

Indeed. The 719 figure is only half the number estimated by Jay as relevant to Rotherham alone.  

The breakdown of victims and suspects by age is shown in Figures 2a and 2b. 57% of suspects are themselves children.

Figures 2a and 2b