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Government violence Reduction Unit Report for local government on Grooming Gangs.

Executive Summary

This report considers child sexual exploitation perpetrated by grooming gangs. Grooming gangs have

been significantly attracting public attention and highlighting the authority’s failures in order to

prevent gang grooming and protect vulnerable children.

Child sexual exploitation cases have increased in the recent years and there was a shift in the publics

perception of what a typical gang grooming offender look like causing racialisation in vulnerable

communities .Significant investigations like the Rotherham ,Rochdale and Bristol has attracted the

media and public interest and led to many laws being created and altered .However the media’s

interest has put pressure on the local authorities and police to work hard and effectively solve these

cases and persecute offenders.

The primary aim of this report was to present best ways for multi agencies to help prevent gang

grooming and find resolutions that can address this issue. It focuses on the strength and weaknesses

of each evidence of reducing gang grooming which is supported by literature.

Lastly this report provides key recommendation for local authorities that can address gang grooming

and manage this issue within the environment.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 2
Causes and characteristics of Grooming Gangs. 3-4
How Gangs Impact the Local Authority Environment. 5-6
Recommendations 7
References 8-11
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Introduction. (200 words)

This report will explore the main cause of grooming gangs and how this can be tackled through the

help of local agencies such as local government, communities, youth services and the council. The

work of all these multi agencies working together may help with creating safer local space for youths

and combat the likelihood of exploitation of young children. This report considers child sexual

exploitation perpetrated by groups predominately by men who are loosely connected who target

street based social groups of children or those who are vulnerable to get them involved in criminal

activity and violence in exchange for something the victim wants or needs. Throughout this report

some of the insights gathered can be helpful in detecting, preventing and improving public’s

understanding of child sexual exploitation. This report includes independent reports which have

been primarily focused on grooming gangs as well as investigations in places such as Rotherham ,

Rochdale and Bristol. This report considers the causes and characteristics of grooming gangs and the

impact this has on the local communities and authorities. Lastly, it highlights the challenges that the

local authorities face in responding to grooming gangs and underlines future work that is needed in

these local communities in order to develop a safer community.

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Causes and characteristics of Grooming Gangs. (700 words)

It is now necessary to consider the main difference between gang crime and groups. Pearce and Pitts

(2011, p. 13) have identified gangs to be predominately street based social groups of children and

young adults. Gangs are seen as affiliates of discrete named group who engage in range of criminal

activity and violence and are in conflict with similar groups. However, groups are made up of 2 or

more people of any age that are connected through formal or informal associations or networks

(Home Office,2020). Grooming gangs does not fit in this description of a gang as they tend to be a

group of men who are loosely connected as well as there being no conflict between “street gangs”

(Berelowitz et al.,2012). The predominant characteristics for offender grooming are male (Police and

Crime Commissioner for Cleveland,2018). There is some female offenders that are starting to appear

in child sexual exploitation cases however that is only in small amounts. The reason for some

females becoming offenders is because they have originally been victims themselves therefore they

can be called victim offender hybrid (Cockbain,2018). The reason for these female offender hybrids

is that they are promised to have their abuse reduced if they help with introducing new victims. It

has been identified that most offenders come from an ethnic background. The recent case of

Rotherham highlights that 1,400 children were sexually exploited by gangs of men who were

predominately of Pakistan origin (Boyd, 2015). A large number of children that have been victims

were under the care of local authorities and the government has received information on the

excessive grooming activity in 2002 however they failed to act on it which has enabled the offenders

to continue committing this crime due to feeling no fear of punishment. The media has hugely

publicised this issue due to the victims being young white girls. This had a negative impact on the

young girl’s life’s as the impact of abuse created issues such as suicides, substance misuse, lifelong
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trauma and broken families. The sensation in the media about the Rotherham case has caused

criticism of the local council police and social services. One of the ways it has had a negative impact

on the police is that the reason for offenders identified of doing gang grooming were not persecuted

which caused questioning of police’s actions by the public. There reason for no prosecution was

because there was a reluctance to investigate further from the police due to the fear of amplifying

community tensions (Norfolk, 2012). The after effect on the British Asian communities being

negatively racialised. As a result of this many minority communities have been under protected

creating people to engage in crime without worrying about the consequences. The implication this

has for the police is that they are failing to intervene and prevent sexual abuse and exploitation of

young children in grooming gangs. Documented victim testimony of Jay report shows that police

have failed to take actions upon the offenders and have treated the victims with contempt. An

example of this is police blaming victims for putting themselves in situations where they would be

easily sexually exploited (Tufail,2015, p. 33). Such misogynistic attitudes of the police lead to the

victims ceasing to cooperate in investigations. Tufail and Poynting (2016, p.81) suggested that the root

for the cause of this abuse at the heart of the Muslim and Pakistani community. Gang grooming has

expanded its reach to online grooming the consistent grooming themes include manipulation of the

victim, deception, sexualisation, kindness and flattery (Whittle et al., 2014).. Grooming has first been

established as a crime by United Kingdom legislation within section 15 of the sexual offences act

2003 which enabled prosecution for anyone abusing a child (Ost,2004).

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How Gangs Impact the Local Authority Environment. (700 words)

Due to the number of racialisations towards the ethnic minority men there needs to be

further research done in order to establish perpetrators profiles and link those to different

models of abuse without focusing on one ethnic group and stereotyping them. This has to

be done in careful measures in order not to criminalise the whole community (Colley, 2019).

When this can be implemented it can help with to aid the police, the criminal justice system

to resolve future crimes .This can help create a database for those prosecuted for sexually

exploiting vulnerable individuals in society including children. In Bristol a serious case review

has been commissioned by them and a unnamed local safeguarding children board(lscb).

This has been commenced following a recovery of a young girl who was a victim on child

sexual exploitation by 3 men. The victim has given a video in an interview which helped in

arresting 3 men which were grooming young individuals which has enabled police to find

more suspects and victims of this crime in Bristol (Myers & Carmi,2016). The evidence given

by the little girl has helped with police working together with the crown prosecution

services which allocated a senior lawyer from the complex case unit to support with this

case. As a result, nine men were prosecuted in relation to grooming. The work of police with

multi agencies has helped to resolve the investigation within 18months. The successful rate

of this case has then has created a serious crime review which examines the effectiveness of

the multi-agency system responding to child sexual exploitation an gives guidance’s for

future cases. However, a limitation of this is that it mainly focused on Bristol rather than the

other authority that has joint powers with Bristol. As a result of this more was learnt about

Bristol’s multi agency practises and doesn’t help in gang grooming on a larger scale. Another

possible multi agencies could approach those who are most vulnerable and start an early

intervention programme which may help with preventing groomers exploiting those
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children. Many ways in which groomers manipulate children is through sexual abuse using

drugs or alcohol therefore these early interventions would help in identification of early

signs of potential harm to the children (Cockbain, 2018). A limitation of this can be that

there is a huge amount of underreporting and that the there isn’t much data available that

allows for differentiation between care homes (Sidebottom et al., 2020). This usually does

not get reported due to the fact they try to cover up these incidents not to be involved in

the police system which may not help in reducing gang grooming as the grooming

individuals may be in partnership with the care placements. However, this may be a

promising area to look into for future research in helping to prevent gang grooming from

happening. Helping reducing gang grooming can also be done through law systems and the health

systems working together to help share knowledge about their expertise which helps in tackling

vulnerability in communities together rather than each agency working individually .However a

negative of this is that there was only short term funding available which led to employees being

employed on fixed terms this led to a higher turnover of staff with individuals looking for more

secure jobs(McManus & Steele, 2022).one of the major developments in the United Kingdom with

focus on violence prevention is the serious Violence Strategy. This has been aimed to provide a

boost of funding to the police forces. This money has been used towards Violence reduction Unit

(VRU’s). This has been successful; in addressing the public’s health problem with focusing on factors

that make people vulnerable to being a victim of violence. The public health approach required the

VRU’s to produce 2 evidence-based strands (Home Office, 2020). This is a problem profile and the

second is multi agency response strategy. A strength f this is that in Merseyside Violence Prevention

units has shown the close working relationships with public health institute. Funding for services like

VRU’s encourage positive move for agencies to develop an evidence base for violence prevention.

This may be useful in the grooming gangs as it will help identifying the usual signs of vulnerability i

young children. However not all parts of the United Kingdom have been given funding to develop
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VRU therefore places that include vulnerable young children may not benefit from such help and

may not reduce gang grooming.

Recommendations. (100 words)

Baked on the research provided it is crucial that some changes occur. One recommendation is that

Police forces and local authorities must collect data on all cases of suspected child sexual

exploitation and child sexual exploitation by network. This should be stored in separate database

from the child sexual abuse. Police a can then access this database to disrupt and investigate

offenders. The local authorities should take account of this data when commissioning services for

children. Such improvements have been put in place already and that it will try to include funding

dedicated to child sexual abuse and exploitation analysts in every policing region to support local

forces tackling this crime (Home Office, 2022).

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References:

Berelowitz, S., Firmin, C., Edwards, G., & Gulyurtlu, S. (2012). I thought I was the only one. The only

one in the world. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation In

Gangs and Groups: Interim report. London: The Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/9589435.pdf

Boyd, I. (2015). Being Heard: A Thematic Analysis of the Newspaper Media Response to the Jay

Report and the Rotherham Child Abuse Scandal.

http://www.herts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/100964/msc-dissertation-exam-no-183587.pdf

Cockbain, E. (2018). Offender and Victim Networks in Human Trafficking (1st

ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315628578

Colley, S. (2019). Perpetrators of organised child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the

UK: a review of current research. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 25(3), 258–274.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2019.16734

Home Office. (2022). Government Response to Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Report by the Independent Inquiry into child sexual abuse.

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221028204727/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-
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documents/30652/view/2022-07-government-response-to-child-sexual-exploitation-by-organised-

networks-investigation-report.pdf

Home Office. (2020). Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation Characteristics of offending.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/

file/944206/Group-based_CSE_Paper.pdf

Home Office. (2020). Violence Reduction Unit Interim Guidance.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/

file/876380/12VRU_Interim_Guidance_FINAL__003_2732020.pdf

Home Office. (2022). Government Response to Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks

Report by the Independent Inquiry into child sexual abuse.

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20221028204727/https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-

documents/30652/view/2022-07-government-response-to-child-sexual-exploitation-by-organised-

networks-investigation-report.pdf

Myers, J., & Carmi, E. (2016). The Brooke serious case review into child sexual exploitation. Bristol:

Bristol Safeguarding Children Board.

https://bristolsafeguarding.org/media/1213/brooke-overview.pdf

Ost, S. (2004). Getting to grips with sexual grooming? The new offence under the Sexual Offences

Act 2003. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 26(2), 147-159.
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https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=25661be9-4352-4536-8a2f-

609ba3dc802a%40redis

Norfolk, A. (2012, September 24). Police files reveal vast child protection scandal. The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-files-reveal-vast-child-protection-scandal-ffrpdr09vrv

Pearce, J. J., & Pitts, J. (2011). Youth gangs, sexual violence and sexual exploitation: a scoping

exercise for the Office of the Children's Commissioner for England. University of Bedfordshire.

https://uobrep.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10547/315158/OCC_Uni-of-Beds-Literature-

Review_FINAL.pdf?sequence=1

Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland. (2018). Pilot study on perpetrators of Child Sexual

Exploitation in the North East. http://www.barefootresearch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/CSE-

perpetrator-research-final-report.pdf

Sidebottom, A., Boulton, L., Cockbain, E., Halford, E., & Phoenix, J. (2020). Missing

Children: Risks, Repeats and Responses. Policing and Society: An International

Journal of Research and Policy, 30(10), 1157–1170.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10439463.2019.1666129

Tufail, W., & Poynting, S. (2016). Muslim and dangerous: ‘Grooming ‘and the politics of racialisation.

In Fear of Muslims? (pp. 79-92). Springer, Cham.

https://hatewatchindia.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/ebooks/pdf1/Fear%20of%20Muslims

%20International%20-%20Perspectives%20on%20Islamophobia.pdf#page=91
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Tufail, W. (2015). Rotherham, Rochdale, and the Racialised Threat of the “Muslim

Grooming Gang.” International Journal for Crime, Justice & Social

Democracy, 4(3), 30–43. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v4i3.249

Whittle, H.C., Hamilton-Giachritsis, C.E, & Beech, A.R. (2014).” Under His Spell”: Victim’s Perspective

of Being Groomed Online. Social Sciences, 3(3),404-426.

https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci3030404