People are failing to confront the problem of Asian men abusing white girls because they are terrified of being branded a racist, a Labour frontbencher today said.

Shadow Women's Minister Sarah Champion said political correctness was leaving many too terrified of speaking out against the abuse.

And she hit out at at the 'floppy left' who she said would probably 'have a go at me for being a racist' for daring to speak out.

Her intervention comes after members of a large-scale Asian sex gang were convicted of plying vulnerable young girls with drink and drugs and raping them at 'sex parties' in Newcastle.

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Labour shadow minister Sarah Champion, pictured in Parliament, said British people are too scared of being called racist to admit that most men in gangs that groom and sexually abuse children are Asian. Our refusal to accept the fact undermines our efforts to tackle the abuse, she said

The city joins a growing list of English towns where sex rings have been exposed, including in Rotherham and Rochdale.

Ms Champion told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme: 'We've got now hundreds of men, Pakistani men, who have been convicted of this crime - why are we not commissioning research to see what's going on and how we need to change what's going on so it never happens again?'

The Labour frontbencher said Britain needed to wake up and accept that the prosecutions and convictions of grooming gangs are 'predominantly Pakistani men'.

She added: 'If it was people from a particular town that was doing this crime across the country, if it was people from - I don't know - a motorbike gang doing this, we'd recognise that as an indicator and we'd deal with it - but we're just not dealing with it.

Saiful Islam (left) bought one victim Malibu and took her to house where he and friends knew they could abuse girls and coerced her into having sex. Yasser Hussain (right) hosted 'parties'

Redwan Siddique (left) told a victim to have sex with him in return for drugs. Mohammed Azram (right) admitted five drugs offences, on count of sexual assault and one of inciting prostitution

Mohammed Hassan Ali (left) met his 15-year-old victim at a party and started a relationship after she claimed to be 18 but he continued to have sex with her after finding out her real age. Carolann Gallon (right) who was aged 17 and 18 at the time, admitted three offences of trafficking girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

'I genuinely think it's because people are more afraid to be called a racist than they are afraid to be wrong about calling out child abuse.

'I know in Rotherham I've met frontline social workers who, when - we're talking 10 years ago - they were trying to report this crime, were sent on race relations courses, they were told they were going to have disciplinary action if they didn't remove the fact they were identifying the person as a Pakistani male.

'This is still going on in our towns now, I know it's still going on but we're still not addressing it.'

The MP said every time she speaks about the issue, the level of Islamophobia increases, adding: 'The far right will attack me for not doing enough, the floppy left will have a go at me for being a racist.

'But this isn't racist, this is child protection and we need to be grown-up about this and deal with it.'

Meanwhile, former Crown Prosecution Service chief Lord Macdonald also admitted cases of Asian grooming gangs targeting white girls were not previously looked into as 'rigorously as they might have been'.

Eisa Mousavi (left) was convicted of three counts of rape and two counts of supplying drugs. Prabhat Nelli (right) was convicted of two counts of supplying drugs and one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution

Taherul Alam (left) was convicted of supplying drugs, attempting to sexually assault, and inciting prostitution. Nashir Uddin (right) was convicted of sexual assault, inciting prostitution and drugs offences

He believes this is no longer the case, with recent successful prosecutions showing the 'so-called taboos' no longer exist, and called on all communities to recognise it is a 'profoundly racist crime'.

The ex director of public prosecutions, said: 'I think there has been in the past a reluctance to investigate a category of crime that people might believe attaches to a particular community in circumstances where men may be targeting young women.'

He agreed that political correctness has previously put investigators off probing the sex abuse cases.

He said: 'I think that's no longer the case and I think the fact that these sorts of cases are now being brought successfully demonstrates that those sorts of so-called taboos no longer exist - but I don't think any of us can pretend that in the past these cases have been examined as rigorously as they might have been.'

He said there is a 'major problem' with young white women and girls being 'regarded as trash, regarded as available for sex' and that is still in a problem on the streets of Britain.

He said: 'This is a major problem, it's a major problem in particular communities and it has to be confronted not just by law enforcement but by communities themselves.'

Northumbria Police Chief Constable Steve Ashman said men from a wide range of communities have been arrested by his force and convicted, including white men, Turkish men and Pakistani men.

He told the BBC: 'It has to be driven out in terms of its social acceptability.'

A total of 17 men and one woman have been convicted of, or have admitted, charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution in the Newscastle case.

Northumbria Police launched a major investigation after receiving information from social workers and initially spoke to 108 potential victims.

Over the course of four trials, 20 young women gave harrowing evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014.

Those prosecuted were from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish communities and were mainly British-born, with most living in the West End of Newcastle.

The case has prompted a fresh barrage of criticism of the authorities as experts say that the grooming of vulnerable white girls y gangs of mainly Asian men continues to be a major problem in the UK - despite a string of high profile cases exposing it.