Teenage girl victim of grooming gang 'raped by 30 men in just six hours including father and schoolboy son'

Campaigner Shaista Gohir detailed abuse by Asian men on Asian girls

She claimed schools, community leaders and families were covering it up

Ethnic girls particularly at risk of abuse, report claims

Asian victims fear reporting abuse in case it brings 'shame' on their family

Warning came in same week as child sex gang was jailed



Birmingham City Council urged to do more to tackle grooming

Harrowing: Campaigner Shaista Gohir said an Asian girl had been raped by 30 men during a six-hour attack. (Stock picture)

A teenage girl was groomed and raped by up to 30 Asian men - including a father and his schoolboy son - during an horrific sex attack lasting six hours, an inquiry heard.

Campaigner Shaista Gohir MBE detailed abuse of the young vulnerable Asian girl in a shocking report highlighting how rife grooming was within ethnic communities.

She claimed that sexual exploitation and grooming of young Asian girls by men of the same ethnic origins was happening under the noses of authorities - with community leaders, schools and families are all too ready to dismiss the attacks or even cover them up.

Muslim and women's rights activist Ms Gohir used the harrowing Birmingham case, involving a teenage girl who was allegedly raped by between 20 to 30 men, to call on authorities to do more to tackle the issue.

The attack was said to have taken place over six hours and included a father and son, who was in school uniform, and taxi drivers who turned up in groups.

The report, presented to Birmingham City Council, followed interviews with 35 victims, as well as several sex attackers from Muslim communities throughout the UK.

Ms Gohir also challenged the popular view that grooming and exploitation, as in high-profile cases in Rochdale and Oxford, was mainly carried out by gangs of Asian men abusing white girls.

'People tell me they have heard about Rochdale and Oxford and see it as something which happens elsewhere to other people, but it is happening in Birmingham, it's happening everywhere,' she said.

This warning came in the same week as a child sex gang was jailed for abusing young girls.



Judge John Bevan QC said the four Roma men and boys and an Iraqi Kurd had ignored the responsibilities of living in this country as he sentenced them for raping and sexually assaulting five girls aged as young as 12.

Abusers: Hassan Abdulla, left, and Jan Kandrac were part of a gang jailed for a total of 54 years at the Old Bailey in London for raping and sexually abusing girls as young as 12 in Peterborough

Widespread: Gang members Renato Balog and Zdeno Mirga were jailed in the same week as a campaigner highlighted the shocking scale of abuse of children in ethnic communities across Britain

Four of the gang members were from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Two of the victims were Czech and Slovak, while the other three are English.

Last year, seven Oxford men, mostly of Pakistani heritage, were convicted at the Old Bailey of running a paedophile sex ring.



That trial had followed another, almost exactly 12 months earlier, concerning nine Asian men based in Rochdale.



Ms Gohir said girls are more likely to be targeted by people of the same ethnic and cultural background.



OFFICIALS MUST STOP 'TIP-TOEING AROUND RACE IN SEX-GANGS' MPs said public officials must stop 'tip-toeing' around race when tackling child sex gangs and claimed that there is a trend of Asian gangs targeting youngsters.

A dangerous trend of Pakistani men grooming young white girls does exist, according to a Commons home affairs committee report in June 2013.

Police, prosecutors and social workers must be able to raise the issue without fear of being accused of racism, the committee said.

But it warned against stereotyping offenders because there is no straightforward link between race and child sexual exploitation.

In shocking conclusions to a year-long inquiry, MPs said there were still areas where victims were being failed by the authorities.

Rochdale and Rotherham councils were accused of being 'inexcusably slow' to realise sex abuse was taking place on their doorstep.

And they said both councils had a 'woeful lack of professional curiosity' and were responsible for the 'appalling consequences of their indifference to the suffering of vulnerable children'.

They may also be particularly vulnerable to abuse as they can be blackmailed into keeping quiet because of the risk of 'bringing shame' on a community, she added.

When abuse is revealed some families are more likely to send the daughter abroad or hastily arrange a wedding to get rid of the problem rather than face it, the report claims.

'The biggest barrier that we need to address is the shame and honour card,' Ms Gohir said.



'They would rather protect the honour of the family and community than report an offender and protect other girls, as well as get the victim the counselling and help they need.'

She also added attitudes of young boys and men needed to change as often they did not see what they did as rape, and had no awareness of the impact of their actions on women.

Members of the council enquiry are considering new measures including raising the issue with parents or teenagers through secondary schools and encouraging greater use of relationship education.

Labour councillor Waseem Zaffer said: 'I have seen this presentation three times and each time I get angrier and angrier. There are a number of issues in the south Asian community which are swept under the carpet and this is one of them.'

Inquiry chairwoman Cllr Anita Ward added: 'When we are dealing with child sexual exploitation we need to recognise that it is not only Asian men grooming white girls. The victims do not come from any one particular culture or community, and neither do the perpetrators.

The inquiry will take further evidence in March before compiling a report for the city council.



