A total of 373 girls suffered sexual abuse in Oxfordshire, a report into 'indescribably awful' child sexual exploitation has found - and now fears have been raised that the abuse may have been racially motivated.

Over 15 years hundreds of victims as young as 11 were groomed, raped and forced into prostitution by gangs of men 'predominantly of Pakistani heritage', a serious case review has found.

The damning 114-page report said victims were in a 'living hell from which they couldn't extricate themselves' after 'hostile' officials wrote some off as 'difficult girls making bad choices' when they begged for help.

The vulnerable girls were initially showered with gifts before being plied with alcohol and drugs including crack cocaine and heroin, making them dependent on the men who sexually abused them.

Today Thames Valley's Police and Crime Commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld, said the abuse may have been a 'hate crime'.

Mr Stansfeld said that 'from the outside looking in' it appeared the abuse was in some way racially motivated.

He said: 'It needs looking at whether this was hate crime. I think it most certainly could have been and it needs looking at.'

Prime Minister David Cameron said this afternoon that the children in Oxford were abused on an 'industrial scale' and vowed laws would be changed in the light of revelations and similar scandals in Rotherham and Rochdale.

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Abuse: An estimated 373 girls, mainly from Oxford, pictured, were groomed, raped and sometimes forced into 'sex slavery' by gangs over the last 15 years, a damning report revealed

Today police and council bosses said they were 'horrified' and 'ashamed' by what happened between 1999 and 2014 but nobody has yet been disciplined over what happened.

One gang of Asian men was responsible for abusing and enslaving 50 girls, mainly from Oxford, but the men were also able to sexually torture girls for eight years after a series of missed opportunities to stop them.

One abuse victim believes that 'hundreds of men' who abused her remain 'untouched' and walking the streets, the report said.

Maggie Blyth, chair of the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board, admitted years of errors 'allowed offenders to get away with their crimes' but she found no cases of neglect or misconduct by staff.

The three senior managers who were responsible for social services in Oxfordshire at this time have all since moved on.

One emigrated but has returned to the UK, another now works in the private sector while the third retired on health grounds.

Alan Bedford, the author of the independent review, wrote: 'What happened to the child victims of the sexual exploitation in Oxfordshire was indescribably awful.

'The child victims and their families feel very let down. Their accounts of how they perceived professional work are disturbing and chastening.'

The report said: 'It [the sexual abuse] was so bad that, for a time, it was hard for staff to grasp the reality of what was happening.'

His report revealed that six girls who were being abused were reported missing 500 times in five years but the authorities failed to act, today's report said.

The devastating 114-page report today also revealed:

Girls were hooked on drink and drugs before being offered for sex in Oxford and across Britain

The victims were 'white girls' and the perpetrators were 'predominantly of Pakistani heritage'

Girls were tortured with meat cleavers, baseball bats and sex toys by men who would also bite, scratch, suffocate, burn them and even urinate on them

Those abused by gangs who went to social workers or police were often 'disbelieved' or told they were 'bringing problems upon themselves'

Children who said they were being abused were considered to be consenting to sex with adults and written off as 'difficult girls making bad choices'

Staff made 'snide remarks' and were 'hostile' to girls who came to them for help

Professionals showed a persistent 'lack of curiosity', even in one case where a 12-year-old abuse victim linked to a gang was known to be using contraceptives

Parents who complained their child was missing or had been raped were seen as 'part of the problem'

The perpetrators told one parent of a girl they habitually abused: 'They threatened to kill me and behead my daughter's baby'

Some girls were raped repeatedly by groups in attacks that would last for 'days at a time' in guest houses and empty flats, and some were tortured with baseball bats, meat cleavers and sex toys.

The report said: 'Many of the sexual acts committed on the girls were extreme in their depravity. The girls were usually given so many drugs that they were barely aware of what was going on. Indeed, they say that it was the only way they could cope with what was going on.'

Jailed: Brothers Akhtar Dogar (left) and Anjum Dogar (right) were each given a life sentence with a minimum of 17 years at the Old Bailey in 2013 for their role in the Oxford abuse

Abusers: Mohammed Karrar (left), 38, was given life with a minimum of 20 years for the 'dreadful offences' he committed against the girls. His brother Bassam Karrar (right), 34, was also handed a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years

Attackers: Kamar Jamil (left), 27, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years while Assad Hussain (right) , 32, was sentenced to seven years in prison

Men from other cities would also visit girls for £100-a-time sex 'by appointment' set up by Oxford paedophiles, who would also transport their underage sex slaves to London and Bournemouth to be abused.

In harrowing testimony the report said one Oxford victim told investigators: 'I turned up at a police station, blood all over my body, soaked through my trousers to the crotch. They dismissed it as me being naughty, a nuisance'.

Social services 'washed their hands' of one victim and told her 'It's your choice' while another manager said: 'She's streetwise, she loves it', the report said.

One police officer dismissed a case against a 13-year-old because she looked 16, it was said.

Victims were groomed using drugs, alcohol and gifts before they were physically assaulted, forced into prostitution, raped and drugged, the report said.

Their abusers kept them 'hooked in' by making the girls dependent on alcohol and drugs, which they then 'paid for' with sex.

Paedophile: Zeeshan Ahmed, 28, was jailed for seven years for two counts of sexual activity with a child

One victim said after the abuse: 'The Asian men felt they ran Oxford. That was exciting. People were afraid of them. I felt protected, People respected them.'

The report highlighted the damage of an attitude that 'nothing can be done' and that a 'lack of understanding led to insufficient inquiry.'

It said: 'The perceived difficulty in prosecuting and the lack of investigation on occasions led to a vicious cycle whereby victims would either not disclose, or make only a partial disclosure, or withdraw support for the police, because they could see there was no guarantee of sufficient action to be safe from perpetrators if they did support the police.

'Victims can describe circumstances, some quite dreadful, when they made allegations or were found in dire straits after abuse, yet 'nothing happened'.

'Although there might be understanding now about why nothing (much) happened to end the abuse, for victims who were scared, hurt and trapped, this must have merely reinforced their sense of isolation and lack of choices.'

The report added that: 'The girls who were chosen generally had troubled upbringings and unsettled home lives which made it less likely that anyone would be exercising any normal parental control over them or looking out for them.

'The girls were then groomed in a variety of ways such as being given gifts or simply by being shown the care and attention that they craved.'

Investigations of the response of organisations including Oxfordshire County Council and Thames Valley Police found that victims' accounts were not believed or they were seen as exaggerated.

Maggie Blyth said: 'It is shocking that these children were subjected to such appalling sexual exploitation for so long'.

Ms Blyth said that parents and carers of vulnerable girls raised concerns which were sometimes 'not given the weight they deserved'.

She also said that officials could not understand that the victims could not say 'no' because they were being groomed by men who had a hold over their lives.

Some parents are quoted in the report. One said: 'No one thought about us - what it would be like if it was their daughter.'

'All this - it has ripped the family apart.'

Another said: 'I put window locks on and kept the key... but in the morning found someone had helped her chisel open the sashes.'

Abuse was carried out at the Nanford Guest House in Oxford and other places all over the city. Pictured is a room at the guest house

Scores of professionals across a string of organisations or departments 'took a long time to recognise child sexual exploitation (CSE), used language that appeared at least in part to blame victims and see them as adults, and had a view that little could be done in the face of 'no co-operation',' the report said.

The latest serious case review came weeks after the true scale of abuse in Rotherham was revealed, where at least 1,400 girls fell into the clutches of paedophiles, mainly from Pakistani backgrounds.

One former police officer said: 'They were running scared of the race issue… there is no doubt that in Rotherham, this has been a problem with Pakistani men for years and years. People were scared of being called racist.'

The report said in one incident which took place around nine years ago, a concerned parent attended a police station about their daughter and asked why no arrests had been made. The parent said the desk officer told them that such arrests could not simply be made on such information and that the police were under pressure 'not to appear institutionally racist'.

One senior social work manager said the police were 'uncurious'. She said: 'The police response lacked curiosity - they would pick the child up, give them a telling off and drop them back at the children's home.'

Whistleblowers who tried to raise concerns lost their jobs, and police officers often did not seem to believe the girls, their families or those who reported problems, and did not treat them as victims.

Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames Valley Police, said: 'We are ashamed of the shortcomings identified in this report and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.'

Jim Leivers, director for children, education and families at Oxfordshire County Council, said the authority is 'horrified', adding: 'We fully accept that we made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse.'

Oxford City Council said the report clearly showed the girls were 'badly let down by the organisations that could - and should - have protected them'.

PM SAYS LAWS WILL BE CHANGED AFTER OXFORD GIRLS WERE ABUSED ON 'INDUSTRIAL SCALE' David Cameron vowed laws would be changed in the light of revelations of child abuse across the country. The Prime Minister said: 'Young girls - and they are young girls - being abused over and over again on an industrial scale, being raped, being passed from one bunch of perpetrators to another bunch of perpetrators. 'And all the while this has happened with too many organisations and too many people walking on by. 'And we have got to really resolve that this stops here, it doesn't happen again and we recognise abuse for what it is. 'The most important thing apart from all the policy changes and the legal changes is a big change in culture. We need to say loudly and clearly: abuse of children under the age of 16 is wrong – it's not consent, it's not normal relations, it's wrong, and we have to be intolerant of it and not walk on by as happened in too many cases in the past. 'We have taken action because we've put in place tougher sentences, we've put in help for the victims, we've taken all sorts of steps, but what's come out of Rotherham and Rochdale and Oxford has been so horrific that it has demonstrated that more needs to be done. Obviously it's the responsibility of these councils and those police forces and those social services departments.' He rejected claims the government had been slow to act: 'I don't accept that we haven't done a lot about it: we have, we've put in place better police training, we've put in place longer sentences, more help for victims, a whole set of things. 'These events in Rotherham and Oxford have happened after the last manifesto was written. They've happened during this parliament and what I'm determined as Prime Minister is that we end the walk-on-by culture that too many police forces and social work departments have demonstrated.' Advertisement

The NHS in Oxfordshire said it regretted 'the abuse was not uncovered and information acted on sooner'.

Former Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell admitted he had not understood the scale of the problem and said they had 'failed badly'.

He told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: 'I can't believe that by 2012 I wasn't being briefed that there was a problem.

'Not sure I ever really understood the scale and I certainly didn't understand what a huge problem this was in Oxfordshire and, it seems, across the country.'

He added: 'I don't know how I could have dug into the organisation better. I thought I knew the organisation pretty well. I knew all the senior people, I worked the job and I don't know how I could have raised this issue without knowing it was such an issue.'

Mr Mitchell said 'people at the grassroots' did not push the issue and 'weren't inquisitive enough'.

'It feels like there was a sense that this was just too difficult a problem because many of the girls wouldn't co-operate and there wasn't an evidence base there.

He added: 'We are not a Rotherham and I will not have that suggestion made. We are a good council and we have put in place the measures that are necessary to stamp this evil out.'

The report said that since around 2011 'many lessons have been learned' and services for children vulnerable to CSE 'have been improved considerably'.

The report said: 'The association, not of all CSE but group-based CSE, with mainly Pakistan heritage is undeniable, and prevention will need both national understanding, communication and debate, and also work with faith groups at a local level.'

However, the report said that 'no evidence has been seen of any agency not acting when they should have done because of racial sensitivities'.

Jo Cleary, chair of the College of Social Work (TCSW), the professional body for social work in England, said: 'The findings of Oxfordshire's serious case review are deeply disturbing, and should have far-reaching consequences for the way we deal with child sexual exploitation in this country - from the front line to leadership level.

'That these girls were dismissed, disbelieved and derided by so many and for so long is simply unacceptable.'

Javed Khan, chief executive of children's charity Barnardo's, said: 'The grim reality of child sexual exploitation is being revealed town by town across the UK.

'In Oxford and elsewhere, vulnerable children are being failed by the systems and people who are supposed to protect them.

'Local agencies must do all they can to free those caught up in sexual exploitation and protect children from being trafficked, abused and raped. No vulnerable child should feel like they have been abandoned and left to fend for themselves.'

'I TURNED UP AT THE POLICE STATION, BLOOD ALL OVER ME. THEY DISMISSED IT AS ME BEING 'NAUGHTY'': VICTIMS DESCRIBE THE ABUSE IN THEIR OWN WORDS AND HOW THE AUTHORITIES IGNORED THEM Today's report contains testimony from some of the hundreds of girls who were abused by paedophiles in Oxford. These are excerpts from their evidence: I was found in the presence of the men constantly. Why were they not pulled in?

If a perpetrator can spot the vulnerable children, why can't professionals?

Social workers asked me questions which showed they knew

Why would a 13-year-old make it up? They didn't stop to think 'why?'

The social worker just wanted to hear what [the worker] wanted to hear so there was no need to do anything

No one believes me, no one cares. They knew where I was, they didn't care when I came back I couldn't sleep or eat

The Police never asked me why – they just took me home

I made a complaint about a man who trafficked me from a children's home. He was arrested, released and trafficked me again

If someone had taken the trouble to ask me I would have told them. Oxford and another council argued about me to try and avoid doing anything. It wasn't my fault I was abused

I turned up at the police station at 2/3am, blood all over me, soaked through my trousers to the crotch. They dismissed it as me being naughty, a nuisance. I was bruised and bloody

Social services washed their hands – 'it's your choice' I was told

A WPC found me drunk with men. I said I was ok and she went away and left me with them. I was abused that night

She did speak to the police. It meant I was whacked around the head with a crowbar

I thought if I told the police what was really happening they would not believe me

They threatened to blow up my house with my mum in it

I was expected to do things - if I didn't they said they would come to my house and burn me alive. I had a baby brother

I wouldn’t ever have said no – they’d have beaten the s*** out of me

Social Services knew what was going on – they always asked questions that showed that they knew

They left you in a house with Asian men and didn't even ask my age

I made a complaint about a man who trafficked me from a children’s home. He was arrested, released and trafficked me again

They knew where I was, they didn't care when I came back Advertisement

Police, council and health bosses admit they are all 'ashamed' that hundreds were abused on their watch

Thames Valley Police force is 'ashamed' of its 'shortcomings' outlined in the report, and others described its findings as 'deeply disturbing'.

Chief Constable Sara Thornton reiterated an apology to victims and their families for not identifying the systematic nature of the abuse sooner.

She acknowledged that the review highlighted that Thames Valley Police was among agencies that could have identified the exploitation between 2004 and 2010 earlier than it did and 'many errors were made'.

Apology: Thames Valley chief Sara Thornton and council boss Jim Leivers both apologised, calling the abuse in Oxfordshire horrifying

She said: 'We are ashamed of the shortcomings identified in this report and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.'

Jim Leivers, Oxfordshire County Council's director for children, education and families, said the council 'made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse'.

In a statement, Oxford City Council said the report 'shows very clearly that the girls were badly let down by the people and organisations that could - and should - have protected them'.

The statement said: 'The dreadful experiences faced by these young women can never be put right. But the safeguarding board is now in a much better position to prevent, disrupt and detect these crimes.'

It also said evidence shows that child sexual exploitation is 'continuing' in Oxfordshire.

A joint statement from NHS organisations in Oxfordshire expressed 'regret that the abuse was not uncovered and information acted on sooner'.

It said: 'What happened to these children is truly awful. While the review finds no evidence of 'misconduct' by the organisations involved, there are clearly areas for improvement in terms of being able to recognise signs of abuse and sharing information.'

Thames Valley's Police and Crime Commissioner says abuse 'may have been racially motivated hate crime'

Today Thames Valley's Police and Crime Commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld, said the abuse could have been a 'hate crime'.

Thames Valley's Police and Crime Commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld (pictured) said the abuse could have been a 'hate crime'

Mr Stansfeld said that 'from the outside looking in' it appeared the abuse was in some way racially motivated.

Mr Stansfeld backed the review's call to look into why so many Pakistani or Muslim people had been convicted of child sexual exploitation compared with other groups.

He said: 'I think it's in two parts. One is did people ignore it because of the racial issues? There is no evidence for that in Oxfordshire.

'The other is was there a racial element in the perpetrators doing this to another community?

'I'm not an expert, but as an outsider looking at it I think probably there was.

'It needs looking at whether this was hate crime. I think it most certainly could have been and it needs looking at.'

The police involvement in the case is being investigated by the IPCC, but Mr Stansfeld admitted the time between the start of the abuse and the probe made holding people accountable difficult.

'Inevitably people have moved on and left,' he said.

The PCC said the fault lay with various agencies, but the police and social services in particular.

'What I said at the time (of the Old Bailey trial) I would say now: every agency that dealt with this didn't do their jobs properly,' said Mr Stansfeld.

'The man fault must be with the social services and the police. But what were the schools up to? What were the NHS up to?'

Asian paedophile ring 'who owned Oxford' abused at least 50 girls in eight-year reign of terror

One gang of Asian men was responsible for abusing and enslaving 50 of the girls, mainly from Oxford, but the men were also able to sexually torture girls for eight years after a series of missed opportunities to stop them.

One victim said that they believed they 'owned Oxford' because the authorities failed to act for so many years.

Some were abused for up to eight years despite asking for help from the authorities, who instead refused to believe them or blamed them.

Jailed: The gang, five of Pakistani origin and two of north African origin, believed they 'owned Oxford' during their years of abusing children

Their abusers fed them drink and drugs before taking them to graveyards, a B&B and flats rented just for the rape and torture of children.

AGE OF CONSENT SHOULD BE INCREASED, SAYS LABOUR MP The age of consent should be increased to tackle the pressure on children to have sex, a senior Labour MP said today. Barry Sheerman, right, said the 'ghastly crimes' in Oxfordshire were a 'blight on any civilised society'. He warned against rushing to a response, adding: 'It is too often too easy to do a knee-jerk, fast response and get it wrong.' The former chairman of the education select committee told MPs: 'Can we also look at the way we are shrinking childhood in this country. 'Personally I would like to see the age of consent raised. This is why I actually oppose votes at 16 because it will bring childhood closer and closer. 'There is too much pressure on childhood today, and we as a society have got to look very carefully at the preciousness of the childhood years.' Education Secretary Nicky Morgan insisted the government does not want 'to rush into responding to this'. She said: 'What we have seen in Oxfordshire and elsewhere are abhorrent, sickening crimes. And they are crimes. 'Any of us in any positions of authority feel this is something that has to be eradicated and it is a stain on our society.' She backed both primary and secondary schools which giving lessons in sex and relationship education. Advertisement

One 12-year-old girl was taken to a Reading house for a backstreet abortion during a six-year period where she was passed between groups of men who raped her in what she called 'torture sex'.

The plight of the victims was laid bare in 2013 when seven members of a sadistic gang were jailed for a total of 95 years for their 'depraved' and 'evil' abuse of vulnerable girls.

Five gang members were given life sentences and two others were jailed for seven years for 'crimes of the utmost gravity'.

The paedophile network groomed more than 50 vulnerable girls in Oxford between 2004 and 2012 with gifts, alcohol and drugs before subjecting them to extreme physical and sexual violence.

They used knives, meat cleavers and baseball bats to inflict severe pain on the girls for their twisted pleasure.

But a catalogue of opportunities to stop the abuse was missed as early as May 2005.

On numerous occasions girls told police officers, social workers and care staff in children's homes how they were raped or seriously sexually abused – but no charges were brought against the gang.

Three of the girls who gave evidence at the trial were reported missing from residential care on 254 occasions.

And the judge in the case, Judge Peter Rook, said 'police and social services missed tell-tale signs' about the abuse that was taking place.

One social worker had earlier told the trial that 'nine out of ten' people who were meant to be caring for the girls 'knew what was going on'.

Life sentences were handed to Akhtar Dogar, 32, and his brother Anjum, 31, who were both jailed for a minimum of 17 years, Mohammed Karrar, 38, who will serve a minimum of 20 years, his brother Bassam, 33, jailed for a minimum of 15 years and Kamar Jamil, 27, jailed for a minimum of 12 years. Assad Hussain, 32, and Zeeshan Ahmed, 27, were jailed for seven years.

KEY FAILURES OUTLINED IN THE 'BRUTAL' 114-PAGE REPORT ON OXFORD Failures in the official response outlined in the 114-page report include: The issue of child sexual exploitation (CSE) was not understood and national guidance was not followed;

The 'terrible' nature of victims' experiences was not recognised because of a view that they were consenting or bringing problems on themselves;

Girls were treated without common courtesy and subjected to 'snide remarks';

There was an insufficient understanding of the law around consent and a tolerance of sexual activity with children.

There was a lack of curiosity about what was happening to the girls;

There was insufficient attention to investigating and disrupting the activities of perpetrators compared with efforts used to 'contain' behaviour of the 'difficult' girls;

The organisational response was 'weak and lacked any management oversight'.

Information about worrying cases was not 'escalated' to those at the top of organisations.

In response to the question 'Could CSE have been identified or prevented earlier?', the report said: 'The simple answer is yes.' Advertisement





How lack of curiosity among professionals meant teenage girls continued to be abused but report does not name individual for misconduct or neglect

The parent of an Oxford abuse victim is furious today after a serious case review concluded that no police, health or council workers was guilty of neglect or misconduct.

Instead the report's author said that officials were guilty of showing 'a worrying lack of curiosity'.

Findings: Today's report said that nobody was guilty of misconduct in the 373 cases where girls were abused in Oxford

Three senior officers who ran social services at the height of the scandal are no longer working at Oxfordshire County Council, having moved on or retired.

The mother of a victim named only as Girl 3 in today's report said: 'My initial response is that they still haven't got it. In that they haven't grasped how badly the individual victims were treated by social services.

'They did know that there were individual girls who were in great danger. Each girl was extremely vulnerable and was being abused and exploited.

'They failed to respond to the needs of each girl and there was wilful neglect.

'They were told, firstly by me, time and time again, that my daughter was being exploited'.

Thames Valley Police has not disciplined any staff but the Independent Police Complaints Commission will investigate if officers failed to protect scores of youngsters.

Today's report revealed that a police officer asked bosses for help as she feared that one of teh girls may end up dead.

The email, sent in 2006 but contained in today's report said: 'The sad thing is, is that I'm not at all shocked or surprised at this lack of response as both girls appear to be labelled.., streetwise, too much trouble, not worth the effort of finding them as they will run off again.

'The staff at [the children's home] give plenty of information as to the vulnerability of these girls and I don't know what more can be done to ensure that these vulnerable Mispers are treated as a priority enquiry until one of them is found dead