Phillips said authorities are more scared of being called Islamophobic than racist

He called for UK establishment to wake up and admit 'faith' unites the attackers

Mike Penning is writing to Attorney General Jeremy Wright asking for law change

Said Asian sex gangs who single out white girls must be given tougher sentence

Amber Rudd said political correctness must not stop the reporting sex crimes

Newcastle grooming scandal saw over 100 girls abused by 18-strong gang

The UK's former race tsar Trevor Phillips has said the British establishment must wake up and accept the fact that the men in these type of grooming rings are all Muslim

Britain's former race tsar Trevor Phillips today called for the authorities to admit that most men in sex grooming gangs are Muslim.

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He launched an angry attack on the refusal of the establishment - including the BBC - to properly describe the men behind the sickening crimes.

The former chairman of the equality and human rights commission said our elites have replaced their old fear of being labelled racist with a new bogey - the 'charge of Islamophobia'.

He said the UK must urgently wake up and admit the true nature of the grooming gangs to prevent other, vulnerable girls being targeted.

Meanwhile, a Tory former policing minister has said the gangs should be treated as 'race hate criminals' so they can be handed tougher prison sentences.

Mike Penning is writing to the government's top lawyer, Attorney General Jeremy Wright, urging him to consider changing the legal guidelines.

The clamour for change comes in the wake of the Newcastle grooming scandal, which saw over 100 girls plied with drink and drugs and rapes at sick 'sex parties' over several years

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One of the 18-strong gang convicted said all white women are 'trash' and only good for one thing - sex.

Mr Phillips said that describing these gangs as Asian wrongly points the finger at ethnic groups like Indian Hindus who have not been implicated.

In a column for The Telegraph, he wrote: 'What the perpetrators have in common is their proclaimed faith.

'They are Muslims, and many of them would claim to be practising.

'It is not Islamophobic to point this out, any more than it would be racist to point out that the most active persecutors of LGBT people come from countries where most people are, like me, black.

Former policing minster Mike Penning has called for Asian grooming gangs to be treated a race hate criminals and handed tougher criminal sentences by the courts (file photo)

Home Secretary Amber Rudd, pictured at a conference in California earlier this month, said political correctness must not put people off reporting Asian sex gangs to the police amid claims a fear of being branded a racist is putting people off taking on the criminals

'If we are going to call a spade a spade, then we should do so without embarrassment.

'But our elites have replaced their old fear of being called racist with a new bogey. It comes to something when the BBC prefers to risk being condemned for racism than expose itself.'

The authorities are under mounting pressure to radically change their approach to tackling these sex gangs after a wave of grooming trials have laid bare the sheer scale of the assaults carried out on young women.

Mr Penning said it is shocking that the men behind the sickening abuse cannot be given tougher sentences that reflect that they single out and target white people.

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He said: 'Some of them freely admitted that their attitude to these girls was based on race.

'If that's the case then this is a racially motivated crime and the sentence should and must reflect that.

'I cannot understand, in a case where the police have done brilliantly well, why the sentence doesn't reflect the severity of the crime.'

Mohammed Hassan Ali 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, who was aged 17 and 18 at the time, admitted three offences of trafficking girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

Eisa Mousavi was convicted of three counts of rape and two counts of supplying drugs

Prabhat Nelli was convicted of two counts of supplying drugs and one count of conspiracy to incite prostitution

It is the latest in a string of grooming cases exposed across Britain where mainly Asian men have singled out and preyed upon young white girls.

Yet experts say that it is the British establishment that is scared of being called racist and therefore not taking on the grooming scourge as forcefully as it could.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said 'political and cultural sensitivities' must not get in the way of uncovering child sex abuse amid calls to review offences that are racially aggravated.

She said: 'Those responsible are not restricted to any single ethnic group, religion or community.

'It is an affront to everyone in our society and I want to be absolutely clear that political and cultural sensitivities must never be allowed to get in the way of preventing and uncovering it.'

Redwan Siddquee told a victim to have sex with him in return for drugs

Mohammed Azram admitted five drugs offences, on count of sexual assault and one of inciting prostitution

Saiful Islam 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 hosted 'parties'

Labour frontbencher Sarah Champion yesterday said a fear of being branded racist is leaving many too scared to speak out against Asian grooming.

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.

The shadow women's minister said: '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.'

Lord MacDonald, the former director of public prosecutions, this week said the pattern of abuse needed to be recognised as a ‘profoundly racist crime’.

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Attorney General Jeremy Wright was last night facing calls to review grooming sentences because the crimes were ‘racially aggravated’.

But Imam Qari Asim, of the Makkah mosque in Leeds, added: ‘We cannot hide from the fact that the perpetrators of these appalling crimes were mostly Muslims. If it is cultural prejudices that have led these men to prey on white girls, seeing them as “easy meat”, then this needs to be addressed.

‘There can be no excuse if members of the British Pakistani community are aware of people exploiting children and young girls and not reporting the wrongdoers.’