The home secretary has ordered that research be carried out into the characteristics of child sexual abuse gangs, such as those that have blighted towns and cities like Rotherham, Oxford and Newcastle in recent years.

Writing to a Labour MP who has campaigned on the issue, Sajid Javid said he had directed officials to work with police to learn more about how such gangs operate and how that compares to other forms of child sexual abuse.

He said he wanted to “establish the particular characteristics and contexts associated with this type of offending”, adding that officials were looking into the “characteristics of offenders, victims and the wider context of abuse; all of which have critical bearing on the effective targeting of prevention activity”.



Javid was responding to a letter from members of a cross-party working group on the issue that includes the Labour MP, Sarah Champion, whose Rotherham constituency was one of those to suffer at the hands of a gang.

It emerged on Wednesday that she was given extra police security after getting death threats in response to comments she made about the British Pakistani men who groomed white girls for sexual abuse.

Champion wrote a column for the Sun last year in which she said: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”. She later stressed she had not sought to attack the entire British Pakistani community.

Many of the men in grooming gangs that have been convicted in recent years have been of Pakistani origin, though by no means all. Whitehall sources indicated on Wednesday night that the Home Office review would look at all forms of abuse, not solely those of such a background.

The Home Office said: “The government has always been clear that child sexual exploitation is not exclusive to any single culture, community, race or religion, but political or cultural sensitivities must not get in the way of preventing and covering child abuse.

“Offending involving grooming by organised networks is a complex issue and the government is fully committed to taking the steps necessary to improving our understanding of how this heinous crime can best be prevented.”

Commenting on the letter to the working group, Champion said: “Having encountered child sexual exploitation in our own constituencies, the group are determined to ensure that the government both delivers on its promises to victims and survivors, and does all that it can to understand and prevent gang-related child sexual abuse.”

In the correspondence, Javid added that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse separately intends to research the “background, characteristics and motivations” of perpetrators, including how the gangs are “formed and sustained, and how they target children”.

He said this would include interviews with convicted abusers and promised to review the research and build upon it, if necessary.