Police forces across Britain are poised to arrest hundreds of suspected child abusers as part of a massive crackdown on the grooming of vulnerable young girls.

‘Wave after wave’ of arrests will be made between now until Christmas in response to the ‘epidemic’ of child sexual exploitation that has haunted the nation for two decades. Police are confident that the raids will lead to scores of court cases across the country, with suspects facing charges of child abduction, rape, multiple rape and sexual assault.

In Greater Manchester alone, more than 180 suspects are set to be rounded up in an operation described by sources as a ‘day of reckoning’ for men who have tormented girls as young as ten. Raids are also scheduled to take place in the south of England within the next few weeks, with many others set to follow before the end of the year.

In 2012 these nine men including Kabeer Hassan, bottom right, were found guilty of a range of charges including child rape in Rochdale which alerted police and authorities to the size of the problem

The scale of the operations being drawn up across the country is said to be ‘almost beyond comprehension’. The number of victims will make the Rotherham child abuse scandal – in which 1,400 children were abused over a 16-year period – look like the ‘tip of an iceberg’.

A police source with detailed knowledge of the plans told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is going to be a day of reckoning – and it’s about time.

‘Britain is going to have to finally face up to the fact that it has a massive problem in terms of grooming gangs. It’s in every corner of the country – I can’t think of anywhere that’s immune. ’

As with the Rotherham and Rochdale cases, the vast majority of men facing arrest are understood to be from South Asia, predominantly of Pakistani origin – although there are also dozens of white suspects.

Senior officers say it is coincidental that news of the crackdown has emerged so soon after the scandal that continues to engulf police and social services in Rotherham.

Instead, it was the successful prosecution in 2012 of a gang who abused more than 50 young girls in Rochdale that made the new crackdown possible.

Publicity surrounding the trial at Liverpool Crown Court led to hundreds of victims of sexual abuse coming forward after suffering in silence for years.

Specially trained officers have since spent hours painstakingly interviewing girls who said they had been abused, with colleagues then sifting through a patchwork of names, nicknames, locations, modus operandi and e-fit photographs to identify their tormentors.

The conviction of the men responsible for abusing this girl, pictured, has prompted a far wider probe

Teams of specialist lawyers of the Crown Prosecution Service have also been assembled to advise police forces on how to successfully prosecute grooming cases across the country.

In Greater Manchester, 180 suspects have emerged from an operation codenamed Doublet, which has ranged across Rochdale, Oldham, Bolton and Bury.

The operation is understood to cover offences that have taken place in the past six years.

Virtually all of the suspects are expected to face justice in up to a dozen separate trials. They are likely to be held at Manchester Crown Court next year.

One detective said: ‘A lot of these guys have thought for years that they are above the law. They’re in for a very rude awakening.’

She added: ‘It was Operation Span that brought the success in Rochdale. Since then, more and more girls have come forward. The fact that there are so many suspects in Greater Manchester is, in fact, a measure of our success here.

‘Other forces have been catching us up and have yet to declare their hands. Some were more or less forced to become pro-active.’

Last night, a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police confirmed that there were several active cases, saying: ‘Child sexual exploitation is our number one priority and we have a number of live investigations under way.’

Events in both Rochdale and Rotherham have exposed a culture of denial among professionals who should have been protecting victims of grooming. Sources insist that Britain is not unique in having a ‘massive problem’ with predominantly Asian grooming gangs.

‘The difference is that in Britain we’ve got to a stage where we are finally dealing with it,’ said a source. ‘I’m sure the same problem is embedded in other countries too, for example, Belgium.’

Sir Peter Fahy, the chief constable for Greater Manchester, said last year that child sexual exploitation was his force’s ‘top priority, and the welfare of these victims should now be at the very forefront of everything we do’.

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale, said: ‘These monsters have been terrorising communities and ruining lives all over the country for far too long. Police efforts to get to grips with this crime have previously failed, but I’m pleased that we’re now seeing a real focus on smashing these gangs and making sure they have no place to hide.’

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers declined to comment.

Revealed: Damning dossier that proves police tsar refusing to quit over Rotherham scandal WAS alerted to the horrific scale of grooming

Documents show that crime tsar Shaun Wright knew in advance about the scale of the child abuse

By Nick Craven and Martin Delgado

The crime tsar defying calls for his resignation over the Rotherham child grooming scandal came under fresh pressure to quit last night after The Mail on Sunday uncovered damning proof that he ignored a mass of evidence of abuse.

Shaun Wright, the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, has claimed the scale of the crisis was a ‘huge surprise’ to him after a report revealed at least 1,400 girls in Rotherham were abused by gangs of predominantly Asian men.

But a dossier of more than 20 files provides powerful evidence that in his former post as cabinet member for children’s services in Rotherham, Mr Wright must have been aware social services were dealing with hundreds of children at risk of sexual exploitation and abuse.

Minutes from Rotherham’s Safeguarding Children Board (SCB) – which would have been passed to him – reveal that:

lThere was frustration among agencies about the difficulties in holding to account those adults who organised or took part in the sexual exploitation of children.

lThere were not enough resources to cope with the level of need.

Last night, David Greenwood, a solicitor representing 15 of the victims, said Mr Wright should resign immediately. ‘The figures were available to him and I fail to see how he could have been unaware of the scale,’ he said.

A council source added: ‘These minutes would have passed across Wright’s desk without any question. Did he read them? If he didn’t, he should have done. And whether he did or not, he should hang his head in shame and resign.’

Mr Wright has quit the Labour Party but has refused demands to leave his £85,000-a-year PCC post.

The dossier of quarterly minutes from the SCB – made up of education, health, police and social workers – charts the growth of grooming and predatory behaviour to near-epidemic proportions throughout the five years that Mr Wright was Rotherham’s cabinet member for children’s services, from 2005 until 2010. Although his attendance at the quarterly SCB meetings was not compulsory, it was part of the board’s responsibility to pass the minutes on to him – and part of his to read them.

Sections of a dossier which shows that Shaun Wright was alerted to the scale of the scandal in Rotherham

Documents show between 2007 and 2010 alone, the number of sexually exploited children – mostly girls – coming to the notice of social services and youth workers each year increased more than tenfold from 45 to 483.

Our evidence also shows that over five years the problem of sexual exploitation was frequently discussed, and that the rapidly growing scale of the problem was readily apparent.

In the minutes and attached reports seen by The Mail on Sunday, the overwhelming magnitude of the problem is obvious as the numbers of young people in contact with either council staff or the specialist outreach youth workers of a group called Risky Business, grows out of control.

Last night, Mr Wright failed to respond to messages. His spokeswoman said he was ‘unavailable’.

I was intimidated and branded a racist for bringing Rochdale abuse gang to justice, says prosecutor

By Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West

As the Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West, I led the teams that brought the so-called Rochdale Grooming Gang to justice in 2012 for abusing up to 47 girls.

My work saw me go up against not only the offenders, but those who tried to intimidate me for bringing abusers before the courts. They said I had given racists a stick with which to beat minorities – I said our communities should be carrying their own sticks.

Far-Right extremists targeted me, too. I had made these British-Asian men pay for abusing vulnerable girls – but that damaged the racists’ narrative that all minorities are the same. To their hateful demands for me to be ‘sacked and deported’, I gave the simple response: I was born in Birmingham.

Nazir Afzal, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West, pictured, said he does not care about the race of a child abuser as long as they are stopped and brought to justice. 'Ethnicity is an issue not the issue'

The network of prosecutors I lead has tackled grooming and child sexual abuse in England and Wales for the past two years. We are advising about hundreds of suspects while, at the same time, protecting hundreds of victims. In one operation alone by Greater Manchester Police there are 20 potential victims and 180 suspects.

The problem we identified in Rochdale was that justice was prevented from being delivered because the credibility of the young victims was questioned.

If we don’t believe a young, vulnerable girl, who will? The authorities and communities appeared to have turned a blind eye to the abuse of its children.

The ethnicity of many of the abusers in Rotherham, Rochdale and other places is a matter of fact – they were from Pakistani or South Asian backgrounds.

I do not care where they come from as long as they are stopped and brought to justice. I told Parliament in 2012 that the ethnicity of the perpetrators was an issue, not the issue. It was not the abusers’ race that defined them, but their attitude to women and girls. They targeted girls because of their vulnerability, and failings by those who should have safeguarded them.

There is no excuse for what the abusers did, nor is there any excuse for the authorities to choose not to believe and protect them.

Abdul Rauf, pictured, was one of the nine men found guilty of being part of the Rochdale child abuse ring

Responsibility for the abuse begins and ends with the criminals who commit these acts. There is, however, an individual and collective duty to report what you suspect and to act to protect these vulnerable youngsters.

Yet now the Asian communities have woken up to the criminals in their midst. They recognise they can do more to stop this offending.

There is, sadly, no community where women and girls are not at risk from sexual predators. The CPS has prosecuted people from over 25 countries, excluding those from outside the EU, for sexual offences and trafficking in the past three years. Abusers are of all nationalities, ethnicities and ages, though the vast majority are white British males.

Tragically, another girl will have been abused in the time it has taken to read this article. Other children will have been targeted for future abuse.

But we and others have learnt from the past. We cannot shy away from tackling child sexual abuse regardless of where it occurs and by whom. Multicultural sensitivity is no excuse for our blindness.