A SEX abuse victim today claimed Asian grooming gangs get away with deprived crimes because their wives are "too scared to speak out".

Bobby Singh, abused by a Pakistani family friend as a child, says the women "know full well what their husbands are doing" but are terrified of reporting it for fear of deportation.

4 Bobby Singh bravely shared her story with The Sun Online and revealed why she thinks grooming cases can often go unreported Credit: Oliver Dixon - The Sun

The 40-year-old mum-of-three, who bravely waived her anonymity, told The Sun Online these women "live in fear" of being sent back to Pakistan and so keep quiet.

Her intervention comes as a damning report today found dozens of kids had been abused by Asian grooming gangs operating in "plain sight" after being failed by cops.

Some victims subject to "profound abuse" told carers and police officers about the sexual assaults but no action was taken, according to the report into child sexual exploitation in Manchester.

The report concluded: "This is a depressingly familiar picture and has been seen in many other towns and cities across the country."

It also found that fears over appearing racist played a part in senior police thinking when dealing with grooming gangs.

Bobby revealed how she was shunned by her own family when she opened up about horrendous abuse she suffered from the age of four to 14.

Bobby, a Hindu, said she is still seen as the "black sheep" of the family after running away from home.

She fled after years of abuse by Sayeed Shah - the family friend who groomed her with Care Bears and sweets.

The mum said there is a "mentality" is "to keep quiet" - to avoid bringing shame on the family.

She thinks this culture is what allows grooming gangs throughout the UK to get away with their sick crimes.

Bobby believes more grooming gangs are at large across the country - because "intimidated" wives are too scared to report their husbands to cops.

She revealed: "They are scared of them, they have a life here - the majority of them are from Pakistan, they’ll say ‘we’ll send you back’".

Kids as young as 12 targeted by grooming gangs in UK THE South Yorkshire town of Rotherham was embroilled in a child sex abuse scandel from the late 1980s until the 2010s. Five British-Pakistani men were the first from a grooming gang to be sentenced in 2010 for sexual offences against girls aged 12-14. In August 2014 an inquiry commissioned by Rotherham Council found around 1,400 children had been abused between 1997 and 2013. The majority of abusers were found to be predominately British-Pakistani men - with the number of victims increasing in 2018 to more than 1,500. Seven more men were convicted in 2018 of sex crimes between 1998 and 2005. A £90m inquiry - Operation Stovewood - has identified 1,523 potential victims and is investigating allegations against 426 people, of whom 151 are designated suspects. So far four people have been convicted under Operation Stovewood, with a further 24 suspects charged and 68 interviewed under caution. The investigation has recorded 648 grooming crimes over a 16-year period. In Rochdale, Greater Manchester, 19 British-Pakistani men have been convicted after 47 girls were found to be victims of sex abuse, and last year it emerged up to 1,000 children could be victims of a huge sex ring in Telford - seven men were convicted over the abuse in 2013. And in December four members of a grooming gang, also from Telford, were found guilty of abusing a 12-year-old girl. In 2018 a group of 20 British Asian men from a grooming gang were convicted of more than 120 offences against 15 girls in Huddersfield. After a series of convictions of Asian men, Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, previously warned the Pakistani community of the dangers of "burying their heads in the sand" on the matter of sexual grooming.

The carer, from Croydon, added: "But they know what their husbands are doing, they know what their brothers are doing, they know what their family members are doing.

“They are intimidated by their men."

Bobby has urged them, and victims, to speak out to stop abuse from taking place and bring abusers to justice.

She added: "They should be thinking ‘do you know what, if they can do that to these little girls, they could do that to our daughter’.

But they won’t think like that, because they’ve brainwashed them.

“It [grooming] seems to be a problem there [within the Asian community].

“I really want to go round to areas like that, I’ve contacted a couple of Asian resources down there but they are just like, they seem very scared. I’d want to go there to talk.

“At the end of the day, they live here. These people who live here and have indefinite leave to remain, they have a duty of care.

They are scared of them, they have a life here - the majority of them are from Pakistan, they’ll say ‘we’ll send you back’ Bobby Singh

"They have been accepted as members of this community and of this country, and is this how you repay them, by grooming the children of England?

"It’s their mentality, the Asian mentality - and that will never ever change – which is to keep quiet, which is if you know ‘whatever is heard or said in this house stays in this house, gets brushed under the carpet - you shut the door and forget about it’, that’s it."

Due to this Bobby said it took her years to admit to her family the real reason why she ran away more than 30 years ago.

She had been groomed and abused by Sayeed Shah as a child, when he was in his 20s.

He became close with her family when they moved to Shirley, as one of few other Asian families in the area.

Shah showered the young Bobby with gifts and sweets - she had an entire glass case full of Care Bears from him - before he began to abuse her weekly.



CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

She suspects some of his family thought his close relationship with her was strange, but her parents had no idea why he engineered to spend so much time with her until she confessed a few years ago.

After bravely deciding to speak out, her case against Shah went to the Old Bailey, where he was sentenced on August 13, 2018, to 12 years behind bars.

She said: "I get very angry because the people that say that ‘let’s leave it, let’s not say anything about it, whatever, my mum’s not got to live with it' – I have.

"I have lived with it for so long, and I have to live with it.

"Because of this, I have got mental health issues because of what he did to me - I cannot be normal.

"I suffer from panic attacks, I am on long term medication, I can’t sleep at night.

"Our parents that tell us not to talk about it or address it they are not going to be here forever.

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“People stopped talking to me, members of the family stopped talking to me because I shamed my mum and dad. Well my mum and dad let me down.

“I shamed them and I ran away from home, I made them the talk of society. I’ll always be the black sheep and it shouldn’t be that way.

"Now to other people who have suffered through this, I’d tell your parents, talk to them, you need to let them know."

'PROFOUND ABUSE' IN MANCHESTER Police investigating child sex exploitation in Manchester knew children were suffering "the most profound abuse... but did not protect them", a damning report has found today. The review, launched after a child's death in 2003, found at least 97 "predominantly Asian men" were suspected of offences, but "very few" were brought to justice. It was prompted by the death of Victoria, 15, a girl under the care of Manchester City Council, who reported being raped and injected with heroin by a 50-year-old Asian man. She died of a drugs overdose two months later on September 29, 2003. The police operation identified at least 57 victims and 97 potential suspects, some involved with Victoria, and a "compelling picture of the systemic exploitation of looked after children in the care system" was established by detectives. But senior officers at Greater Manchester Police chose to under-resource the investigation and a decision was then made to close it down in April 2005. The report looked at a "sample" of cases from the time, detailing a series of allegations of rape and sexual abuse made by girls that were not followed up and with no further action taken by GMP or the council. As a result, "very few of the relevant perpetrators were brought to justice and neither were their activities disrupted". This was despite "clear evidence" teenage girls, aged 12 to 16, were being sexually abused "generally perpetrated by a group of older Asian men" including the police having their names, where they lived or worked and the flats above take-away shops where the abuse took place. It included plying girls with drugs and alcohol, physical abuse, rape and being forced to have sex with multiple men at "sex parties."

4 The mum-of-three spoke out after seeing her abuser convicted in 2018 Credit: Oliver Dixon - The Sun

Sayeed Shah was convicted of abusing her last year at the Old Bailey after she went to police 30 years later

4 Bobby said she was shunned by her own family after reporting the horrendous abuse she suffered from the age of four to 14 Credit: Bobby Singh

4 Shah showered the young Bobby with gifts and sweets before he began to abuse her weekly Credit: Bobby Singh

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