Here’s what we know. A young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a gang of men in the car park of the giant Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

She claims to have been bundled into the back of a van and subjected to a terrifying ordeal which may have lasted up to an hour and a half.

Police arrested 11 suspects, aged between 16 and 22, one of whom was released without charge. The others have been bailed to report back in May.

Surely, that in itself is worrying. Do we want to see people accused of serious, mob-handed sexual assault freed on police bail? This doesn’t appear to be one of those ‘He said, She said’ cases. There were ten of them and one of her.

Scandalously, for reasons best known to Kent Police, this has only become public knowledge in the past 48 hours, after rumours reached the ears of journalists at Kent Online — six weeks after it is supposed to have happened

The woman is said to be in her 20s and the alleged attack took place on Mother’s Day, Sunday March 6. She is reported to have been snatched from a bus stop, although that hasn’t been confirmed.

There’s also been a whisper that the woman knew her assailant s, which is nearly always the case when it comes to sexual assault.

Scandalously, for reasons best known to Kent Police, this has only become public knowledge in the past 48 hours, after rumours reached the ears of journalists at Kent Online — six weeks after it is supposed to have happened.

In a statement dragged out of the police yesterday, they would only say: ‘We appreciate the public concern in relation to this incident but would like to reassure members of the public that we have made arrests and at this stage we are not looking for anyone else in connection with the case.

‘This is being treated as an isolated incident and there are no other incidents that are being linked to this offence.’

Well, that’s their official line and they’re sticking to it. Reporters covering the story have had the devil’s own job trying to establish any further information.

The woman is said to be in her 20s and the alleged attack took place on Mother’s Day, Sunday March 6 (file photo)

For commercial reasons, the operators of the Bluewater centre have been understandably anxious to downplay the incident and stress that the car park in question is covered by CCTV and round-the-clock security patrols.

Yet when the local Press asked for the CCTV footage, they were told by police it would not be made available because the suspects had ‘quickly’ been identified.

Confused? You’re supposed to be. There are many more questions than answers.

Here’s what we don’t know. No names or addresses of any of those arrested have been released.

Police refused to reveal the ethnic backgrounds of the men or say whether any or all of them are ‘migrants’, ‘asylum seekers’ or ‘refugees’ recently arrived in Britain.

All they would confirm is that the men were ‘from Kent’, which gives no clue as to their real identity. Had the alleged attackers been members of a local rugby club, I’m sure we would have learned about it by now.

If they were bikers belonging to the Dartford chapter of the Sons of Anarchy, or Millwall fans who had popped into Bluewater for a little light retail therapy on their way home from a cup game, it might just have leaked out earlier.

How did the investigating officers manage to identify the suspects so ‘quickly’, by their own admission? Were all 11 of them already known to police, as they say, and could be picked out plainly from the CCTV images?

Did the police manage to trace the van involved? When they went to the address at which the vehicle was registered, did they find all the suspects living under the same roof?

I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue. And neither has anyone else outside the headquarters of Kent police and those involved.

Look, for the record, I am not suggesting that the alleged perpetrators of this ‘incident’ are recently arrived migrants, or from any particular ethnic or religious group. We just don’t know.

But there are disturbing parallels here with other serious sexual assaults on women by gangs of men — not just in Britain but across Europe. And the secretive behaviour of the police has only served to heighten suspicions.

The woman is said to be in her 20s and the alleged attack took place on Mother’s Day, Sunday March 6

In Rotherham, Bradford, Oxford and elsewhere, the police did everything they could to conceal the identity of the predominantly Muslim gangs carrying out serial rapes and sexual assaults on teenage girls.

In Cologne, Germany, and in Sweden, the police tried to pretend that so-called ‘refugees’ involved in sex attacks on women were simply groups of ‘local men’.

A shameful conspiracy of silence has descended across the Continent when it comes to foreign men molesting women at swimming pools and, yes, in shopping centres.

Kent is the gateway to Britain for ‘migrants’, many of them young men aged, er, between 16 and 22 — as some of us have long been pointing out. They can regularly be seen clambering out of lorries on the A2 and M25.

No wonder local residents and councillors have been alarmed by the news of the Bluewater attack. They are especially angry that it has taken six weeks for them to find out.

What are the police’s motives in keeping this under wraps? It’s the lack of information and the delay in making it public which has fuelled concern and suspicion.

If there’s an innocent explanation, let’s hear it. If the ten men currently on police bail are all sons of Kent yeomen, who can trace their roots in the county back to the Domesday Book, why not say so?

But that’s not how it works any more. Ever since the Leveson Inquiry and the absurd Filkin Report into police-Press relations, coppers have had it drummed into them that saying anything to a reporter is tantamount to a career-ending criminal offence.

Not so long ago, someone from Dartford CID would have had a quiet word over a pint with the crime correspondent from the local rag, filling him in on the background to the incident and subsequent arrests.

The briefing would have been off-the-record and no confidences would have been betrayed. If the reporter was barking up the wrong tree, he’d have been put straight.

If these men were Millwall fans, it wouldn't have taken six weeks for the story to come out Richard Littlejohn

Equally to the point, an alleged gang rape — for want of a better expression — at one of Britain’s biggest shopping malls is surely a matter of national, not just local interest. So why keep it quiet for six weeks?

Late yesterday, when it became apparent that the Daily Mail and other national news outfits were sniffing around the story, the police were bounced into issuing a subsequent statement saying: ‘The 11 men arrested are from Kent, not Muslim, as has been suggested.’

No one has suggested they are Muslim. We simply wanted to know more about them. Telling us they are ‘from Kent’ still leaves us none the wiser.

This isn’t just about the police’s bovine and counter-productive refusal to talk to the Press. It goes way beyond that. This is about the public’s right to know.

How dare the Old Bill conspire to keep quiet about a serious sexual assault at a shopping centre used by millions of people every year?

The public, especially those who live near Bluewater, are entitled to know about any crime of this nature.

Yet the police have tried to prevent anyone finding out anything about this incident — a shocking dereliction of their duty to those who pay their wages.

Freedom of information in Britain is under concerted attack — from enemies of a Free Press like Hacked Off and politicians with something to hide, to wealthy celebrities attempting to conceal their indiscretions behind super-injunctions.

Local journalists are society’s first line of defence against official secrecy. The reporters at Kent Online are to be congratulated for forcing this story out into the open.

If people are getting the wrong end of the stick and jumping to conclusions, then Kent Police have no one to blame but themselves.

Their silence has only served to incubate an atmosphere of suspicion and speculation which has no place in an open democracy.