The report claimed 139 young girls in the West Midlands were potential victims

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West Midlands Police were warned about groups of Muslim men grooming underage girls in the area five years ago but hid the allegations as they feared it would inflame racial tensions ahead of the 2010 General Election.

The report said girls at children's homes across the force's area were being targeted by the Asian gangs.

Horrifyingly it also describes how the paedophiles used young girls were to recruit other vulnerable victims.

One passage in the report said: "Operations in other forces have identified a modus operandi where offenders use a young girl in a children's home to target and groom other residents on their behalf.

"This has also been evidenced within the force.

"The girl's motivation to recruit new victims is often that the provision of new girls provides her a way to escape the cycle of abuse."

The report identifies 139 potential victims - many as young as 13.

Entitled 'Problem Profile, Operation Protection' and written in March 2010 for senior officers, the report says 78 per cent of the victims were white. It added half lived with their parents and 41 per cent were in care.

The victims were from Birmingham, Dudley and Walsall and were being targeted by 75 grooming suspects.

Most of those pinpointed in the report had a history of sexual violence and were mostly had a Muslim background.