Dark myths about sexual assaults in Cologne came into sharp focus last week when a female television journalist was attacked live on air. Esmeralda Labye, a reporter from Belgium, was covering the German city’s annual carnival when three men variously touched her breasts, kissed her and simulated intercourse behind her back.

It followed claims of multiple sex crimes on women around the city’s station on New Year’s Eve, when refugees were blamed. This allowed conspiracy theorists to outline their most starkly racist fantasies, painting a picture of demonic brown-skinned Muslims fleeing war zones to defile white European womanhood. No need for court cases: marauding savages had planned everything on the Internet and were all guilty without trial.

This time, however, Labye’s cameraman captured the absolute truth: footage shows white European males from overwhelmingly Christian Germany molesting her. Cologne was full of Caucasian drunks acting with the same kind of macho abandon which contributes to some half a million adults being sexually assaulted in England and Wales alone each year.

Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Show all 13 1 /13 Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Women protest against sexism outside Cologne Cathedral on 5 January after the assaults Oliver Berg/EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Women protest against sexism in Cologne following the rash of sex attacks on New Year's Eve Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police initially failed to mention the assaults in report the following morning EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police officers patrol in front of the main station of Cologne, Germany AP Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks German far-right supporters demonstrate at Cologne`s train station (Reuters) Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016. Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police used pepper spray to control supporters of Pegida, Hogesa (Hooligans against Salafists) and other right-wing populist groups as they protested against the New Year's Eve sex attacks on 9 January, 2016 in Cologne, Germany Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police use a water cannon during a protest march by supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016 Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police use pepper spray against supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida, in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016. Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Artist Mira Moiré protests naked in Cologne against the mass sex attacks on New Year's Eve AP Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks A demonstrator holds a sign in German that reads 'No violence against women' during a demonstration in the wake of the sexual assaults on New Year's Eve, outside the cathedeal in Cologne, Germany, 09 January 2016. EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Counter demonstrators hold up a sign reading "Against sexism, against racism" as they protest against a demonstration of the islamophobic movement PEGIDA at the train station in Cologne, Germany, on January 9, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Demonstration by a women’s group on Saturday (AP) AP

After the events of New Year’s Eve, one commentator specifically cited uneducated “youths from Afghanistan and Syria” as the culprits, expanding the global threat to one posed by “several hundred thousand young Muslim males”. More ambitiously still, the whole Cologne affair was linked to Brexit, as we were told by one newspaper: “The EU referendum is about nothing less than the safety and security of British women – and that means we must get out of Europe.”

On Friday, the Cologne prosecutor Ulrich Bremer in fact told me that, of the 59 suspects pinpointed so far, just four are from war-torn countries (Syria and Iraq), only 14 are in custody, and nobody has yet been charged. Nearly 600 hours of CCTV reveals very little, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the alleged attacks were planned in advance.

The refugee-as-rapist construct is the kind that has been used to demonise people throughout history. The idea is that you apply frightening characteristics to those you view as political enemies. In the 1930s Cologne’s Jews were described as 'Untermenschen' (inferior people) menacing European culture, before 11,000 were murdered during the Nazi Holocaust by “racially pure” Aryans, many of them beer-swilling Christians.

Merging racism into a wider discussion about law and order, feminism and even the future of the EU project does not make it any less objectionable. Brown men are not inherently more misogynistic or brutal than white men, and Muslims are just as likely to be family-orientated, peaceful citizens as their counterparts from other religious and cultural heritages.