{"id":3981,"date":"2025-01-15T05:25:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T05:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3981"},"modified":"2025-01-15T05:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T05:26:12","slug":"michael-murphy-britains-mass-child-rape-horror-and-the-price-of-not-being-called-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/?p=3981","title":{"rendered":"Michael Murphy: Britain\u2019s mass child rape horror and the price of not being called"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"articleTitle\">Michael Murphy: Britain\u2019s mass child rape horror and the price of not being called racist<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Elon Musk, the grooming gangs scandal is finally getting the outrage it deserves<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Author of the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Murphy , <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalpost.com\/author\/specialnp\/\">Special to National Post<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Published Jan 09, 2025 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nationalpost.com\/opinion\/michael-murphy-britains-mass-child-rape-horror-and-the-price-of-not-being-called-racist#comments-area\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nationalpost.com\/opinion\/michael-murphy-britains-mass-child-rape-horror-and-the-price-of-not-being-called-racist#comments-area\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>409 Comments<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/nationalpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2192656692.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=288&amp;h=216&amp;sig=Ilx4vGaXwj3WKFrLJfHleQ\" alt=\"Keir Starmer\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer answers questions on January 06, 2025 in Epsom, England. (Photo by Leon Neal\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For years, the British establishment ignored the mass rape of thousands of English girls <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rotherham.gov.uk\/downloads\/file\/279\/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham\" target=\"_blank\">by predominantly Pakistani-Muslim men<\/a> \u2014 <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2025\/01\/04\/grooming-gangs-scandal-cover-up-oldham-telford-rotherham\/\" target=\"_blank\">a crime it still refuses to confront.<\/a> Embarrassment over the ethnic profile of both abusers and victims enabled networks of rapists, known as \u201cgrooming gangs,\u201d to prey on vulnerable children with impunity. Driven partly <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/whats-the-real-reason-labour-is-reluctant-to-hold-a-grooming-gangs-inquiry\/\" target=\"_blank\">by racial and religious contempt<\/a> for their mostly white victims, these men exploited girls across northern and central England in an atrocity without parallel in modern British history. It continues to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How did this happen? Or more precisely, how could it have been tolerated? Much like the Catholic Church abuse scandals, this crime threatened a cherished dogma. Multiculturalism preached that diversity was \u201cour strength.\u201d When uncomfortable truths surfaced, they were quietly brushed aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The illusion came at a cost. Whistleblowers were <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/politics\/article\/labour-policy-grooming-gang-racist-islamophobia-xm7mxf9fk\" target=\"_blank\">smeared as bigots,<\/a> and victims dismissed by the very people meant to protect them. In case after case, town after town, police and local officials were more concerned with avoiding accusations of racism and preserving \u201ccommunity cohesion\u201d than preventing the rape of children. And with <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c3w69p2vz0lo\" target=\"_blank\">few exceptions<\/a>, journalists averted their eyes from one of the gravest injustices of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That changed last week, when the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/maxtempers\/status\/1873835392627302765\" target=\"_blank\">grotesque details<\/a> of one case, involving the mass rape of a 12-year-old girl, reached Elon Musk, who amplified it to his 200 million followers on X. This shattered what writer Ben Sixsmith called a decades-long <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bensixsmith.com\/p\/a-conspiracy-of-murmuring\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cconspiracy of murmuring\u201d<\/a> and triggered an international outcry \u2014 one, at last, commensurate with the scale of the horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of channelling the public outrage \u2014 the obvious response given the severity of the crimes \u2014 the British Prime Minister sparred with Musk over alleged <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2025\/01\/06\/starmer-musk-grooming-inquiry-far-right-bandwagon\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201clies\u201d and \u201cmisinformation.\u201d<\/a> In doing so, he missed the point entirely. <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cd9x3d4v7jdo\" target=\"_blank\">Musk\u2019s interventions,<\/a> calling for members of the government to be jailed, were clumsy at times, but pale in comparison to the horror at hand. It is precisely this kind of deflection that allowed the abuse to persist, unchecked, for decades. While British politicians agonized over linguistic etiquette, a nationwide epidemic of child rape was ignored \u2014 and enabled \u2014 by those in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, Britain is well-versed in the dangers of \u201cfar-Right\u201d boogeymen and the speech crimes of anti-Islam activists like Tommy Robinson, yet no one knows precisely how many girls have been molested. There has never been a national inquiry focusing solely on grooming gangs. Local investigations offer only fragments \u2014 glimpses of a vast, grim collage of abuse, obscured by wilful indifference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An inquiry into Telford (2022) found that <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2022\/jul\/12\/over-1000-children-telford-sexually-exploited-inquiry-finds\" target=\"_blank\">more than 1,000 girls were abused,<\/a> with cases dating back to the 1980s. In Rotherham, a South Yorkshire town now synonymous with gang rape, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rotherham.gov.uk\/downloads\/file\/279\/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham\" target=\"_blank\">more than 1,400 girls were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013.<\/a> Yet Telford and Rotherham are only two of more than 50 towns and cities where such gangs are known to have operated. In 2023 alone, police in England and Wales recorded <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/uk\/nspcc-ofcom-government-instagram-facebook-b1191401.html\" target=\"_blank\">over 7,000 sexual grooming offences,<\/a> indicating the abuse is widespread and ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>S<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without a comprehensive inquiry, we can only guess at the total number of victims. Speaking in the House of Lords in 2018, Lord Pearson suggested, based on available data and the often repeated daily abuse inflicted on victims, that in total<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ImMeme0\/status\/1875939747706937693\" target=\"_blank\"> \u201cmillions of rapes of white and Sikh girls by Muslim men\u201d<\/a> may have occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But even such potentially staggering figures remain an abstraction, incapable of fully capturing the horror. Consider the case of Samantha <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk\/media\/6198\/final-oldham-assurance-report-8-june-2022-14-digital-version.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">(in some reports, she is named Sophie)<\/a>, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk\/news\/20221964.horrifying-story-sophie-12-year-old-abused-girl-failed-oldham-police\/\" target=\"_blank\">a 12-year-old girl<\/a> abducted in 2006 by \u201ctwo Asian men\u201d in Oldham. They drove her around for hours, repeatedly assaulted her, then threw her from a moving car. Desperate and injured, she sought help from a passerby \u2014 who also abused her. She fled again, only to be picked up by another man she trusted to take her to the police. Instead, he took her to a house, where she was raped by five more \u201cAsian men.\u201d Her ordeal lasted nearly 24 hours. In total, eight men assaulted Samantha that day. <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jonatanpallesen\/status\/1876235825459179940\" target=\"_blank\">In her world, every adult was a predator.<\/a> The ringleader of the final gang, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/an-apology-means-nothing-now-woman-was-raped-as-a-child-after-going-to-police-station-to-report-sex-attack-12522529\" target=\"_blank\">Shakil Chowdhury<\/a> was jailed for only three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such stories are not aberrations. One girl, enslaved at the age of 12, was branded with the initial \u201cM\u201d on her buttock by her rapist, Mohammed, to mark her as his property. Another 14-year-old was abducted, raped, and allegedly dismembered, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/amp\/charlene-downes-parents-of-14-year-old-girl-who-went-missing-20-years-ago-want-end-to-nightmare-12997702\" target=\"_blank\">with her body disposed of at a kebab shop.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The victims, mocked as \u201cwhite slags,\u201d were considered easy prey by their abusers. At a 2012 sentencing for Rochdale perpetrators, the judge noted that the girls were treated as \u201cworthless and beyond respect\u201d because \u201cthey were not of your community or religion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a study <a href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3248665\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), the vast majority of those prosecuted for grooming gang crimes in the UK between 1997 and 2017 were of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/371226197_Group_Localised_Child_Sexual_Exploitation_Offenders_Who_and_Why\" target=\"_blank\">Pakistani-Muslim backgrounds<\/a> \u2014 a fact frequently <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/apr\/04\/suella-braverman-grooming-gangs-child-seual-abuse-home-secretary-prejudice\" target=\"_blank\">downplayed by the media.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Rotherham, a 2020 academic <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/371226197_Group_Localised_Child_Sexual_Exploitation_Offenders_Who_and_Why\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a> found that <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-rotherham-cover-up\/\" target=\"_blank\">one in 73<\/a> Muslim men in the town had been prosecuted for involvement in grooming gangs. How many remain undetected because authorities are looking the other way in Rochdale, Telford, Oxford, and beyond? Without a national inquiry, we may never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a speech that could define his premiership, Starmer dismissed calls for an inquiry as pandering to a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2025\/01\/06\/starmer-musk-grooming-inquiry-far-right-bandwagon\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cfar-Right bandwagon\u201d<\/a> \u2014 a slur on the British public\u2019s legitimate concerns, one he may come to regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such declarations reflect a deeply ingrained mindset: unpalatable truths involving minority groups are considered too dangerous to share with the public. It is this attitude that allowed grooming gangs to thrive unchecked for so long. Authorities were petrified of a backlash against the \u201cAsian community\u201d from the white majority. In Manchester, a 2019 report concluded that Asian grooming gangs were left to roam the streets partly because officers were instructed <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2020\/01\/14\/police-officers-knowingly-neglected-girls-exploited-grooming\/\" target=\"_blank\">to seek out offenders of other ethnicities.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, the 2022 Telford review <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/5cc814eee8ba44aa938d883c\/t\/62cda1c3bc208b4915d3ff50\/1657643464900\/IITCSE+REPORT+-+VOLUME+ONE.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">found,<\/a> \u201cthere was a nervousness about race \u2026 bordering on a reluctance to investigate crimes committed by what was described as the \u2018Asian\u2019 community.\u201d The report found that the town council suspended taxi licensing enforcement, even though it had become \u201caware of taxi drivers offering children free rides in return for sexual activity.\u201d The decision to stop enforcement, the report concluded, \u201cwas borne entirely out of fear of accusations of racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To understand the power of a belief, consider what people are willing to sacrifice for it. In Britain, the sanctity of children, their innocence, and the integrity of our institutions were all heaped onto the pyre of a multicultural ideal \u2014 one that promised harmony but delivered a betrayal too vast and too painful to yet comprehend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Michael Murphy is a journalist based in London. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=llAnoLFUgHM\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">presented<\/a> the documentary \u2018Ireland is full! Anti-immigration backlash in Ireland\u2019. You can follow him on X: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/michaelmurph_y?lang=en\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@michaelmurph_y.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Murphy: Britain\u2019s mass child rape horror and the price of not being called racist Thanks to Elon Musk, the grooming gangs scandal is finally getting the outrage it deserves Author of the article: Michael Murphy , Special to National Post Published Jan 09, 2025 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 409 Comments For years, the British establishment ignored the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2824,2825],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3984,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3981\/revisions\/3984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadafirst.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}