Newcastle sex abuse ring

The Newcastle sex abuse ring were a gang of seventeen men and a woman who sexually abused adolescent girls and young women from 2010 to 2014 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, after plying them with alcohol and drugs. The men were of Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi, Eastern European and Pakistani heritage who were aged between 27 and 44.[1] A British man of Indian heritage was also charged for conspiracy to incite prostitution and supplying drugs to a victim. The victims ranged in age from 13 to 25.[2]

Crimes

As in the Oxford, Rochdale and Rotherham prosecutions, the men pretended friendship and offered alcohol and drugs, winning the trust of their victims before initiating abusive sexual relationships.[2] Victims told court that in some cases they were rendered unconscious by drugs and woke to find themselves undressed, having been subject to sexual assaults.[2] The prosecution successfully argued that the victims, whose ages ranged from 13 to 25, were chosen because they were vulnerable and seemed less likely both to complain to the authorities and to be believed if they did so complain.[2]

Operation Shelter, the specific police operation in Newcastle which led to the four trials, identified up to 108 potential victims, while the wider Operation Sanctuary, targeting abuse in the entire Northumbria police district, has identified up to 278 victims.[2]

Reactions

The British Labour politician Sarah Champion claimed regarding media news about this and previous trials, that there is a need to "acknowledge" that in all of the towns where similar cases have occurred "the majority of the perpetrators have been British Pakistani". She said: "We have got now, hundreds of Pakistani men who have been convicted of this crime, why are we not commissioning research to see what is going on and how we need to change what is going on. ... I genuinely think that it’s because more people are afraid to be called a racist than they are afraid to be wrong about calling out child abuse."[3][4]

Investigations

The Newcastle case was one of several cases which prompted investigations looking into the claim that the majority of perpetrators from grooming gangs were British Pakistani; the first was by Quilliam in December 2017, which released a report entitled "Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation – Dissecting Grooming Gangs", which claimed 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage.[5] However this report was "fiercely" criticised for its unscientific nature and poor methodology by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, in their paper "Failing Victims, Fuelling Hate: Challenging the Harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' Narrative" which was published in January 2020.[6][7]

A further investigation was carried out by the British government in December 2020, when the Home Office published their findings, showing that the majority of child sexual exploitation gangs were, in fact, composed of white men and not British Pakistani men.[8][9]

Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white. Some studies suggest an overrepresentation of black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.

– Home Office.[9]

Writing in The Guardian, Cockbain and Tufail wrote of the report that "The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim".[10]

Operation Sanctuary

A Northumbria Police probe into the abuse of one single girl uncovered serial abuse of teenage girls in Tyneside and resulted in the launch of "Operation Sanctuary," under which the initial arrests took place in January 2014 and had reached 67 arrests by the end of March that year.[11]

In 2017, it was reported that 112 offenders had been handed jail terms totalling nearly 500 years for abusing more than 270 victims.[12]

Gang members

The 18 gang members were convicted of nearly 100 offences:[13][14]

Forename Surname Age Of Charges
Mohammed Azram 35 Croydon Road Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, sexual assault, supplying drugs to a victim
Jahangir Zaman 43 Hadrian Road Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, rape, supplying drugs to a victim
Nashir Uddin 35 Joan Street Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, supplying drugs to a victim
Saiful Islam 34 Strathmore Crescent Convicted of rape. Jailed for 10 years
Mohammed Hassan Ali 33 Bentinck Street Convicted of sexual activity with a child, supplying drugs to a victim. Jailed for seven years
Yasser Hussain 27 Canning Street Convicted of beating, possession of drugs. Jailed for two years
Abdul Sabe 40 Dean House Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation, drugs offences
Habibur Rahim 34 Kenilworth Road Convicted of causing or inciting prostitution, drugs, sexual assault, trafficking within the UK for sexual exploitation
Badrul Hussain 37 Drybeck Court Convicted of drug offences
Mohibur Rahman 44 Northcote Street Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to incite prostitution, supplying drugs to a victim
Abdulhamid Minoyee 33 Gainsborough Grove Convicted of rape, sexual assault, supply of drugs
Carolann Gallon 22 Hareside Court Pleaded guilty to three counts of trafficking
Monjour Choudhury 33 Phillip Place Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, supplying drugs to a victim
Prabhat Nelli 33 Sidney Grove Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, supplying drugs to a victim
Eisa Mousavi 41 Todds Nook Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, rape, supplying drugs to a victim
Taherul Alam 32 Normanton Terrace Convicted of conspiracy to incite prostitution, supplying drugs to a victim, attempted sexual assault
Nadeem Aslam 43 Belle Grove West Convicted of supplying drugs to victims
Redwan Siddquee 32 West Road Pleaded guilty to supply or offering to supply a class B drug. Jailed for 16 months

See also

References

  1. ^ "Police appeared to punish grooming gang victims, report says". The Independent. 23 February 2018. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e Perraudin, Frances (9 August 2017). "Eighteen people found guilty over Newcastle sex grooming network". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  3. ^ Cowburn, Ashley (10 August 2017). "Newcastle sex ring: People care more about being called racist than preventing child abuse, says Rotherham's Labour MP". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  4. ^ "Yorkshire MP warns racism fears must be put to one side in battle to stop child sex grooming gangs". The Yorkshire Post. 10 August 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
  5. ^ Barnes, Tom (10 December 2017). "British-Pakistani researchers say grooming gangs are 84% Asian". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  6. ^ Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (2020). "Failing victims, fuelling hate: Challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative". Race & Class. 61 (3): 3–32. doi:10.1177/0306396819895727. S2CID 214197388.
  7. ^ Kenan Malik (November 11th, 2018). We’re told 84% of grooming gangs are Asian. But where’s the evidence?. The Guardian. Archived Version. Retrieved December 25th, 2020.
  8. ^ "Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation - Characteristics of Offending" (PDF). Home Office. December 2020.
  9. ^ a b Grierson, Jamie (15 December 2020). "Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men, Home Office report says". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  10. ^ Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (19 December 2020). "A new Home Office report admits grooming gangs are not a 'Muslim problem'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  11. ^ SOPHIE DOUGHTY (28 March 2014). "Operation Sanctuary: Sex exploitation probe uncovers hidden culture of abuse". The Evening Chronicle. Retrieved 20 September 2017. A police probe into the sexual exploitation of teenagers on Tyneside has uncovered a hidden epidemic of abuse stalking our streets. Northumbria Police launched Operation Sanctuary in January with a wave of arrests after receiving a report expressing concern for one girl.
  12. ^ Evans, Martin (23 February 2018). "Newcastle grooming gangs were allowed to abuse 700 girls because police blamed the victims, review finds". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  13. ^ "Child sex grooming network convicted". BBC News. 9 August 2017.
  14. ^ Mendick, Robert (5 September 2017). "Asian grooming gang's rape of white girls not racist, rules judge". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 3 May 2020.