Ethnicity of grooming gangs ‘shied away from’, Casey report says

The ethnicity of people involved in grooming gangs has been “shied away from” by authorities, according to a new report by Baroness Louise Casey.

The finding comes after the peer was tasked with producing an audit on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse in England and Wales.

The report said ethnicity data is not recorded for two-thirds of grooming gang perpetrators, meaning it is not robust enough to support conclusions about offenders at a national level.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper apologised to victims as she presented the findings to MPs and announced a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.

In the report, Baroness Casey said: “We as a society owe these women a debt.

“They should never have been…