A charity supporting victims of Muslim child rape grooming gangs has revealed that family members of predators have attempted to infiltrate their ranks to threaten women and girls seeking help.
While much of the focus of the grooming gang scandal has focused on the failures of local authorities and the gangs of mostly Pakistani Muslim men, which were given free rein to sexually exploit often young working-class white girls, a victims’ charity has claimed that there is a broader familial, tribal support network operating in the shadows behind the criminal operations.
Managing director of the Next Stage Youth Development charity, Paul O’Rourke told The Times of London that it is “really common” for family members of grooming gangs to worm their way into the charity to “threaten and intimidate” victims.
“Once the gang in Rochdale found out where those young people were, they tried to infiltrate — to get access to them, to interfere with them as witnesses, to threaten them,” he said. “They also tried to recruit them back into the grooming gang because they were still very vulnerable.”