By Lauren Codling
YOUNG people, including those from ethnic minority backgrounds, are still being sexually exploited by gangs, a senior investigating officer at Northumbria Police has confirmed.
Detective superintendent Steve Barron, of Northumbria Police’s Safeguarding Department and Operation Sanctuary’s senior investigating officer, told Eastern Eye last Thursday (28) that officers are investigating abuse of vulnerable young people.
“Operation Sanctuary looks the same today as it did yesterday and it’ll look the same tomorrow,” Barron said. “I know there is still a job to do by Northumbria Police and our partners.”
Barron, who has been working with the force since 1992, confirmed that many of the young people who spoke to the police regarding the abuse were from ethnic minority backgrounds.
“We have indeed spoken to many young people from an ethnic minority background – some of whom have assisted us in terms of talking to the police about what’s happened to them and who are at risk and those who pose a risk,” he said.
Some of these victims have pursued prosecutions through the court and been successful in convicting abusers, the detective added.
“So while the victims within Operation Shelter were presented as white British, the reality is that within the wider investigation, we have spoken to a number of young people from a minority ethnic background,” Barron said.
Seventeen men and one woman were convicted of abusing young girls in Newcastle in August as part of Operation Sanctuary. In a total of four trials, 20 young victims gave evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014.
The investigation was set up in December 2013 and to date has resulted in 461 arrests. The men prosecuted were from mostly Asian backgrounds and mainly British-born.
Rotherham Labour MP Sarah Champion commented at the time of the conviction that she believed the abuse had “racial motivations” and the country had a problem with “British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls”.
Champion later resigned from her position as the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities after backlash over her comments.
Zlakha Ahmed, the founder of domestic violence charity Apna Haq, said Barron’s comments did not “surprise her” and Champion’s claims “[silenced] the other victims”.
“[Champion] was adamant she’d got it right and it was all about race… it does a big disservice to girls from ethnic minority backgrounds. It’s difficult anyway for the girls to come forward, so when they finally do, their voices are silenced and marginalised. It makes it even harder,” she said.
Barron said that the force has always been “upfront” about what they were dealing with and the potential magnitude of the crimes.
He explained: “We’ve never shied away from what it looked like in terms of the ethnicity of the victims and perpetrators. But we’ve made good efforts to make sure that was properly articulated as opposed to people just focusing on what might have been a very basic Asian perpetrator and white victims. It looks different to that.
“We’ve been at pains to get that information out to the community very accurately.”
According to the police, 278 victims have been traced in connection to Operation
Sanctuary.
Barron, who is originally from the West End of Newcastle where most of the abusers were operating, said working with the victims was a “very difficult process”, commenting that officers had to be very “sensitive, tenacious but also extremely patient”.
“We were engaging with some young victims for up to 12 months before they eventually felt comfortable to tell us what had actually happened to them,” he said.
“Now that is a significant investment of time. It’s a very worthwhile investment of time because ultimately once the person [opens up], they can, with the help of people, start to make themselves safer.”
Barron is satisfied that although the case took a period of time to come to court, he said everyone did what they could to make the procedure as “swift” as possible.
“I’m just very grateful that the victims who gave evidence were prepared to come to court even after a passage of time and prepared to give evidence on more than one occasion,” he said.
Ahmed, whose charity is based in Rotherham which was one of the major cities to have exposed sex-gangs operating in 2012, thinks the comments made about race by influential people such as Champion were “dangerous” as communities start to believe they are true.
She said: “We know that we have fewer numbers of girls coming forward then are affected. Then all the people around are thinking: ‘It isn’t an issue for Asian girls anyway, it’s just white girls who get abused’. This isn’t about race, it’s about vulnerability.”
Kulsuma Aktergetty images