UK grooming gangs pattern explained in 5 points: Fancy cars, alcohol, white girls

The thousands of horror stories of underage girls being sexually exploited in the UK by grooming gangs of Pakistani-origin men had a set of keywords — fancy cars, young white girls, alcohol and drugs, gang-rapes and death threats. There was also an unmistakable pattern in how the gangs operated and thrived since the 90s. That is why a section of activists and politicians are up in arms against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his stance of refusing to conduct a national probe into the gangs and the extent of their crimes.

The Times first reported on the abuse in 2005. Journalist Andrew Norfolk saw a pattern in a 2009 case and investigated several such cases from 2011 to 2015. Norfolk, however, speaking to The News Agents of Apple podcasts, said the far-right had from the very beginning tried to politicise the issue. His remarks came against the backdrop of Tesla boss Elon Musk’s allegations that the mainstream British media didn’t report on the horrific crimes. Musk called out Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, for not doing anything about the grooming gang cases.

Norfolk, who saw the pattern, told The Times that “concerns over racism and other cultural sensitivities meant that the causation factor had never been properly examined”.

But what was the pattern in the widespread sexual abuse of thousands of white girls by grooming gangs in the cities of Rochdale, Oldham and Rotherham?

Though there are debates about whether to highlight the ethnicity of the perpetrators, who are mostly Pakistani-origin men. What is not debatable is the brutal gang-rapes and unmissable similarities in the grooming-gang cases.

All these cases also have similar patterns of men picking young white girls in fancy sports cars, wooing them as boyfriends and then sending them to older men. Then, there is the use of drugs and alcohol and asking them to have sexual relations with older men. These men also felt that these women had not “protected themselves well”.

Then, there is the apathy of the authorities to help the victims. A researcher who worked on these cases also saw their files missing and traces removed, reports the UK Telegraph.

1. MEN IN TAXI CABS COMING TO PICK YOUNG GIRLS

This abuse started in many cases with men running takeaways or driving taxis in the “nighttime economy”, according to a 2023 BBC report. These men, with a network of vehicles, zeroed in on girls who were out late.

In 2014, a year-long investigation revealed that at least 1,400 children, some as young as 11, were groomed for sexual exploitation in Rotherham, England, between 1997 and 2013. Local authorities had ignored the abuse for years. Similar criminal networks were later uncovered in other parts of England, sparking an outrage.

Even an independent enquiry into these crimes in Rotherham had similar findings.

“Schools have raised the alert over the years about children as young as 11, 12 and 13 being picked up outside schools by cars and taxis, given presents and mobile phones and taken to meet large numbers of unknown males in Rotherham, other local towns and cities, and further,” stated the enquiry report.

2. FANCY CARS AND EXPENSIVE GIFTS USED FIRST

Many victims were trapped with gang members luring them with images of cash, designer clothing and luxury cars, according to a 2019 report by The Guardian. Vulnerable girls were also targeted by creating an illusion of a romantic relationship, which then ended with them being subjected to sexual exploitation, said the report.

Girls, as young as 11, were often made to believe that these men were their boyfriends and had a flashy lifestyle, sports cars and gifts.

How the survivors were brainwashed was revealed by Alison, one of the survivors. Alison was involved with an older man and when the age difference was discussed with her, she said, “He’s a really nice bloke and has a sports car, goes out for meals and everyone’s jealous of her,” writes Jayne Senior, the whistleblower of the Rotherham cases, in her book Broken and Betrayed.

This man, posing as her boyfriend, then forced Alison to have sex with his brother.

In most cases, the girls were abused by multiple older men, being moved from one place to another through taxi cabs.

Here comes the third pattern.

3. MINORS TURNED INTO ALCOHOL AND DRUG ADDICTS

For these girls, the gradual introduction to alcohol and drugs was part of the pattern. Thousands of girls were familiarised with drugs and then made dependents. They were then trafficked and sexually exploited.

“The guys [of the grooming gang] would come by, put me in a car and take me away for the night, or longer. Sometimes I would disappear for days at a time. The booze and all the drugs wiped me out for hours,” writes a survivor in her book, Prey: My Fight to Survive the Halifax Grooming Gang. She recounted that the pick-ups had become so frequent that she hardly stayed at home at all.

The report on grooming gang cases in Rotterham also discusses several cases where young girls were drugged. The girls, mostly in their early teens, were also used for smuggling and selling drugs.

“Some of the young women who were being sexually exploited were subject to violence, rape, gang rape, kidnap, carrying drugs, dealing drugs, and found in situations where firearms were present,” the report said.

4. FROM PRETENCE OF LOVE TO BURNING GIRLS ALIVE

A handgun used by a man to impress a young girl was later turned on her and used it to threaten her.

The gangs also made use of younger relatives to woo the girls. These men acted as their boyfriends and used the time to get information on the girls. That information was subsequently used by older men who brutally abused the girls.

“Such men were and are clever. They did not approach the girls themselves. In fact, they used boys to carry out the initial pick-ups. These boys were often paid to do such work and would run errands for the seniors, including the delivery of drugs,” writes the Rotterham whistleblower, Senior.

In one instance, a girl was burnt alive at her Telford home along with her teenaged sister and mother by the person who groomed and had a child from her. When the girl, Lucy Lowe, was murdered, she was pregnant the second time.

Lucy was groomed when she was just 12 by taxi driver Azhar Ali Mehmood. He killed Lucy, as well as her 17-year-old sister and 49-year-old mother in 2000 by setting the Lowes house on fire.

Grooming gangs subsequently used the Telford example to force other girls into submission.

5. DEATH THREATS AND INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE

The Telford Enquiry into Lucy Lowe’s murder reveals particularly brutal threats.

A combination of drugs, threats and psychological control was used to keep the survivors in a cycle of exploitation by these elderly men.

When a survivor called the police, she discussed how “about six or seven Asian men came to my house. They threatened my mum, saying they’ll petrol bomb my house if we don’t drop the charges,” she said.

Yet in a pattern that would repeat itself, Telford’s authorities looked the other way. When an independent review was finally published in 2022, it found police officers described parts of the town as a “no-go area”.

This is not to say that the council did not act in any way. In 2006, stricter licences were brought into enforcement.

But overall, the police response to the victims has been dismissive, according to various media reports.

“[Child] has no credibility – very often it is her word against [sic] the perpetrators and very often she does not co-operate,” reads a report, according to the BBC. “Believe she is making life choices. ” There are never any witnesses or third parties,” it added.

A 2022 report by the Labour mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, also stated that children were failed by the authorities concerned in Oldham between 2011 and 2014.

Some girls, like Katrin, who went to the police, were further threatened by the abusers to not take action. A police officer also warned her to not take her abusers to court.

There’s massive outrage over the decades of serial abuse of thousands of girls in the UK by grooming gangs of Pakistani-origin men. What is evident is that there was an unmistakable pattern which was ignored by the authorities allegedly over cultural sensitivities and concerns about race riots.