Labour want to know if there’s a link between race and rape – I can tell them

‘It’s about ensuring that if there’s a link between ethnicity, between race, between culture that we identify that, so we can deal with it’.

I had to hit pause when I heard that, because I couldn’t believe a senior politician would make such a crass suggestion about the perpetrators of child rape. Restarting the video, assured that it must have been my hearing, I watched the clip again.

Nope, nothing wrong with my hearing.

Home Office minister Mike Tapp went on GB News yesterday to talk about victims of grooming gangs and the inquiry which will be led by Baroness Longfield. But after a few minutes of waffle, he appeared to suggest there could be a link between committing vile crimes and the perpetrator’s race.

I have subsequently seen some people suggesting Tapp was talking about victims, and suggesting that in high profile cases, white girls were specifically targeted. 

But as a person of colour, for me there was no way of hearing it any differently and there’s no coming back from it – I believe Mike Tapp just made an offensively racist remark.

It harked back to the 2017 grooming gang misinformation scandal, where Quilliam Foundation’s report suggested that ‘84% of grooming gang offenders’ are Asian. Parts of the media lapped this up and headlines across the UK were plastered with ‘Asian grooming gangs’.

2017 was a time when South Asian families were on edge, and hatred against Muslims continued to run rampant – after the Manchester attack that spring, Islamophobia surged by 500%, according to the police.

Subsequently, the report was sharply criticised by some experts, such as professor of human trafficking Ella Cockbain who said it was ‘riddled with errors, inconsistencies, a glaring lack of transparency, sweeping claims and gross generalisations unfounded its own ‘data’.

In 2021, the Home Office appeared to further rebuke this by issuing a report saying that ‘it is difficult to draw conclusions about differences in ethnicity of offenders, but it is likely that no one community or culture is uniquely predisposed to offending.’

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Considering he’s now in that department, I’m surprised Mick Tapp seems to be suggesting that is now up for debate. 

I worry he’s pandering to the far-right, who still use this misinformation to talk about sexual violence against women and children.

It’s shocking to see a Labour MP – whose public pronouncements on deportation are close to as obsessive as the Reform Party – claiming that there could be a correlation between perpetrator race and child rape. 

I felt nothing but outrage. 

His suggestion was clear – that the moral panic over ‘Asian grooming gangs’ should not be forgotten. 

In an attempt to continue with the anti-migrant rhetoric that seems to define the modern Labour party, he seemed to be suggesting to the public that immigrants are not only bad, they will sexually assault children.

As a British Indian person, who is around a lot of Asian people, I can say that the highest percentage of the people who have sexually assaulted me in my 41 years of life have been white. 

From past relationships to strangers in the street – the fear I have is mostly of white men.

While my personal experience may not matter to some, maybe statistics will.

Figures that came directly from the Metropolitan Police show that in the first three quarters of 2024 – 85% of group-based child abusers were white, while 3.9% were Pakistani.

Many people refer to certain infamous cases of grooming gangs in the UK – they talk about Rochdale, Rotherham, and Telford – the cases with Asian perpetrators. But I never hear people talk about Blackrod, a group of white men from Bolton who were convicted of child sexual abuse. The 2010 Cornwall peadophile ring is also ignored. 

The truth is, specific, consistent statistics on the ethnicity of sexual child offenders is unknown – it has not been a historically collected characteristic. Trying to create statistics out of an incomplete number is morally wrong, and Tapp should not be suggesting such, since it will only create further division.

In 2025, the Casey audit – completed by Louise Casey, Baroness Casey of Blackstock – was commissioned to look into group-based child sexual exploitation in the United Kingdom. 

It found that there was ‘not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level’ of the ethnicity of perpetrators.

It suggested that it should be looked into and that more statistics should be collected.

There is nothing wrong with making sure there is no stone left unturned in the effort to bring justice to those who have been harmed or killed by sexual predators and stop others being victims in the future.

But there is a difference between scapegoating ethnic groups with a stamp of ‘child rapist’, and about finding the truth.

If he misspoke, he needs to urgently clarify, apologise, and make clear that he won’t be looking for a link between race and rape.

Enough fear mongering is dividing the country. We need to concentrate on bringing justice to the people who have experienced horrific sexual violence, not weaponising it for more anti-migrant rhetoric.

People deserve better.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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