Huddersfield grooming gang

27 men were accused of sexual offences including rape and trafficking against 18 girls aged between 11 and 17, with two further women accused of child neglect.[7] Due to the large number of defendants, the court proceedings against them were conducted in three separate trials. Reporting restrictions on the trial were imposed in November 2017 under the 1981 Contempt of Court Act to avoid prejudice on subsequent trials.[8]

However, the restrictions on reporting was criticised by the far right, who claimed that it was a cover-up as its perpetrators were "Asian" and "Muslims", and that it amounted to "state censorship".[9][10]

20 men were convicted of rape and abuse against 15 girls in October of 2018. The men were convicted of more than 120 offences against 15 girls, and jailed for a total of 221 years.[11] Reporting restrictions on the trials were partially lifted in October 2018.[1] 16 of the gang were sentenced in October 2018, the remaining four were sentenced in November 2018.[12][13] One of the convicted gang members, Faisal Nadeem, appealed against the sentence arguing that Robinson's live video had prejudiced the trial, but his permission to appeal was refused by a Court of Appeal judge.[14]

Six separate trials had been held by February 2020, with 34 men convicted in total.[2] Another man was convicted in April 2020.[3]

The first 20 men convicted are all of Asian – mainly Pakistani – origin. Their ringleader was Amere Singh Dhaliwal, a British Indian, who converted to Sikhism in 2013.[8][15] One of the grooming gang members, Sajid Hussain, fled during the trial and was sentenced in his absence.[16]

Two more men were sentenced in June 2019. Mohammed Akram was previously convicted and had his sentenced increased whilst Usman Khalid was sentenced to five years.[17]

A further five men were jailed in November 2019 under Operation Tendersea. Three of the men were not named for legal reasons whilst Umar Zaman fled to Pakistan and was sentenced in his absence.[18][19]

Seven more men were convicted in February 2020.[20][21]

A man was convicted in April 2020 along with another previously unnamed man, Shaqeel Hussai, who was sentenced to a further 12 months.[3]

After the reporting restrictions were lifted, the Conservative Home Secretary Sajid Javid sent out a tweet stating: "These sick Asian paedophiles are finally facing justice. I want to commend the bravery of the victims. For too long, they were ignored. Not on my watch. There will be no no-go areas."[22] His referencing of the ethnic heritage of the offenders was strongly condemned by senior Labour politicians Diane Abbott, Sadiq Khan and David Lammy, who alleged that he was seeking “to pin the blame on [...] one group” and pandering to the toxic racist agenda of the far right.[22] In a later interview with Sky News, Javid accused his critics of being "oversensitive" and refused to apologize or withdraw his comment, saying: "When I made that comment I was stating the facts, and the sad truth is that if you look at recent high-profile convictions of gang-based child sexual exploitation there is a majority of people that come from Pakistani heritage backgrounds - that's plain for everyone to see."[23] In December 2020, a report by the Home Office was released, showing that the majority of CSE gangs were, in fact, composed of white and it found no grounds for the assertion that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes[24][25][26]

• List of sexual abuses perpetrated by groups