00122-25 Versi v The Daily Telegraph
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Complaint Summary
Miqdaad Versi complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Daily Telegraph breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “Child groomers 'more likely to be Pakistanis'”, published on 11 January 2025.
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Published date
29th May 2025
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Outcome
No breach - after investigation
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Code provisions
1 Accuracy
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Published date
Summary of Complaint
1. Miqdaad Versi complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Daily Telegraph breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “Child groomers 'more likely to be Pakistanis'”, published on 11 January 2025.
2. The article reported on the ethnicity of perpetrators engaged in group-based child sexual offences. It said: “Pakistanis are up to four times more likely to be responsible for reported child sex-grooming offences than the general population data suggest.” It then reported that “[f]igures from all 43 forces in England and Wales show 13.7 per cent of child sexual exploitation ‘grooming’ offences in the first nine months of last year involved Pakistanis.” It further said: “This is proportionately between two and four times higher than their representation in the general population where Pakistanis account for 2.7 per cent, according to the 2021 census”; and the “figures were revealed yesterday by the team behind the first national police scheme to collect and analyse police recorded ‘group-based’ child sexual abuse including the ethnic background of perpetrators.”
3. The article went on to report:
“Grooming, which is defined by police as a form of group-based child sexual exploitation, accounted for 717 offences reported to police in 2023 and 572 in the first nine months of 2024. This represents 17 per cent of group-based child sexual offences, with the biggest threats to children being abused within the family or by other children. Group-based abuse itself accounted for 4,228 offences, or 3.7 per cent of all 115,489 child sexual abuse and exploitation crimes in 2023, including online.”
4. It also said that the “majority of grooming offences reported to police involved white perpetrators. They accounted for 70 per cent in 2023 and 63 per cent in the first nine months of 2024. Indians accounted for 1.6 per cent in 2023, and four per cent in 2024; Bangladeshis 1.3 per cent and 0.5 per cent; other Asians 6.3 per cent and 4.4 per cent; black Caribbean 1.1 per cent and one per cent; African 2.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent.”
5. The article also said: “Police chiefs stressed the breakdown was ’limited’ and had to be treated with caution as it only covered about a third of suspects because their ethnic background could only be recorded once they had been interviewed by police. They said there was more research needed to understand why there was an apparent disproportionate number of Pakistanis linked to child grooming offences.” The director of the Hydrant Programme - a national policing programme supporting the work of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), who produced the report from which the data was taken - was also quoted within the article: “But there are caveats with [the data]. We could have chosen to say we’re not coming with this because of those caveats, but actually, I think it’s a real public interest here. There could be other reasons as well, and that is the work we need to do around data quality, to understand that more.”
6. The article also appeared online in substantially the same format under the headline “Pakistanis up to four times more likely to be behind grooming”.
7. The complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 as he considered the headline and article had misrepresented police data. He said the data showed that, in the first three quarters of 2024, 85% of group-based child abusers were white, and 3.9% were Pakistani. However, the article claimed 13.7% of Pakistanis were group-based child abusers. The complainant said the 13.7% figure was only accurate if you removed other group-based child abusers, such as institutional groups, sports groups, schools, and church-based group offenders, and group child abuse committed in a family setting. The complainant said he did not dispute the accuracy of the original data, however the article’s interpretation of the data was misleading.
8. The complainant requested an apology, a right of reply in the form of a comment piece, and a meeting with the newspaper’s senior team to discuss its coverage of similar issues.
9. The publication did not accept a breach of the Code. It said the article was accurate and set out the basis for the headline: “Figures from all 43 forces in England and Wales show 13.7 per cent of child sexual exploitation ‘grooming’ offences in the first nine months of last year involved Pakistanis. In 2023, they accounted for 6.9 per cent of the grooming crimes reported to police. This is proportionately between two and four times higher than their representation in the general population where Pakistanis account for 2.7 per cent, according to the 2021 census." The publication said the article provided relevant context for the dataset which supported the headline – and it was accurate to report that Pakistani people were four times more likely to commit grooming offences as a proportion of the population.
10. The publication said that the article had also reported on the data related to other ethnicities and that the author of the report said it came with “caveats”:
“Police chiefs stressed the breakdown was ‘limited’ and had to be treated with caution as it only covered about a third of suspects because their ethnic background could only be recorded once they had been interviewed by police. They said there was more research needed to understand why there was an apparent disproportionate number of Pakistanis linked to child grooming offences.”
11. The publication then said it was entitled to highlight one of the datasets in the report issued by the Hydrant Programme; specifically, the prevalence of Pakistani grooming gangs. The publication said the article made clear the category of offenders it was referring to: those who were suspected of having committed "group based child sexual exploitation", rather than child sex offences committed in a familial, institutional, or ritualistic context. It said the article highlighted the "group based child exploitation" category, as it was pertinent to the current debate about the grooming gangs in places such as Rochdale and Oldham and the concerns that fears of allegations of racism may have facilitated the actions of these gangs. It noted that said grooming gangs had been the subject of debate and a vote on a national inquiry into the gangs in the House of Commons at the beginning of January 2025. After the article’s publication, on 16 January 2025, the Home Secretary had in fact announced plans for a nationwide review of grooming gang evidence and five government backed local inquiries.
12. The complainant said the article did not caveat its headline claim by making clear it was only reporting on "group-based non-family, non-institutional, non-church based” child sex offences. Therefore, the reader would assume the article was referencing all types of child grooming.
Relevant Clause Provisions
Clause 1 (Accuracy)
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.
iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for.
iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings of the Committee
13. The Committee acknowledged that read in isolation, the headline could be interpreted in different ways, however it acknowledged that headlines must be considered in conjunction with the text of the article. It noted that any ambiguity was clarified by the text of the article. The first four paragraphs of the article set out the basis for the claim in the headline: “[f]igures from all 43 forces in England and Wales show 13.7 per cent of child sexual exploitation ‘grooming’ offences in the first nine months of last year involved Pakistanis” and that the percentage was “proportionately between two and four times higher than their representation in the general population where Pakistanis account for 2.7 per cent, according to the 2021 census”. The article also made clear that the ”majority of grooming offences reported to police involved white perpetrators” and included the police chiefs’ position that, “there was more research needed to understand why there was an apparent disproportionate number of Pakistanis linked to child grooming offences”. The article made clear that the figure of 13.7 percent related to sexual exploitation grooming and that Pakistanis were disproportionately represented in the data for this type of offence. The text of the article, therefore, supported the headline, in line with the terms of Clause 1 (i).
14. The complainant had also raised concerns that the article was misleading as it did not make clear the 13.7% statistic omitted institutional and family-based abuse. The Committee noted the article made clear the category of abuse it was referring to: “Grooming, which is defined by police as group-based child sexual exploitation, accounted for 717 offences reported to police in 2023 and 572 in the first nine months of 2024. This represents 17 per cent of group-based child sexual offences, with the biggest threats to children being abused within the family or by other children”. It was therefore clear that the article was focussed on the subset of offences involving group-based child exploitation.
15. In such circumstances, the Committee was satisfied that the newspaper had taken care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information and that the headline was supported by the article, as required by Clause 1. There was no breach of Clause 1.
Conclusions
16. The complaint was not upheld.
Remedial action required
17. N/A
Date complaint received: 10/01/2025
Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 13/05/2025