Why is this not newsworthy?

yep, you are right thatbags. I thought I had the nationality bit right but I didnt

I believe that the cases are not reported because the papers must not influence the jury and the defendants are considered innocent until found guilty. However once the Judge has made his decision and the people if found guilty are awaiting sentencing then the Paper's can report.

I certainly can't tell nationalities. Useless at it. Thought my lovely nurse in hospital was Indian until I saw her name tag and realised she was probably Italian!

I have been unfortunate in that I have known several men (including a Catholic priest) who have been prosecuted and imprisoned for sexually abusing children. All these men were white. None of their court cases and prosecutions were reported nationally.

DH has an Irish name but isn't Irish. He is white British. He has very dark skin and in winter is often mistaken for someone from Romania or the Med. By mid summer when he's even more tanned he's mistaken for someone from the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent.

Can you really tell someone's nationality simply by looking at them? Would some of you be extra vigilant in his presence because he appears to be non-white?

Well done Huddersfield for catching this gang. I hope the trial gets a conviction. I fear this is happening all over the UK, but hidden. It's always been around in one form or another and, as has already been said, it always will be so long as there's a demand. What the answer is I don't know - castration perhaps!

Our DD1 lives near Aylsebury and can pick up both Look South and Look East. They opt for Look East as Look South tends to repeat much of the main news. Says it all I think!

You don't have to answer. I know the answer: you can't. Even if they are speaking a language other than English with their family or friends, they could still be British nationals.

Abonet said: "Of course they are not the same.
Take for instance the people I know. South Africans, third generation Indian.
Or the many mixed race I know.
Or relatives who have many races in their heritage, regardless of which country they now live in."

So, Abonet, to repeat my question that you seem to think is odd: how can you tell what a person's nationality is if you don't know them personally?

ddraig But the BBC didn't do a big piece about the gang, whose details I linked before. I've known of cases involving paedophile gangs here in Essex, which have made local but not national news.

There was also the case of the Conservative Cabinet member's half-brother, whose conviction disappeared from the front pages very quickly. He admitted dozens of child abuse allegations and had been a senior member of the Paedophile Information Exchange. The trial hadn't been reported.

There is also the question of the victims. I hope they're receiving some form of counselling and I can't imagine it would be helpful to have details of their abuse in the media every day.

I agree with you janeainsworth.

I remember from reading the Jay report that one of the problems was that even the police and social workers thought these girls were "slags" and didn't take them seriously.That has to change.

My daughter's boyfriend has a Muslim name, because his grandfather is from Yemen. He has inherited the surname and has a traditional Arab first name. He has a slightly Arab appearance. However, he was born in the UK, has always lived in the UK, isn't Muslim, has a slightly Mancunian accent and went to one of the most academic public schools in the country. He is totally "British establishment" (whatever that is).

Even my daughter has suffered racial comments by association.

Don't assume that names and appearance necessarily mean anything.

I find the link that daphne posted even more shocking.
3 of those on trial were convicted sex offenders but had managed to repeat their crimes. The way they broadcast their crimes over the Internet, and groomed families even before the babies they intended to abuse were born, is deeply repugnant and horrifying.
The police operation was started only when one of them went to the police and confessed.
Before anyone implies it, I'm not suggesting for one minute that the Huddersfield case is not horrifying too. Just that these cases are possibly more common than we like to think.
I think the answer if there is one, is to make Child Protection more prominent in the interactions between schools and parents, to empower parents to question their children about their acquaintances both online and in RL, but most importantly to empower girls to be resilient and refuse to get drawn into these evil webs and to know that they will be believed if they report things to the police or social workers.

Yes, this is newsworthy and yes, it is similar to what has happened in Rotherham, Derby, Keighley and other towns.
But it is what's called sub judice - it's before the courts at the moment so there is a limit to what can be reported about it.

Of course they are not the same.
Take for instance the people I know. South Africans, third generation Indian.
Or the many mixed race I know.
Or relatives who have many races in their heritage, regardless of which country they now live in.

I'm getting the feeling you are confusing nationality with racial descent, or even with religion. Those three things are not the same.

My extended family contains people who are descendants of Chinese people, Korean, Maltese, Africans, as well as Europeans. So far as I'm aware, their nationality in all cases is American (US) regardless of their racial appearance.

Abonet, people are not always the nationality that they might seem. For instance, when we lived in Oxfordshire we had a Muslim family living next door. Their recent roots were in Pakistan but they were as British as I, so not a different nationality at all.

I never assumed they were anything but British. Why would I if they lived and worked here and sent their kids to the local schools?

This is why I asked how do you tell what a person's nationality is.

An Asian friend brought this subject up this morning and informed me that all the accused men and women bar one have Muslim names.

I sometimes find that ITV news has different stories to the BBC. It is interesting watch the news from other Capital cities. The only one I tend not to watch is RT the Russian one.

That is partly why I didnt like the term Asian.
A South Korean is not Japanese or from Pakistan.

What a strange question thatbags. If they live in your vicinity you will likely know anyway.

Some nationalities are easy to know, especially the ones who go around in groups of family or friends.

Do you think that you cannot tell a lot of nationalities apart from each other?

No doubt you were being ironic, but I find that trite and irrelevant to the o/p.

If the men had been white, I've no doubt that the BBC would have done a big piece on it and quite possibly blamed that on BREXIT too, as they seem to do with any bad news story these days!

I think of the two it would be not wanting to generate racial hostility, this country feels as if it's on the edge

This issue has arisen in a number of Northern towns - Keighley, Rochdale & Rotherham - to name just a few. And now Huddersfield. I fail to understand why the London-based media do not fully report these cases - is it because it is an inconvenient truth or are they afraid of being labelled "racist"? Or is it because they are not interested in events outside the M25?
Unless we acknowledge the problem we can't solve it. Professor Jay's report - easily available online - estimates that 1,400 white children were abused in Rotherham by Asian men - but I do not believe it is a matter of race - it is a matter of culture. Britain adopted the policy of a Multicultural Society and anyone who disagreed was called racist. But some cultures do not accord with our values and/or laws - and the cultural norms in some communities badly impact on all women - not just white girls - and we should be prepared to challenge that.
Here are some extracts from the Jay Report:

"By far the majority of perpetrators were described as 'Asian' by victims, yet throughout the entire period, councillors did not engage directly with the Pakistani-heritage community to discuss how best they could jointly address the issue. Some councillors seemed to think it was a one-off problem, which they hoped would go away. Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."

"The Deputy Council Leader from the Pakistani-heritage community was clear that he had not understood the scale of the CSE problem in Rotherham until 2013. He had advocated taking the issue 'head on' but had been overruled. He was one of the elected members who said they thought the criminal convictions in 2010 were 'a one-off, isolated case', and not an example of a more deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. This was at best naïve, and at worst ignoring a politically inconvenient truth."

"There was too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders such as elected members and imams as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community. The Inquiry spoke to several Pakistani-heritage women who felt disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming forward to talk about CSE. Others believed there was wholesale denial of the problem in the Pakistani-heritage community … and this needed to be addressed urgently, rather than 'tiptoeing' around the issue."

"Both women and men from the community voiced strong concern that there had been no direct engagement with them about CSE over the past 15 years, The Home Affairs Select Committee quoted witnesses saying that cases of Asian men grooming Asian girls did not come to light because victims 'are often alienated and ostracised by their own families and by the whole community, if they go public with allegations of abuse.' With hindsight, it is clear that women and girls in the Pakistani community in Rotherham should have been encouraged and empowered by the authorities to speak out about perpetrators and their own experiences as victims of sexual exploitation, so often hidden from sight."

These are very worrying findings - women feeling "disenfranchised" and scared to speak out. I approach this whole problem as an old-fashioned feminist and if I get called "racist" then so be it. Women's safety is more important to me than cultural sensitivities.