Holy Smoke: did Muslim leaders help conceal the grooming gangs scandal? A fierce exchange of views
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Damian draws an analogy between the Catholic hierarchy's cover-up of sex abuse by priests, and what he claims was the role of certain local Muslim community leaders in restricting debate about, and investigation of, abuse committed by men from Pakistani families. To say that there was no common ground between Dr Thompson and Dr Hussain would be putting it mildly, alas...
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivaled books and arts reviews. |
| 0:06.1 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online. |
| 0:11.2 | Alongside that, you get a 20-pound John Lewis or Waitrose Voucher. |
| 0:14.7 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:29.3 | Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast. |
| 0:31.2 | I'm Damien Thompson. |
| 0:57.0 | In the last few weeks, Britain's of all backgrounds have been profoundly shocked, as we've learned more details, about the grooming gang scandal, or the series of grooming gang scandals, which have polluted public life for decades, which involved the rape and sexual abuse of thousands of girls, predominantly working-class white girls, by gangs of predominantly men of Pakistani origin, that is, men who are nominally Muslims. The religious aspect of these |
| 1:03.8 | scandals is extremely sensitive, and it would be wrong to claim that Islam is to blame for |
| 1:09.9 | them, nor should anyone suggest that the |
| 1:12.3 | Muslim community as a whole is tainted by what's happened. Indeed, in 2013, 500 imams throughout |
| 1:19.1 | the country condemned the grooming and abuse of children, though that was after the convictions |
| 1:24.8 | of Muslim men for horrific crimes. The fact we must confront is that there have |
| 1:29.9 | been historic reports of people complaining about a lack of engagement from some Muslim community |
| 1:35.5 | and religious leaders. For example, as far back as 2002, Anne Cryer, the then Labour MP for |
| 1:42.3 | Keithley, was contacted by distressed mothers, |
| 1:45.3 | claiming that their daughters were being taken to parties, plied with drugs and sexually abused |
| 1:50.5 | by older men from Keithley's Pakistani community. |
| 1:54.3 | Cryer was stonewalled by West Yorkshire Police, she said, |
| 1:58.1 | so she privately approached elders at one of Keatley's mosques with a list of 35 suspected |
| 2:04.0 | perpetrators. As the Guardian reported, they refused her request to visit the suspected |
| 2:09.6 | perpetrators and explained to them that their behaviour was totally un-Islamic. The elders allegedly |
| 2:15.4 | said, go back to Anne Cryer and tell her it's nothing to do with us. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -27 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.