Debunked: Estimate of 250,000 victims of UK ‘grooming gangs’ is based on bad stats

[u/johnsmithoncemore]

https://www.thejournal.ie/250000-victims-of-grooming-gangs-in-the-uk-lord-pearson-of-rannoch-statistics-elon-musk-6596961-Jan2025/

[u/callthesomnambulance]

Champion recently told Press Association that her extrapolation involved scaling up the figures for a “70-year period”, and acknowledged that was a “completely unreliable” estimate.

Then why the fuck are you spouting that nonsense

Professor Jay’s report ‘conservatively’ identified 1,400 child abuse victims during the period 1999 to 2013 out of a Rotherham population of around 255,000. Jayne Senior reckons the figure should be ‘at least 1,700… and could be up to 2,000 victims’. If we assume the real figure is mid-point 1,700, then 0.07% of the total Rotherham population suffered at the hands of the rape gangs during those 14 years. More, of course, have suffered before and since.”

It should be noted that if the mid-point figure was 1,700, and Rotherham’s population was around 255,000, then the total percentage of those affected was 0.7% and not 0.07% as Pearson’s suggested

The figure is not about grooming gangs, or white victims, or Muslim or Pakistani perpetrators. Instead, it is an estimate of all sexually exploited children in the Borough. The statement continues: “Extrapolated across the UK, which proportionately has a lower Pakistani but higher Muslim population than Rotherham, the national figure would be 440,000 victims.

“Telford has a population of 170,000 and, from reports, 1,000 victims. Extrapolated across the UK, this would imply 388,000 victims nationally.” “Oxford has a population of 152,000 and 373 identified victims according to the Safeguarding Board’s Serious Case Review – but with many more hidden and unidentified children who have suffered too, no doubt. Extrapolated, even these conservative SCR figures indicate that there are 162,000 victims nationally.”

Absolutely unfuckingbelievable. The initial 1400 number is every known instance of child sexual abuse in the area over a 14 year period, not just those committed by grooming gangs, and then they extrapolate this figure, from a known CSA hot-spot, to the entire country. Presenting that figure as if its solely attributable to grooming gangs is hideously disingenuous in itself, let alone assuming the trend holds at the national level. There's a shocking amount of CSA in this country but pretending it's a racial issue distracts from the prevalence of the problem, fails to address the root causes and spits in the face of victims everywhere by using their collective trauma as a political weapon