𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

And Dame Louise said: “I was following through on a children’s file in archive and found the word ‘Pakistani’ tippexed out.

“I thought whoever did that inadvertently was giving ammunition to the English Defence League that were every week, in and out, campaigning and doing their stuff in that town.

“I think the problem is that people are worried about being called racist…. if good people don’t grasp difficult things, bad people will, and that’s why we have to do it as a society.”

She added that “if we just establish the facts, then you can take the pain out of this”.

“I think you’ve got sort of do-gooders that don’t really want this to be found because, you know, ‘Oh, God, then all the racists are going to be more racist’,” she added.

“Well, actually, people that are racist are going to use this anyway. All you’re doing with the hate mongers and the racists is giving them more ammunition.”

Officials dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, even though available data showed suspects were disproportionately likely to be Asian men, the Home Secretary told the House of Commons.

Speaking as a review of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey was published on Monday, Yvette Cooper told MPs: “While much more robust national data is needed, we cannot and must not shy away from these findings, because, as Baroness Casey says, ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities.”

She said Baroness Casey found examples of organisations “avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions”.

Ms Cooper said: “These findings are deeply disturbing, but most disturbing of all, as Baroness Casey makes clear, is the fact that too many of these findings are not new.”

Currently ethnicity is only recorded for around 37% of suspects.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight, Baroness Casey said: ‘What really has got to me a bit about doing this particular report is that ten years ago I could have been clearer about what was happening in Rotherham.

“I said at the time there are national implications, this isn’t the only place this is happening in.

“Over a long period of time there have been lots of initiatives, lots of reviews… and yet it doesn’t feel it has come to anything.

She added: “I am raging actually on behalf of the victims… it’s been awful to realise that as a society we still don’t see these girls as girls.”

In one case in Newcastle, an asylum seeker convicted of offences ‘spoke in a derogatory way about lack of morals in British girls and the ease with which he was able to access sex, drugs and alcohol’.

Lady Casey said it was “not racist to want to examine the ethnicity of offenders”.

But she pointed to a culture of public bodies avoiding the issue “for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems”.