Bishop claims church leaders 'silent' on grooming

A bishop has claimed church leaders have been "collectively silent on grooming gangs" in an article for The Church of England Newspaper.

Bishop of Blackburn the Right Reverend Philip North's comments followed Baroness Louise Casey's recent report, which said the ethnicity of people involved in grooming gangs had been "shied away from" by authorities.

In the article, he described clergy's local knowledge as "legendary", adding: "There must be hundreds of other church leaders like me who had heard rumours, stories and concerns yet said nothing."

The BBC has asked the Church of England for a response.

Bishop North said: "I have heard directly and on many occasions of the anxiety of working-class families that their daughters are vulnerable to well organised gangs.

"Why did I so readily believe the voices that claimed that calling for an inquiry was a collusion with the far right?"

In January, the prime minister accused those calling for a national inquiry of "amplifying" the far right's demands.

He has since confirmed a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs will be held after recommendations in the Casey report.

The review found poor data collection on perpetrators' ethnicity, which could be "used to suit the ends of those presenting it", and cause members of Asian, Pakistani and Muslim communities to "needlessly suffer as those with malicious intent use this obfuscation to sow and spread hatred".

Bishop North said the recent Casey report "causes me to ask myself a very uncomfortable question".

"Why did I not publicly support an inquiry when the issue was raised earlier in the year?"

He said the Church was "quick to speak out on benefits and inequality, on Israel and Gaza, on assisted dying and the care system".

"Why have we been collectively silent on grooming gangs?"

Bishop North said his own reasons were "twofold", including that he "feared damaging" his "precious relationships with members of the south Asian Muslim community in Lancashire, sincere friendships which really matter to me and which are critical as we work together for social cohesion".

"Second, the Church of England has rightly apologised for institutional racism and is seeking to change and become a church that promotes anti-racism at every level," he wrote.

"Raising an issue that so directly impacts one ethnic group could appear to sit ill with our commitment to racial justice."

He added he found those reasons "unconvincing" when he analysed them.

"The cause of social cohesion is undermined by failure to name the criminal behaviour of a tiny minority, especially when it is equally condemned by the vast majority of Asian heritage men and women," he wrote.

He said he was engaging in "some serious reflection about my fear-driven silence when it comes to grooming gangs", adding: "I hope other church leaders will do the same."

The Church itself has also faced strong criticism of its responses when members of the clergy are accused of abuse by survivors, with the former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigning in 2024 after a damning report into a prolific child abuser associated with the Church.

Bishop North said the institution faced the problem of a "growing distance" between a "culturally middle-class established church" and the needs of working-class communities.

"All too often, we are either silent or actively at odds with the issues that most trouble working-class neighbourhoods: not just grooming gangs but the impact of immigration on community life, benefits dependency, the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers, energy costs and so on."

He added that "being attentive" to needs of working-class communities did not mean the Church had to agree with them all.

He said the Church should be "ensuring that voices that are often silenced are given proper attention in public dialogue", or else it would be playing its part in "creating a political vacuum that the far right will be all too happy to fill".

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