You'll love this attachment then.
15. All forms of child sexual abuse are under-reported and the evidence on which we base these findings is limited to the cases we know about. Given that the majority of people who are sexually abused do not tell anyone at the time (see paragraph 58), and that some disclosures are not recorded, we are aware that there are aspects and dimensions to this kind of offending that are not covered in the literature or in any of the case studies we have considered.
16. Based on what we do know, the characteristics of offenders in group-based CSE include that they are predominantly but not exclusively male and are often older than sexual offenders in street gangs, but younger than lone child sexual offenders. In many cases, offenders are under the age of thirty, but in some cases they are much older.
17. A number of high-profile cases - including the offending in Rotherham investigated by Professor Alexis Jay, the Rochdale group convicted as a result of Operation Span, and convictions in Telford – have mainly involved men of Pakistani ethnicity. Beyond specific high-profile cases, the academic literature highlights significant limitations to what can be said about links between ethnicity and this form of offending. Research has found that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly White. Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending. This is due to issues such as data quality problems, the way the samples were selected in studies, and the potential for bias and inaccuracies in the way that ethnicity data is collected. During our conversations with police forces, we have found that in the operations reflected, offender groups come from diverse backgrounds, with each group being broadly ethnically homogenous. However, there are cases where offenders within groups come from different backgrounds.