Gladys Rhodes White is Blackburn with Darwen Council’s director of families, health and wellbeing and oversees Engage, which was set up to tackle the issue of sex grooming. She tells of the efforts being made locally.

WHEN we originally set up Engage as a project involving the council, police, and social workers, we did not know the scale of the problem.

Because previously there had been just a small police team, the levels of convictions were low.

But already we have taken 69 suspects to court and have worked with between 200 and 250 victims, and they are just the ones that have come forward.

A lot of the focus this week has been whether there is a problem with specific parts of the community, but we focus on all types of sexual exploitation and see offenders from all communities.

The majority of the perpetrators are white, around 80per cent.

However, it is correct to say that initially the cases that came to us were cases involving Asian-heritage men.

When we began to work more closely with victims we then started seeing more perpetrators, and it is true to say it is not a problem that was confined to a particular community.

What Jack Straw said about a small number of Pakistani men highlights just a very specific part of the problem.

Mr Straw understands the community very well and I think he was focusing on a particular problem in relation to a specific incident.

He understands that in Blackburn there are many more offenders who are not from that community.

Sexual exploitation of the most vulnerable people in our society is despicable and we are not concerned with the racial backgrounds of offenders as much as we are with their offending.

Our work is to help young people stay safe and not become victims.

We need a balanced view and debate on the issue so we can deal with it, and that means we are not ducking tough issues and we are being brave.

Prevention, protection and prosecution is what we work to.

There have been some truly awful cases of abuse and kidnap, and they never fail to upset us. That is why we are working so hard.

It is really scary what some sick people do, but our focus must be on keeping them safe and targeting those offenders, no matter what community they are from.