STATISTICS show 95per cent of sex offenders are from the victims’ families.

So clearly the people who target, and groom strangers make up the minority of cases.

And while attackers are mainly men, two experts said they picked easy targets regardless of their cultural background.

For example, some white British men go abroad to abuse young girls, said David Niven, the former chairman of the British Association of Social Workers.

Mr Niven has spent his entire career dealing with cases of child sex abuse in the UK and abroad. He said Mr Straw referred to one manifestation of sex offending, which was a small part of the overall picture.

And it should not be seen as a race, or cultural issue, he added.

Mr Niven said: “Ultimately they are just excuses. It is about men who want to abuse children and who try and find a smokescreen, or an intellectual justification, for it.”

Mr Niven said sex offenders of all races and religions were very organised.

He said: “An ex-head of sexual offending in Scotland Yard described the organisation as ‘like that of a terrorist cell’. They have to be that secretive.

“But describing their actual psychology, the nearest I could say is addicts.

“With other addicts it is substance abuse and the main victims are themselves. But, in the case of a sex offender, the victim is a child.

“When we talk about cure, it is not really a relevant word. We should talk about control.”

University of Central Lancashire forensic psychology course leader Dr Carol Ann Ireland said people who abused children usually had experienced something that distorted their thinking during childhood.

Dr Ireland, a forensic psychologist, said: “We quite like to see ourselves as very different and so far removed from these offenders.

But the literature suggests that if presented with the same upbringing and experiences, we would also be at risk of committing some sort of offence.

“That doesn’t remove the responsibility. You cannot start excusing the behaviour. There’s still a choice there.

“But it is looking at what the catalyst is for that person’s offending.”

Having worked with hundreds of child sex offenders during her career, she pointed to a number of risks that research of convicted paedophiles suggests shape their behaviour.

Dr Ireland, vice-chairman of the Division of Forensic Psychology in the UK, said poor parenting, poor role models, unclear sexual boundaries in the home, skewed understanding of sexual issues, not being taught emotional skills and friendship skills, could all have an influence.

She said: “For example, an adolescent boy who has experienced some of these vulnerabilities may be attracted to a female peer and ask her out.

"He is rejected because he has not been taught relationship skills and finds it difficult to manage his emotions.

“So he ends up going to younger children who are more viable, more accepting, less questioning and he misconstrues the relationship as intimate.”