Courts must hand more severe punishments to grooming gangs found to target their victims by race, one of the Government’s most senior legal advisors has said. Robert Buckland QC, the Solicitor General, said existing powers can be used to lengthen prison sentences for abusers such as the 18 predominantly Asian defendants convicted in Newcastle this week.
Speaking to The Telegraph, he said: “The law does not discriminate. When it talks about sentencing increases for racial aggravation it doesn’t cut one way, it cuts all ways. Where there is a racial element in sexual abuse cases, the law is clear that courts can apply a sentencing uplift. Racial aggravation should be front and centre in cases where there is evidence of racial hostility or motivation.”
He spoke amid calls for sentences handed to the Newcastle gang, which assaulted girls and young women in a four-year campaign of sexual exploitation, to be reviewed by the Attorney General.
The gang was caught by Operation Shelter, which was a smaller part of a larger investigation covering sexual exploitation in Tyne and Wear and Northumberland codenamed Operation Sanctuary which identified more than 700 potential victims since 2014 and resulted in the conviction of 93 people jailed for more than 300 years.
