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UK Pakistani community says racism fears should have never prevented reporting on child abuse

Associated Press
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Rotherham Council chief executive Martin Kimber during a press conference at the New York Stadium, Rotherham, England, Tuesday Aug. 26, 2014, following the publication of a report which found around 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town over a 16-year period. Rotherham Council leader Roger Stone resigned Tuesday following the publication of the shocking report which detailed gang rapes, grooming, trafficking and other sexual exploitation on a wide scale in the South Yorkshire town. (AP Photo/PA, Dave Higgens) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE (The Associated Press)

Professor Alexis Jay during a press conference at the New York Stadium, Rotherham, England, Tuesday Aug. 26, 2014, following the publication of a report she wrote which found around 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town over a 16-year period. Rotherham Council leader Roger Stone resigned Tuesday following the publication of the shocking report which detailed gang rapes, grooming, trafficking and other sexual exploitation on a wide scale in the South Yorkshire town. (AP Photo/PA, Dave Higgens) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE (The Associated Press)

FILE - A Jan. 26, 2009 photo from files showing Roger Stone, leader of Rotherham Council who has stepped down with "immediate effect" Tuesday Aug. 26, 2014, after accepting responsibility on behalf of the council for failings detailed in a report which found around 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town over a 16-year period. The report on events in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, between 1997 and 2013 found that in more than a third of these cases the youngsters were already known to agencies. It said there had been "blatant" collective failures by Rotherham council's leadership. (AP Photo/PA, Anna Gowthorpe, File) UNITED KINGDOM OUT NO SALES NO ARCHIVE (The Associated Press)

Members of Britain's Pakistani community have expressed outrage after an independent inquiry found that police and government agencies failed to act on sex abuse cases because of concerns about racism in the northern English town of Rotherham.

Muhbeen Hussain, founder of the Rotherham Muslim Youth Group, told the Daily Mirror on Wednesday that Muslims are disgusted that justice was not done. A report Tuesday said some 1,400 children were sexually exploited over a 16-year period, mostly by ethnic Pakistani men.

Hussain says "race, religion or political correctness should never provide a cloak of invisibility to such grotesque crimes."

There are calls to oust Rotherham's police chief and others in positions of authority there after a report found that "collective failures" led to inaction in the town of 250,000.