Yesterday's Papers: Child abuse in Yorkshire

An extract from The Times's review Channel 4's documentary Edge of the City, about social workers in Bradford (27 August 2004):

'The "politically correct" social workers and those from other involved agencies made no bones about the fact that it has been mainly groups of Asian men who have been "grooming" girls for illegal sex, sometimes involving drugging, group-rape and the threat of extreme violence.

'The problem is that, while many underage girls have consented to sex and do not see it as a problem, others have been terrorised into silence. Neither group is willing to press charges. It is the social workers, along with campaigning mothers, who have been pushing the police to help them sort out the problem.'

The programme, incidentally, had originally been scheduled for May 2004, but had been postponed after Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, asked Channel 4 not to screen it on the grounds that it 'would increase community tension in Bradford'.

There were local and European elections that month, and others supported the police intervention. 'I am concerned that an ill-judged programme, shown at a time when elections are taking place, could inadvertently act as a recruiting sergeant for the BNP,' argued Lee Jasper of the National Assembly Against Racism. 'Investigating older men who are trying to procure underage girls into sex with drugs is certainly a legitimate subject for a documentary,' said Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain. 'But we were concerned that airing such a documentary at this time would inflame passions.'

Eric Pickles, the Conservative spokesman on local government, agreed: 'it would have been an immensely irresponsible piece of journalism to run with this programme, which the BNP itself is describing as its first party political broadcast.'

Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, despite having earlier 'claimed controversially that young Asian men, tied into arranged marriages, are turning to young girls for sex', this time put her faith in the authorities: 'The police would not have done this unless they were extremely worried.'