This morning's Sunday featured an interview with the former Chief Prosecutor for the north-west of England, Nazir Afzal, who worked to prosecute Muslim grooming gangs in Rochdale.
Here's an extract from that interview:
Edward Stourton: Some people would make a link between the religion of these men and what happened. Do you think there's anything there?
Nazir Afzal: No. I mean, I'm a Muslim myself and I'm forbidden to drink, I'm forbidden to take drugs, I'm forbidden to abuse anybody, I'm forbidden to have sexual contact outside of marriage - all those things. Yet these perpetrators were surrounded by all of those things, so how can anybody say that they were doing it because of their religion?
