Around 50 such gangs have been identified across England:

One gang of 7 or 8 men based in Glasgow raped 4 children and were found guilty in 2023. This does not represent the same phenomenon found across England, with hundreds of mostly Pakistani men and the mass rape of more than 1 000 children, trafficked from badly-run care homes to multiple locations across the region.

Nevertheless in the Herald, today, the above claim by Pam Gosal, and:

A Scottish Conservative MSP has said she “echoes calls” made by the UK Conservative leader for a national inquiry into tackling child sexual abuse as she said Scotland is not immune to grooming gang issues. The call comes after tech billionaire Elon Musk recently used his X platform to launch a barrage of online attacks on the UK Government over the issue.

Terrible though the events in Glasgow were, they do not represent a phenomenon comparable to events in England. Two days ago, Scottish Labour attempted the same dirty trick as Gosal, but inadvertently revealed:

So far, there have been five local inquiries into the prevalence of these evil networks. The first was in Rotherham in 2014, followed by Rochdale, Oxford, Telford and Newcastle.¹ 

There have been no such local inquiries in Scotland.

In Rotherham, with a population of just over 100 000, a sixth of Glasgow, it is estimated that 1,400 girls, primarily from care home backgrounds, were abused by “grooming gangs” between 1997 and 2013.²

A Times investigation in 2003, of court records, showed 17 cases of localised grooming in 13 northern towns since 1997—14 since 2008—in which 56 men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 11–16.³

Why is this happening disproportionally in England? One reason can be found in the report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse October 2022:

There is no system of registration for the approximately 35,000 workers “mainly or solely providing care for children” (that is, in a care role) in England. In Wales (as well as in Scotland and Northern Ireland), children’s social care workers must register with a regulatory body.⁴

Surely as an MSP with advisers, Gosal must know this.

The absence of evidence may not always be the evidence of absence but there is a gap here between England and the rest of the UK which Scottish Cons and Labour cannot bridge, desperate though they are to tell Scots – ‘You’re no different!’

Sources:

1. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/crime/general/why-scotland-needs-urgent-national-investigation-into-child-sex-abuse-by-grooming-gangs/ar-AA1wWmJV?ocid=BingNewsVerp
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-61868863
3. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rotherham-child-sex-abuse-how-the-truth-finally-came-out-c2d9wgmwtd6
4. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report.html