Thread: Rotherham: In the face of such evil, who is the racist now?

The Yorkshire town where 1,400 girls have been sexually abused by Asian men is a byword for depravity – all because people wouldn’t rock the multicultural boat
Rotherham

In Rotherham, South Yorkshire Police “regarded many child victims with contempt”
Let’s start with a riddle. If South Yorkshire Police can mount a raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home in pursuit of evidence linked to a single allegation of child sex abuse 30 years ago, why were South Yorkshire Police incapable of pursuing multiple allegations against multiple men who raped 1,400 children over 16 years?

One thousand four hundred. Consider the weight of that number, feel its tragic heft. Picture 50 junior-school classes of little girls in Rotherham, once a respectable northern town, now a byword for depravity. We have seen child-grooming cases before, but the disgusting stories revealed in the report by Professor Alexis Jay amount to evidence of abuse on an industrial scale.

Men of Pakistani heritage treated white girls like toilet paper. They picked children up from schools and care homes and trafficked them across northern cities for other men to join in the fun. They doused a 15-year-old in petrol and threatened to set her alight should she dare to report them. They menaced entire families and made young girls watch as they raped other children.

These truly horrible things happened in our country – not in the distant, cruel past, but as recently as last year. All but one of the perpetrators were Muslims of Pakistani heritage who would have related to Cliff’s hit, Living Doll.

'Nobody at the council needs to resign' claims deputy leader 27 Aug 2014
The living dolls of Rotherham were bent and twisted to their masters’ will. There was no escape. As the sterling Professor Jay observes, South Yorkshire Police “regarded many child victims with contempt”.

One 11-year-old known as Child H told police that she and another girl had been sexually assaulted by grown men. Nothing was done. When she was 12, Child H was found in the back of a taxi with a man who had indecent pictures of her on his phone. Despite the full co-operation of her father, who insisted his daughter was being abused, police failed to act.

Four months later, Child H was found in a house alone with a group of Pakistani men. What did the police do? They arrested the child for being drunk and disorderly and ignored her abusers. As President Obama said about the fiends who beheaded the journalist James Foley: “No just God would stand for what they did.”

My, what the British people would give to hear such ringing moral condemnation from our own political leaders.

The Labour Party, in particular, is mired in shame over “cultural sensitivity” in Rotherham. Especially, cynics might point out, a sensitivity to the culture of Muslims whose votes they don’t want to lose. Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham from 1994 to 2012, actually admitted to the BBC’s World At One that “there was a culture of not wanting to rock the multicultural community boat, if I may put it like that. Perhaps, yes, as a true Guardian reader and liberal Leftie, I suppose I didn’t want to raise that too hard.” Much better to hang on to your impeccable liberal credentials than save a few girls from being raped, eh, Denis?

Equally horrifying is the suggestion that certain Pakistani councillors asked social workers to reveal the addresses of the shelters where some of the abused girls were hiding. The former deputy leader of the council, Jahangir Akhtar, is accused of “ignoring a politically inconvenient truth” by insisting there was not a deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls. The inquiry was told that influential Pakistani councillors acted as “barriers to communication” on grooming issues.

Front-line youth workers who submitted reports in 2002, 2003 and 2006 expressing their alarm at the scale of the child sex-offending say the town hall told them to keep quiet about the ethnicity of the perpetrators in the interests of “community cohesion”.

Fear of appearing racist trumped fears of more children being abused. Not only were negligent officials not prosecuted, they prospered. Shaun Wright, a former Labour councillor who was in charge of Rotherham children’s services during a five-year period when a blind eye was turned to the worst case of mass child abuse in British history, is now South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner. Oh, Jonathan Swift, thou shouldst be writing at this hour!

Jane Collins, the Ukip MEP for Yorkshire and Humber, has called for Mr Wright to stand down, a demand that has been echoed by Labour as it realises the full horror of what was done – or not done – by its councillors. “To cover up something of this scale, it is evil,” says Mrs Collins.

It’s impossible not to share that incredulous fury. Powerless white working-class girls were caught between a hateful, imported culture of vicious misogyny on the one hand, and on the other a culture of chauvinism among the police, who regarded them as worthless slags. Officials trained up in diversity and political correctness failed to acknowledge what was effectively white slavery on their doorstep.

Much too embarrassing to concede that it wasn’t white people who were committing racist hate crimes in this instance.

The whole thing is like a real-life episode of Prime Suspect, in which councillors, the police and child-protection staff collude to give a bunch of sadistic thugs licence to pimp a town’s most vulnerable children. As they say in Yorkshire: “They want shooting, the lot of them.”

This will come as no comfort to the 1,400 brutalised girls, many of whom have self-harmed or committed suicide, but I reckon Rotherham may be the final nail in the coffin of multiculturalism. Far from discouraging racism, the Labour policy of withholding the ethnic identity of men who preyed on white girls backfired spectacularly. Criminally, it endangered hundreds of children who might otherwise have been spared. A recent poll showed that 44 per cent of young Britons believe that Muslims do not share the same values as the rest of the population, while 28 per cent said they felt Britain would be “better off” with fewer Muslims.

Attitudes are even more negative among older people. A recent Radio 4 item about how junior jihadists spending their gap year massacring people in Iraq could be “reintegrated” into British society produced hoots of derision on social media and spilt tea across the breakfast tables of England. (Hands up anyone who wants the blighters back?) The period of giving the benefit of the doubt to young Muslims who go on “camping holidays” to Syria is over. Undoubtedly, the fact that “Jihadi John”, the hooded man who was party to the beheading of James Foley, spoke with a London accent has provoked further despair about the widespread failure of Muslims to integrate.

Has it really come to this? A child raised with all the freedoms and blessings of a British upbringing behaving like a natural-born barbarian.

My colleague Boris Johnson’s excellent suggestion that any Britons who travel to Syria and Iraq without informing the authorities should be presumed to be potential terrorists until proven innocent produced howls of outrage from the human rights brigade – but it struck an entire symphony of chords with Britons of all creeds and colours who are sick of being taken for mugs.

There are other hopeful signs. The Rotherham scandal seems temporarily to have silenced those who insist, every time a child-grooming case is exposed, that most paedophiles are white. Indeed they are; but the Rotherham abusers were not paedophiles. They were men of Pakistani heritage slaking their lust on young girls they regarded as white trash because they knew they could get away with it. It grieves me to say they were right. Like South Yorkshire Police, they treated 1,400 defenceless children “with contempt”.

On Channel 4 News on Tuesday, Javed Khan, the chief executive of Barnardo’s, refused to give a straight answer to a question about the part that “ethnicity” played in the abuse of girls in Rotherham. As the presenter Jackie Long persisted, Mr Khan insisted that we should not be focusing on the identity of the perpetrators because it “distracted attention” from the children who were their victims.

On the contrary. It is of the utmost importance that wider society wakes up to the fact that there is what the inquiry found to be a “deep-rooted problem of Pakistani-heritage perpetrators targeting young white girls”. Many of us who have been saying this for a long time have been shouted down as racist.

Thanks to Prof Jay, it has been stated publicly for the first time that the fear of appearing racist was more pressing in official minds than enforcing the law of the land or rescuing terrified children. It is one of the great scandals of our lifetime.

The Labour council of Rotherham stands accused of ignoring child sex abuse on an unimaginable scale for 16 years. There can be no more serious charge against a public body. Former councillors who dismissed evidence or otherwise attempted to pervert the course of justice should be arrested. Officers who snubbed appeals from desperate children and their families have no place in our police force.

Thus far, a mere five men have been jailed in connection with the disgusting crimes in Rotherham. A further 30 are under investigation. We need a campaign to get other abused children to come forward and receive the appropriate help. We need them to identify the perpetrators.

Shame and name, and shame again. Above all, we need those girls to know that what was done to them was criminal, and the way those crimes were ignored and suppressed by powerful men with a political agenda was despicable as well as criminal.





To avoid rocking the multicultural boat, they fed 1,400 children to the sharks.

No just God would stand for what they did.
Rotherham: In the face of such evil, who is the racist now? - Telegraph

I have a feeling that if we ever get to have a proper investigation into the Establishments endemic pedophilia.... all this will be small fry compared to it. I see this al as Establishment hushing up investigations into sex crimes against children rather than protecting pakis etc. They do not want to allow anything to get close to their activities.

Originally Posted by ENT

A child raised with all the freedoms and blessings of a British upbringing

What, Care homes and 'seeking comfort in the company of strangers'.

Originally Posted by ENT

They were men of Pakistani heritage slaking their lust on young girls they regarded as white trash

The establishment apparently agreed.
Many of the girls themselves agreed.
Sad stuff. This Is Britain.

Yorkshire has changed quite a bit from the version James Herriot wrote about.......not a lot of Pakistanis around in those days.

When you see the kind of shit than goes on in Pakistan what did they expect? One of the planets lowest life-forms moves en-masse to Yorkshire and now people are shocked that they did not fulfill the distorted expectations of the Labour Party and other idealists.

Wait for it. "but....but.....it's not the pakis fault, it's societies fault for not protecting the girls "
Some horrible kunts around.

The problem currently being ignored is the chronic inability of the Pakis to govern in any capacity whether it be at a local ward or county council level. Pakis migrated because their country is a total shithole with no redeeming features whatsoever: no rule of law, utterly corrupt government, poor employment prospects and the awful inevitability that progress depended solely on personal connections.

This social chaos,further hindered by an ignorant and savage set of beliefs, has inculcated an approach to life which is utterly focused on the family and the mosque. Nothing else matters and political representation is simply a means of enhancing personal wealth for their family. They as a breed are completely without personal integrity or civilised ethics if they feel their family interests are threatened.

Pakis should never be allowed to reach positions of any authority or power. They will always, always abuse any trust vested in them if they feel their own narrow self interests are threatened. If that means concealing the truth their young men are no more than hypocritical, ignorant, sadistic, sex crazed, rapist savages who go crazy over white meat then so be it. Nothing should be allowed to undermine the role of men in Paki society and if that entails suppressing the truth that they are ghastly, hirsute, lying, sex- obsessed, hypocritical scumbags with nothing to offer humanity except their filthy carcasses fit for fertiliser and nothing else, then so much the better.

Pakis are incapable of civilised behaviour and should not be permitted to develop their obscene society next to anyone else's. They are quite incapable of cohabitation according to any law beyond their own nasty self interests and in many ways simply leech off others as any virus might do.

Innit, mate.

Originally Posted by Koojo

Wait for it. "but....but.....it's not the pakis fault, it's societies fault for not protecting the girls "
Some horrible kunts around.

Its the government fault for not having sensible immigration policies. That's a simple fact.

Originally Posted by thegent

Pakis are incapable of civilised behaviour and should not be permitted to develop their obscene society next to anyone else's

Indeed; even India can't stand having them next door.....

That is quite unhelpful Pseud. The commonwealth were welcomed post war to sustain our development. That's the price you pay. Indians and Chinese, and most West Indians, are well integrated in our society but the Pakis have always been anathema.

It's just life, innit, mite. Labour scum sucking cock for the Paki vote is what caused this disgraceful cover up and permitted the crimes to proceed unabated. The Labout MP and his constituency party should be prosecuted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice as indeed should the central Labour Party who were witting and complicit parties to the conspiracy.

Originally Posted by thegent

That is quite unhelpful Pseud. The commonwealth were welcomed post war to sustain our development. That's the price you pay. Indians and Chinese, and most West Indians, are well integrated in our society but the Pakis have always been anathema.

It's just life, innit, mite. Labour scum sucking cock for the Paki vote is what caused this disgraceful cover up and permitted the crimes to proceed unabated. The Labout MP and his constituency party should be prosecuted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice as indeed should the central Labour Party who were witting and complicit parties to the conspiracy.

As I said -a sensible immigration policy.

Laboru and tory no different - all have to bring in the cheap workers for their political donors. Problem is that the ones from British Created Pakistan don't care to work and abuse the system. No dount one of the reasons Osbourne is entertaining the lobbyists from US health care companies at his state funded country pile, ready to close the NHS.....sold to the country as being fairer to make everyone pay for healthcare.

Originally Posted by koman

Yorkshire has changed quite a bit from the version James Herriot wrote about.......not a lot of Pakistanis around in those days.

Not a lot of mentions of Rotherham in James Herriot books either.

He wrote escapist fiction depicting the lives of country vets, ffs.

Originally Posted by Koojo

.it's not the pakis fault, it's societies fault for not protecting the girls

It's both, innit? Of course, one cannot blame all paki's- the vast majority are not pedophiles- and there were indeed people in the social services who tried to do something about, but were shunned by the government bureacrats and police force. And then there are the girls themselves- who, in some cases, even acted as recruiters and enablers for these perverts.

Quite a bit of malaise there- I do hope there is a full, independent Commission of investigation. Heck, the 'establishment' may even be up for it- to divert eyes from their own skullduggery, and complicity.

I bet saville did more noncing personally than this lot put together. Do the righteous bigots say all christian charity workers are heinous pedos as well? No.

Originally Posted by cyrille

Originally Posted by koman

Yorkshire has changed quite a bit from the version James Herriot wrote about.......not a lot of Pakistanis around in those days.

Not a lot of mentions of Rotherham in James Herriot books either.

He wrote escapist fiction depicting the lives of country vets, ffs.

It was just a general comment, and not part of the point being made. I think most people would know that.

Are you about to join with Pseudo and others to make excuses for these kunts and blame it all on somebody else as usual? We are already seeing the signs emerge.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

I bet saville did more noncing personally than this lot put together. Do the righteous bigots say all christian charity workers are heinous pedos as well? No.

No one is saying all pakis are nonces either. Just that as a rule they're horrible kunts.

Originally Posted by cyrille

Fact is a vocal minority jump on anything like this as an excuse to further their myopic, racist agenda.

What racist agenda? Are we supposed to just keep ignoring this because they are Pakistani? Are you defending these people, or not?

Are you OK with the rape and abuse of more that 1400 young underage girls just because the crimes were committed by Pakistani Muslims .....read the article FFS.. There have been reports of similar things happening in other places in the UK as well.

No wonder the UK is getting so totally fucked up with this kind of attitude.....let's start an argument about James Herriot and drag Wind in the Willows into the conversation instead of calling a spade a fucking spade. Racist my ass.

Multiculturalism is to blame for the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal

POLITICAL correctness is a vile, perverted ideology which is wrecking our society and ruining the lives of the innocent.

By: Leo McKinstry


Published: Thu, August 28, 2014







Former Labour council leader Roger Stone has resigned [SWNS]


That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the shocking child abuse scandal in Rotherham.

Yesterday an official report from Professor Alexis Jay, the former chief inspector of social work in Scotland, revealed that no fewer than 1,400 girls in the area, some of them as young as 11, had been systematically targeted, raped and assaulted over a 16-year period.

The scale of the abuse was horrendous, the violence harrowing.

The key fact about this brutal crime wave was that almost all the predators were men of Pakistani and Kashmiri origin, while the majority of their victims were white.

That is precisely why the abuse went on so long and the terrible suffering of the girls was ignored.

The authorities in Rotherham failed to act because the race-fixated dogma of anti-discrimination meant that they had completely lost their moral bearings and every last vestige of compassion

Since the publication of the report, the media has been full of bewildered cries asking why this scandal was allowed to happen. But there is no mystery.

The fashionable political orthodoxy that has gripped much of the public sector, especially social work, holds that, in racially prejudiced Britain, ethnic minorities are perpetual victims and white people their oppressors.

Immersed in this doctrine the social services and police shamefully refused to confront the reality of predatory Muslim gangs attacking white girls.

This week's report admits that dark truth.

Professor Jay records that, though almost all the offenders were Pakistanis, "some people in the council and the police wanted to play down the ethnic dimension", while frontline staff were unsure how to speak out "for fear of being thought racist".

The staff who did nothing for years are a disgrace to their profession. What is particularly sickening is their desperation to cover up the abuse in their attempt to maintain the illusion that cultural diversity was working in Rotherham.

In the twisted mindset of the authorities, protecting their cherished dogma of multiculturalism was far more important than protecting vulnerable girls.

That attitude is also highlighted in another passage in the report, where Professor Jay reveals that officials were fearful of tackling the Muslim gangs "because it might damage community cohesion".

But that just demonstrates the grotesque logical absurdity of multiculturalism.

There is neither a community nor any cohesion when this kind of violence, racism and misogyny is cravenly tolerated by the state.




A report found that girls as young as 11 were raped in Rotherham [PA]

In the name of supposed tolerance the state has ended up colluding with savage intolerance in our midst

The destructive influence of multiculturalism is further illustrated by the report's criticism of the police for relying too heavily on Muslim elders in their occasional, enfeebled attempts to address the problem.

If we had a strong British, united identity in our cities rather than the Balkanised mess that exists at present, the police could just get on with their job of tackling crime rather than obsessing about the sensitivities of another culture.

In the name of supposed tolerance the state has ended up colluding with savage intolerance in our midst.

The casual acceptance of multiple rapes by Muslim gangs is the equivalent of the blind eye turned towards Islamic extremism.

Like the victims of British jihadism, the abused girls from Rotherham have been sacri-ficed on the altar of political correctness.

Nothing better illustrates the monstrously warped priorities of this council than the contrast between its paralysis in the face of Muslim sex gangs and its decision in 2011 to remove three foster children from the home of their adoptive parents who were found to be members of Ukip.

Though these two parents were described as “exemplary”, Rotherham children’s services department argued that their political allegiance “did not fit” with the children’s “cultural and ethnic needs”.

So Rotherham could act decisively when it wanted, but such rigour just shows the inverted morality that enveloped the council where support for Ukip was regarded as a greater crime than the rape of an adolescent.

Even now, after all the revelations from Professor Jay, the cultural cringe is still going on.

On Tuesday, as news of the scandal broke, five of the BBC’s seven online articles about the report made no reference at all to Pakistani men.

In the same vein, a pitiful article in a Leftwing newspaper argued that we have a duty “to avoid sensationalist stereotyping”.

That is exactly the cowardly attitude which allowed these crimes to go unpunished for so long.

Nor have the authorities shown any real remorse. All we hear is the usual blather about changed procedures.

Apart from council leader Roger Stone, no bureaucrat or police officer has resigned.

Imagine if this situation had been reversed, with more than 1,000 Asian girls attacked by gangs of predatory white men.

The media would have exploded with fury.

In place of this mix of trepidation and defiance there would be mass sackings and demands for a wholesale revolution in cultural attitudes. Sadly, for all its horrors, Rotherham is just the tip of iceberg.

The same phenomenon of predatory gangs has been seen in other towns with significant Muslim populations such as Oxford, Telford, Derby and Rochdale, met by the usual response of indifference and cover-up from the authorities.

The sheer geographical incidence of this abuse is another indictment of the creed of multiculturalism.


http://www.express.co.uk/comment/col...otherham-abuse

In all my time of working with Paki immigrant folk I was never left in any doubt that as an indigenous white British male I could never, ever be accepted on equal terms by them. And nor did I ever see a need to desire that acceptance. And what separated us? Their unquestioning belief in some ridiculous God and a slavish commitment to whatever some fat arsed bearded mullah uttered on behalf of their absurd doctrine.

As an intelligent human being unencumbered by such primitive notions I was never constrained by the need to believe in the pluralist claptrap of Nulabour and their ghastly sycophants and acted accordingly.

If they weren't so damned hairy perhaps it might help.

If we had a strong British, united identity in our cities rather than the Balkanised mess that exists at present, the police could just get on with their job of tackling crime rather than obsessing about the sensitivities of another culture.

This above paragraph taken from the article in post 19 really hits the nail on the head IMO. This is at the rotten heart of the whole multi-cultural clusterfuck that exists in so many places today. That is to say; we are supposed to abandon everything that was ever good and decent about life in Britain, because in the minds of these PC morons, it somehow "offends" immigrants.

A the same time, we are not allowed to be "offended" by anything the immigrants say or do, without being labelled as racists or bigots.

It's hard to understand how the defenders of this approach think that a society can be made better, fairer and stronger by fragmenting it and destroying it's social fabric and belief system in order to cater to a collection of stone-age fuckwits, regardless of where they come from.

More profound wisdom from the same article:

In the twisted mindset of the authorities, protecting their cherished dogma of multiculturalism was far more important than protecting vulnerable girls.

That attitude is also highlighted in another passage in the report, where Professor Jay reveals that officials were fearful of tackling the Muslim gangs "because it might damage community cohesion".

But that just demonstrates the grotesque logical absurdity of multiculturalism.

There is neither a community nor any cohesion when this kind of violence, racism and misogyny is cravenly tolerated by the state.

Originally Posted by cyrille

knee jerk dimwit racists

^
like reading something from the 1990's when the Political Correct could win a debate with the ''your're racist '' chant .

So Cyril do you think all races are equal ?
I don't.



The long suffering people of the UK certainly might be Racists, but its not the unthinking knee-jerk variety.
They have had a long hard look at the Pakistani community over the years, and don't like what they see:

A medieval religion.
A cockroach like ability to defraud the welfare system.
Their insular ''lets take over an area'' mentality.
Expensive for the tax payer -first cousin birth defects- habit .
Paedophile rape stories and trafficking of vulnerable indigenous children .
So called honour killings , and acid attacks.
Smelly, unfriendly, people, breeding like rabbits.
etc etc


You say racist like there is something wrong with it.
Its a good thing , it teaches children to stay away from scum like the Pakistani immigrants; it prevents countries becoming overrun with lower race scum.

Races are different, upper races like the Northern Europeans just cannot be expected to accept millions of lower race Pakis into their country and then be happy with the result .

Pakistan was created on the basis of hate - hate against India .
A country founded like that was bound to end badly, and it has ...

For me it's not about young men who committed these vile offences, from whichever race they happen to belong.

It's more about those in authority who knowingly allowed these very serious offences to continue unabated. That is an extreme betrayal of the British public, the British Justice system and in my view criminal.

The very same people who were appointed to serve and protect society somehow colluded to permit uninterrupted abuse of young and underage girls.

On a good day these people should be shot. The establishment is keeping quiet but the public should be displaying abhorrence as to why these officials aren't being arrested and charged over such complicit criminal behaviour.

Originally Posted by thegent

The problem currently being ignored is the chronic inability of the Pakis to govern in any capacity whether it be at a local ward or county council level. Pakis migrated because their country is a total shithole with no redeeming features whatsoever: no rule of law, utterly corrupt government, poor employment prospects and the awful inevitability that progress depended solely on personal connections.

This social chaos,further hindered by an ignorant and savage set of beliefs, has inculcated an approach to life which is utterly focused on the family and the mosque. Nothing else matters and political representation is simply a means of enhancing personal wealth for their family. They as a breed are completely without personal integrity or civilised ethics if they feel their family interests are threatened.

Pakis should never be allowed to reach positions of any authority or power. They will always, always abuse any trust vested in them if they feel their own narrow self interests are threatened. If that means concealing the truth their young men are no more than hypocritical, ignorant, sadistic, sex crazed, rapist savages who go crazy over white meat then so be it. Nothing should be allowed to undermine the role of men in Paki society and if that entails suppressing the truth that they are ghastly, hirsute, lying, sex- obsessed, hypocritical scumbags with nothing to offer humanity except their filthy carcasses fit for fertiliser and nothing else, then so much the better.

Pakis are incapable of civilised behaviour and should not be permitted to develop their obscene society next to anyone else's. They are quite incapable of cohabitation according to any law beyond their own nasty self interests and in many ways simply leech off others as any virus might do.

Innit, mate.

To Gent's point, just seen this on BBC:

<hr><hr><hr>---

Taxi rape row councillor 'should go'
Last updated 31 Aug 2014 18:36 ICT

A mayor who resigned after a taxi driver he vouched for was found to have a rape conviction has been urged to leave the council altogether.

Subhan Shafiq stepped down as Milton Keynes mayor after describing the man as being of "good current character".

This helped the driver, Mr Shafiq's friend, to get a taxi driver's licence.

Milton Keynes Council leader Peter Marland said Mr Shafiq should examine his conscience over whether he could even continue as a councillor.

Mr Marland, Labour leader of the council, said: "He resigned to protect the reputation of the council but I think it is very difficult for him to remain and keep the trust of the public after advocating for someone who has been convicted of rape.

"He must examine his own conscience on this."

Subhan Shafiq took up his post in June

Mr Shafiq, a Liberal Democrat, had described his "friend", who had been convicted of four sexual assaults, as being of "good current character".

But earlier this month a member of the public raised concerns about the driver and his licence was revoked.

The council claimed it had "taken rapid steps" to keep passengers safe.

Mr Shafiq said in a previous statement he had resigned as mayor "with deep regret".

The driver had been issued with a licence in September 2011, despite councillors knowing of his four convictions, for which he had served a "substantial" custodial sentence.

He had received a "very strong" character reference from Mr Shafiq, who became mayor in June.

The driver's convictions were discussed again in 2012 and his licence was temporarily suspended, but this ban was later "inexplicably" lifted, the council said.

Seven other drivers who give the council "cause for concern" have been identified as part of a detailed review of licence holders.

<hr><hr><hr>---

And yes, of Mr. Shafiq is of Pakistani descent, his parents emigrated to, somewhat coincidentally, Yorkshire in the 60s.