Often giving the girl a mobile telephone as a "gift", the pimp is then able to track her every move by calls and texting, which eventually will be used by him to send instructions as to details of arrangements with punters. The men sell the girls on to contacts for around £200 a time or as currency for a business deal. "I was always asked why I kept going back to my pimp," says Sophie, "but they flatter you and make you think you are really loved. I thought he was my boyfriend until it was too late to get away." Another tactic of the pimp is getting the girl to despise and mistrust her own parents in order that he can achieve total control over her. The pimps routinely tell their victims that their parents are racist towards Asian people and that they disapprove of the relationships because the men are of Pakistani Muslim heritage, not because they are older. Some of the parents I met were racist, and some had developed almost a phobia against Asian men, fuelled by the misinformation and bigotry trotted out by racist groups in response to the pimping gangs. 

The Leeds-based Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop) supports the families of children caught up in sexual exploitation networks. Crop is understandably reticent about commenting on any issues concerning the race or religion of child abusers and pimps. As far as it is concerned, we should not focus on one particular ethnic group because the problem is about men's abuse of children. Its research earlier this decade found that the vast majority of the children groomed are white and the majority of perpetrators of Asian origin. "Society seeks to condemn female sexual activity, and culturally within the statutory sector and community the victims are seen as asking for it," says Crop's Rachel Loise. "The perpetrators are the last to be condemned. Prosecutions are rare, and sentencing is not severe enough."

Unfortunately, the reluctance of the various anti-child abuse campaigns and charities to engage openly with the fact that, in the north of England, the majority of men involved in child-grooming criminal gangs are Pakistani Muslim means that racist organisations such as the BNP hijack the issue.

"The fact that these particular gangs are made up of Pakistani men is significant but not in the way racists would have us believe," says one child protection expert who asked not to be named. "While the BNP would have us believe that abusing white girls is an endemic part of these men's culture — which it absolutely is not — the truth is that these men are aware that the police do not want to be accused of racism in today's climate."

In 2004, Channel 4 withdrew Edge of the City, its controversial documentary made by Annie Hall that depicted parents trying to stop groups of young Asian men grooming white girls as young as 11 for sex. It had been seized on by the BNP as a party political broadcast.

Colin Cramphorn, the then Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, joined groups such as Unite against Fascism in calling for the documentary to be withdrawn. Channel 4 complied, saying that the issue was not censorship but timing because of the proximity with the local and European elections. But many argued at the time that the delay in transmission had strengthened the case of the BNP.