Hundreds of children 'vanishing'

This story is already a month old, but it has been nagging in the back of my mind. To be honest I have been afraid to post about it for fear of being thought racist. "Racist" is the worst thing you can be accused of in modern Britain - worse than murder apparently.

Years ago, when I first qualified as a lawyer and briefly practised criminal law, a policeman in Nottingham told me that "dozens" of young Asian girls were being burned alive in "honour killings" and that the police did not interfere for fear of their careers being ended by accusations of racism. I didn't believe him, God forgive me. I thought he was a racist.

I believe him now. According to this story on the BBC's website, between July and September 2001, 300 African boys disappeared from London schools, and "police fear thousands may go missing annually". No-one has any idea how many of them may be ritually killed. Could it be that such horrors have happened unchecked for the reasons my police acquaintance in Nottingham explained nearly 25 years ago?

Dare I even mention the horrific case of Victoria Climbié in this context? A highly-respectable pair of City lawyers of my acquaintance came close to losing their child because wrongly suspected of child abuse. The system swung right into action against such "soft targets" and they struggled for months to ward off the State machine. One can't help but suspect that the sort of left-winger who goes in for a career in Social Services was delighted to have such capitalist hate-figures in their sights.

Poor Victoria, on the other hand, was tortured to death under the constant supervision of Social Services. Is it too dangerous to suggest that it was because her abusers were black? Is it too dangerous to suggest that black boys were being ritually killed by white people that no effort would be too great to catch the murderers? These are questions that should be asked. Yet, for fear of being thought "racist", stories like this simply die.

BBC NEWS | UK | Hundreds of children 'vanishing'