• Former Home Secretary Jack Straw says the Asian community is 'in denial' over issue of grooming young white women
• New report finds authorities 'missed opportunities' to shut down nine-man sex gang who operated for several years in Rochdale
• NHS warned Rochdale Borough Council and Greater Manchester Police on dozens of occasions over six years about sex abuse risks in the town
• Children abused were dismissed as prostitutes and told they were 'making their own choices', report finds 
• Terrified victims approached police for help but were also ignored
• Calls for people involved to be 'named, shamed and sacked'
• Former Home Secretary Jack Straw says 'There is an issue of ethnicity here which can’t be ignored'

A council and a police force received 127 warnings from NHS staff about children as young as 10 at risk of abuse and 'missed opportunities' to stop an Asian gang that raped dozens of vulnerable young girls over several years, it has been revealed.

Rochdale social services, police and the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to shut down the sex ring - turning a blind eye and dismissing victims as prostitutes, a damning report into the scandal has found.

Nine Asian men were jailed this year for between four and 19 years for grooming young white girls in and around the town - picking them up from the school gates and taking them to houses and flats to be plied with alcohol and drugs before being passed around for sex.

Forty-seven children were identified as victims of the exploitation that left many of their lives in tatters.

At least one of the terrified victims approached the police to tell them that they were being abused, but they were ignored and continued to be raped again in some cases.

The picture which emerges from the report by the local safeguarding board is one of vulnerable young girls who were being targeted for sexual abuse being written off by those in authority who believed the girls were 'making their own choices'.

Former Home Secretary Jack Straw said race was an issue in these cases and the Asian community is in 'denial' about it.

'There is an issue of ethnicity here which can’t be ignored,' he said.

'It is true that if you go into the sex offenders wings of prisons there are proportionally more white men than Asian men. But there’s also the separate issue of grouping in the Asian community.

'It is also correct in terms of group grooming there is an ethnic dimension to this which typically is of Asian men on white girls.

'That is an issue which has to be faced and addressed in the Asian community about what is going on there which leads to a sense of denial by them that all of this is going on.

'These are small communities so people have a rough idea that there is a group of men who abusing white girls in this way.

'That has to be dealt with there as well as obviously more effective policing.’