A BOLTON MP and her party leader have been accused of wanting to ‘keep their head in the sand’ in a debate over grooming gangs.

Marilyn Hawes, founder of the charity Enough Abuse UK, continued her criticism of Yasmin Qureshi after the pair appeared on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.

In a debate on Sarah Champion’s resignation from Labour’s shadow cabinet, after she claimed that Britain ‘has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls’, Ms Qureshi said she had ‘never heard this kind of talk’ in the Pakistani community.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn agreed that it is ‘wrong to blame an entire community’.

However, the charity campaigner — who is the mother of three sexually abused boys — said that she felt ‘insulted’ by the MP’s claim that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

She added: “It is typical of people who want to keep their head in the sand — see no evil, hear no evil.

“There was no debate because she would not answer any of the questions.

“This is about communities across the UK. You cannot get away from the fact that you take your own culture with you when you go abroad.

“Even if you are British-born, then — for some families — your grandad may still have this attitude that girls should be kept inside.”

Ms Qureshi, who represents Bolton South East, declined to respond to Mrs Hawes’ latest comments.

When challenged by the charity boss on Thursday, the MP said: “I was born in Pakistan and raised in this country and I have never in my family come across people saying that we should be going around abusing people.

“I have never heard this kind of talk in my family so with the greatest of respect, you don’t know what you are talking about.”

Mrs Hawes added: “If you don’t face the problem then you can’t solve it. If you had a plant that kept becoming diseased, then you would pull it up and see what the problem is. Of course white men are involved in abuse too and it is absolutely tragic whenever anyone is sexually abused.

“But this is organised crime, it is brutality on an industrial scale.

“Nobody should be able to hide behind race or religion — if you sexually abuse children, you go to jail.”

Ms Champion’s comments were made after 17 men were convicted of forcing girls in Newcastle to have sex. The men, who were mostly British-born, were from Iraqi, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iranian and Turkish communities.

She has since apologised for her “extremely poor choice of words”, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission described it as a “real shame” that she had resigned due to “over-sensitivity about language”.

In a visit to Bolton on Thursday, Mr Corbyn said: “Obviously any abuse, violence, or exploitation of women is wrong in any circumstances, but it is also wrong to blame an entire community. You should blame the perpetrators of the crime.”