LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn has backed a Bolton MP amid a debate over grooming gangs that prompted a shadow minister to resign.

Sarah Champion, MP for Rotherham, resigned as shadow women and equalities secretary after saying that ‘Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls’.

Bolton South East MP and shadow justice minister Yasmin Qureshi, who was born in Pakistan, said that she had ‘never heard this kind of talk’ and refused to be drawn on whether it was right that Ms Champion stepped down.

Mr Corbyn insisted his party would not ‘demonise’ any particular group.

During a visit to Bolton on Thursday morning, he said: “I have been in touch with Sarah and with Yasmin.

“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.”

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 added: “For too long we have ignored the race of these abusers and, worse, tried to cover it up. No more. These people are predators and the common denominator is their ethnic heritage.”

Appearing on BBC Radio 4, Ms Qureshi was asked whether she felt that it was concerning that so many second-generation Pakistani men in this country have been exploiting white girls and whether something should be done about it.

She said: “Yes something needs to be done and if people are convicted they should get as long a sentence as possible and I think that for that kind of criminality, they deserve to have the key thrown away.

“But I was a prosecutor before I became an MP and what happened in Newcastle, I can remember a similar case in the 90s where there were seven males who were not of that ethnicity who were doing something similar.

“Of course, we should deal with abuse when it occurs and we should ask ourselves what we can do to make sure that these things do not happen again - we should look at every aspect.”

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When Marilyn Hawes, founder of Enough Abuse UK — an organisation which deals with child abuse — challenged Ms Qureshi, she 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.”

Ms Champion has 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’.