Why the silence over Ceuta’s sexual-abuse crisis?
It has been almost three weeks since more than 72,000 migrants invaded Ceuta. Since then, the Spanish government has tried to reassure the world that most of those who entered the territory illegally have now returned to Morocco and order has been restored. But as growing reports of women and girls being sexually assaulted make clear, this is far from the case.
An estimated 5,000 to 8,000 migrants remain in the Spanish enclave in northern Africa, far more than Ceuta can handle. With the local reception centre full, many have set up camp in nearby streets and woodland. Those currently sleeping rough are mainly young men from Morocco, other parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. But a significant group of women also made the journey, and the Spanish authorities have registered at least 2,168 children.
Women and girls are not safe in this situation. There have been at least 15 reported cases of sexual assault, including allegations of rape, while many other women claim to have been sexually harassed. A significant proportion of the victims are underage girls. In one incident, alleged to have occurred last week, three men, said to be brothers, were caught attempting to sexually abuse a 10-year-old girl. One woman told reporters: ‘A lot of guys are trying to attack the girls every night, sometimes just when you go to the toilet. They follow you.’ Now, Spain is planning to move 500 migrant girls from Ceuta to the European mainland.
Charities like Save the Children, UNICEF and Amnesty International have warned of the extreme vulnerability of migrant women and girls in Ceuta and called for safe housing and specialist support. Good. But these organisations do not name the specific threat facing women and girls. It is male migrants, not abstract risks, that make women and girls vulnerable. But acknowledging this would challenge the positive messaging around migration that groups like Amnesty International have promoted.
Sadly, we should not be surprised by reports of rape and sexual assault in Ceuta. After all, here in the UK, there are frequent reports of illegal migrants being convicted of sexual offences. Already this month, an Afghan migrant has been jailed for raping a 13-year-old girl in Nottingham. In Scotland, a Syrian migrant has been jailed for sexually assaulting two women in little over an hour after they left different nightclubs. Passing sentence, the sheriff said: ‘You treated these women as though their autonomy, dignity and bodily integrity counted for nothing.’ In May, seven Afghan nationals and refugees were charged with 40 offences connected to group-based child sexual exploitation against two victims who were aged in their early to mid-teens when the alleged assaults took place. In February, an Afghan asylum seeker was found guilty of abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton.
On and on it goes. The list of women and girls who have been murdered, raped or assaulted by migrants grows by the day. In response, the Home Office has now produced a brightly coloured picture book to be issued to men illegally entering the UK, informing them that having sex with girls under the age of 16 is rape and against the law, as is having sex with a woman who is asleep, drunk or does not consent. This makes clear that the British state knowingly permits men who need to be told that raping children is wrong to enter the country, but allows high levels of uncontrolled migration to continue regardless.
The Home Office’s pathetic booklet exposes the reluctance of Britain’s woke managerial classes to acknowledge the problems they have unleashed. In the liberal imagination, migrants are only ever peaceful people, victims of unfortunate circumstances, who want to travel to a new country in order to work and contribute to the community. And host countries only ever benefit, because diversity is our strength, or some such guff. But the reality, right now, is that migrants who have sexually abused young girls have not returned to Morocco, but are still in Ceuta, waiting to be processed for entry into Spain and, from there, the rest of the EU.
And the feminist outcry? All too often, high-profile liberal feminists seek to promote sympathy not for women and girls at risk of assault, but for the migrants themselves. Just a day after the invasion of Ceuta, Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine insisted that small-boat migrants to the UK were mainly ‘genuine refugees, genuine asylum seekers… fleeing persecution’. Her words were echoed by Labour minister Angela Rayner, who said, ‘These are desperate, vulnerable people’ and blamed ‘criminal gangs’ for ‘putting often children and women into vessels that are not seaworthy’. The pictures of boats crammed with young men had clearly passed her by.
And let’s not forget the coterie of musicians, including Paloma Faith and Charlotte Church, who, along with Labour, Green and independent MPs, last year signed an open letter declaring: ‘We reject the far right’s racist lies about “protecting” women and girls. They are not defenders of women – they exploit violence against women to fuel hate and division.’ These feminist campaigners are so cocooned from reality, and so convinced illegal migrants are the real victims, that they are blind to the dangers some migrants pose.
The situation in Ceuta proves that uncontrolled, mass migration endangers both the women and girls who are encouraged to make such a perilous journey and those who are citizens of the host country. Glossy booklets are not enough. We need strong borders to keep women and girls safe.
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Man accused of child sex abuse dies before trial
A man who was due to stand trial over 39 sexual abuse allegations dating back to the early 1980s has died while remanded in custody at HMP Leeds.
Colin Gaines, 73, from Bingley, had been due to face allegations relating to 10 male complainants and his trial at Bradford Crown Court was expected to last up to five weeks.
But earlier, prosecutor Julian Jones confirmed that on Wednesday the prosecution team was informed Gaines had died after being taken ill.
Judge Christopher Smith told the potential jurors that Gaines' death brought the proceedings to a close.
The allegations, which Gaines had denied, included sexual assaults and indecent assaults on young boys at various locations including the Richard Dunn Sports Centre and Shipley Swimming Pool.
He was also alleged to have indecently assaulted another young boy while on camping trips.
The original trial date of 20 March was adjourned when he was taken to hospital with pancreatitis, the court was told on Wednesday.
Gaines was discharged and ruled fit to stand trial on Monday.
However, he did not appear before the court and the proceedings were adjourned.
On Wednesday the court was told he had been taken ill and transferred to hospital.
No cause of death
Jones said Gaines had been in his locked cell alone and an ambulance was called after he was found vomiting.
While paramedics were present he became unwell and CPR was started before he was taken to St James's Hospital where he was pronounced dead just before 11:40 BST.
No cause of death has yet been identified and a report will now go to a coroner.
Pensioner had 'largest hoard' of child abuse images to be seized in Scotland
A pensioner amassed what is thought to be the largest collection of child sexual abuse material ever seized by police in Scotland, a court has heard.
Alan MacPherson, 83, from Stenhousemuir, was found to have over two million images on various electronic devices after his home was raided in 2025.
More than 805,000 were formally identified as depicting child sexual abuse - much of it of the most serious category - while the overwhelming scale of his collection meant much of material was not examined.
MacPherson, who admitted downloading the material over a 14-year period, was placed on the sex offenders register and remanded in custody at Falkirk Sheriff Court pending pre-sentence reports.
The court heard that the size of the hoard recovered from MacPherson's home was so large it had "overwhelmed" officers' capacity to check and categorise it.
Altogether, police seized nine devices – computers, phones, digital cameras, a USB stick and external drives – and indecent images of children were found on all of them.
Five of the devices were subjected to a full examination.
Nearly 1.4 million images remained ungraded on just one of his devices alone.
Anonymous messaging app
The court heard that MacPherson was arrested after police identified his IP address as being used to share the material online.
Prosecutor Rachel Wallace said that in July 2025 he had posted multiple images of child sexual exploitation, classed as the most serious Category A, during an online chat with an undercover police officer.
Although he was using a messaging app designed to be anonymous, police were able to trace the messages to his home and then carried out an early morning raid.
On one storage drive alone, officers graded 698,924 child sexual abuse files.
The child victims were girls, mostly aged nine to 15, but at least one was possibly as young as seven.
Wallace said: "Police have advised us this is quite possibly the largest collection of child sexual abuse material ever seen by Police Scotland."
When MacPherson was arrested and interviewed, he told police he had searched online for years for indecent images of children "for his own personal gratification".
Sheriff's warning
At Falkirk Sherriff Court, MacPherson, a first offender, pleaded guilty to downloading, possessing and distributing indecent material over more than 14 years, between 1 January 2012 and 20 January 2026.
Solicitor-advocate Stephen Biggam, defending, said MacPherson was deaf and suffering from the eye condition macular degeneration.
Biggam said that since the arrest, MacPherson had "continued to go about his business and had not been any centre of attraction in the community, as is his way."
Sheriff Craig Harris took the unusual step of warning members of the public in the gallery that they could step out and return once the case was over, saying matters might be "difficult for some people to hear".
He placed MacPherson on the Sex Offenders Register, and called for background reports before a further hearing on 8 September.
He told him: "The offences are far too serious for me to proceed without a report.
"Given the nature and the scale and the time over which the offences have been committed, the risk you pose when you are at liberty, and the likely outcome by way of sentence, you must now be remanded into custody."
