Why did only one Muslim cleric have the guts to say it? Why was everyone else scared to? Why are they STILL scared to?

And why – even after all the sickening stories of those Oxford schoolgirls having babies aborted with hooks, being repeatedly gang-raped, beaten, branded and burned with cigarettes – are people STILL shying away from saying exactly what kind of crimes these are?

Because what happened to these girls can’t just be chucked in the box marked “general sex crimes”.

These gang atrocities in Oxford – just like the ones in Rochdale, Derby and Telford – were the very worst kind of ­racially motivated hate crimes committed by Muslim men who’ve been taught to believe that white women are worthless trash and deserve to be punished for their “decadent” Western lifestyle, i.e. wearing make-up and short skirts.

And while most Muslim clerics have stayed silent on this, while our wider society refuses to acknowledge what these crimes are REALLY about, only Dr Taj Hargey, imam of the Oxford Islamic congregation, had the courage to stick his head above the parapet and say what happened to these girls WAS racially motivated and illustrates the deep- seated hatred some Muslim men have for white women.

“Some people are saying the predators’ religion was an irrelevance. But that’s deluded nonsense,” he says.

So why aren’t the police saying that? Why aren’t Oxford social services? Because only when the ugly truth is acknowledged – that in supposedly integrated Britain, some ­Muslim men (NOT necessarily Asian men) are ­targeting young white girls to abuse and degrade – can the problem be tackled.

This gang didn’t rape Muslim women, because they knew they’d be ostracised by their community and hunted down by the girls’ families.

But having seen how our gutless authorities operate on issues involving race, they knew they could defile white girls however and wherever they chose.

Time and again these terrified teenagers begged Thames Valley police for help but were turned away. As were their tormented parents.

Even staff at children’s homes where some of these girls were living knew exactly what was happening.

And they didn’t just ignore the abuse, they facilitated it... with one staff member actually buying kinky underwear for a girl she KNEW was being sold for sex.

And it’s no good these organisations now bleating they didn’t do enough. We KNOW that. What we want to know is why the bosses of those organisations still have jobs?

Thames Valley Chief constable Sara Thornton (£160,000 a year) has refused to resign, saying: “My focus is now on moving forward.”

Who cares about HER moving forward? What about those abused girls who can never move forward and who, no matter how much therapy they have, will forever be lost souls unable to trust or forge a loving relationship?

Yet still, the police think it’s enough to say they’ll try harder in future.

Likewise Oxfordshire social services. Five of the girls abused were in their care and the boss of that organisation, Joanna Simmons (£182,000 a year), won’t resign either.

“We now understand more about the grooming process,” she says.

Well, bully for her. Pity she hadn’t “understood” sooner... especially as it was happening right under her nose.

And why are these two women being given a choice about whether to stay or go? Why haven’t they been sacked?

They get paid big bucks to take responsibility when the dog dirt hits the fan. So why aren’t they?

These women, just like everyone else in this horror story, did nothing to confront this evil because to do so might have led to ­accusations of racism.

And everyone knows that in Britain today the quickest way to have your career wrecked is to be branded ­a racist.

And it’s because of this insidious ­political correctness that some Muslims ­appear to have been given immunity to the rules and the moral codes that apply to everyone else.

And while some allowances made in the name of religion don’t matter, the wholesale degradation of vulnerable young white women DOES!

It’s time the Muslim community took a long hard look at what it has allowed to ­happen in the name of Islam (which ­actually teaches respect for women).

As must the police and the social services ­because their ­refusal to accept responsibility for what happened to these vulnerable girls makes them just as guilty for the ruination of their lives as those filthy ­rapists.