CALLS have been made for better profiling of criminals who sexually exploit children after a landmark review.

In a report on the response of Oxfordshire’s authorities to the Bullfinch child abuse scandal after 2011, Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board (OSCB) said good progress had been made but the profile of abusers remained a “missing link”.

The report was ordered by the Government following a serious case review published in March, which examined how six young girls were sexually abused by seven men in Oxford.

The serious case review said more than 370 children were suspected to have been victims of sexual exploitation over 15 years.

And child protection expert Sophie Humphreys – appointed by the Government to oversee the OSCB report – said more work was needed to identify abusers. She wrote: “No strategy to tackle child sexual exploitation will be complete without a focus on victims and perpetrators.

“This means understanding perpetrators’ early life experiences, how their personalities develop and what draws them to this very disturbed and criminal activity.

“Where this perception is driven by cultural belief systems, there must be no hesitation in this being challenged.”

Her comments echoed the findings of the OSCB report by chairwoman Maggie Blyth, which admitted: “The missing link in this report is the profile of perpetrators.”

Ms Blyth’s report said a “problem profile” had been developed by police “[in] which the OSCB will require the inclusion of ethnicity [or] cultural identity”.

She told the Oxford Mail: “There will be cultural and background issues from a range of different communities that reinforce it is OK to have sex with children or it is OK to treat women as inferior.”

Ms Blyth said there were “small numbers” of offenders being tracked in the county, but an example was that online grooming tended to be “white males acting on their own”.

Thames Valley Police LPA commander for Oxford Christian Bunt added: “In terms of who has committed the offences in the Thames Valley, we base it on individuals arrested and convicted and are constantly developing that profile.

“That could be around age ranges, ethnicity or areas where they might live.

“One key thing we look at is different models... [including] the lone perpetrator and the more organised exploitation that we saw with Bullfinch.”

The serious case review published in March said five of the seven men convicted in 2013 were of Pakistani heritage and all victims were white British girls.

Nationally it claimed there was an “undeniable” link between group-based child sexual exploitation cases and people of Pakistani heritage and added: “This needs to be researched and understood, given both its importance and the sensitivities.”

Monowar Hussain, an Imam of The Oxford Foundation, has been closely involved with new initiatives at mosques across the city, aimed at raising awareness about how to spot signs of child sexual exploitation.

He said yesterday: “The men who are doing this are doing it to any girl they can find who is vulnerable. If you focus on people with certain backgrounds, you will miss other victims who might be Muslim or Asian.

“This is a very complex area and we all need to work together and keep the children the centre of our focus.”