Police investigating historic grooming cases in West Yorkshire have revealed that no fewer than five more “arrest phases” are expected this year alone.

Work continies apace on Operation Dalesway - a police initiative set up specifically to investigate claims of historic Child Sex Exploitation (CSE).

Superintendent Richard Padwell informed the latest meeting of Bradford Council’s children’s services scrutiny committee of imminent developments.

He said: “This year we expect there to be five arrest phases."

Police have handed over files to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in relation to a number of child abuse cases,

Supt Padwell said: “We are also currently awaiting CPS decisions on a number of cases.

"It is a large piece of work and will continue to be well resourced. These issues are not time bound, nor should they be.”

Supt Padwell told the meeting that, so far, Operation Dalesway had reached 32 separate case investigations.

Meanwhile, in a debate on grooming gangs in the House of Commons, Keighley MP Robbie Moore (Conservative) said: “Unless we talk about it openly we are failing, so let us call this problem out for what it is: predominantly a small minority of largely Muslim men in West Yorkshire - including, I am sad to say, in Keighley - have been sexually exploiting young children for far too long. The Muslim community are quite rightly outraged at the entire community being branded with the same accusation. It is not fair and it is deeply offensive.

“If we tiptoe around the edges or fail to talk openly about these challenges, we are failing both the victims and the Pakistani community.

Mr Moore went on to hint at the gravity of news yet to emerge, stating: “I know the police are working on many other cases.”

Batley and Spen MP Tracy Brabin (Labour) talked of how her constituency had been “rocked far too often” by announcements and police investigations into grooming gangs, and pointed to the importance of justice being served “in recognition of the unquantifiable bravery of the victims”.

Ms Brabin called on the Home Office to put systems in place to help local police forces investigate CSE, so forces don’t have to go “cap in hand” to ministers to get resources.