Hawzah News Agency (Rotherham - UK) - Members of the Muslim community in Rotherham are launching a neighbourhood protection group with more than 100 volunteers after three mosques were targeted by the far-right.

The new body, which will be styled on the Shomrim group in Jewish communities, said it would aim to provide reassurance and possibly self-defence training for imams in light of the security concerns.

The far-right group Britain First has carried out what it described as a “major operation” in the South Yorkshire town over the past week, distributing leaflets and visiting mosques.

The attempt to inflame tensions followed a newspaper report this month about a police watchdog investigation into an unidentified officer who apparently told a grooming victim’s father that the police could do nothing about the abuse “because of racial tensions” if it became public.

A damning report in 2014 found that failures in political and police leadership had contributed to the abuse of more than 1,400 children, largely by men of Pakistani heritage, over a 16-year period.

Similar patterns of abuse – and failures in civic leadership – have since emerged in towns and cities across England but the issue remains particularly sensitive in Rotherham. There were 14 far-right demonstrations and an 81-year-old Muslim man was killed in a racially motivated attack in the year after the report.

Muhbeen Hussain, the Rotherham-born founder of British Muslim Youth who is setting up the new group, with the Rotherham Muslim Community Forum, said members of the Muslim community were fearful that Britain First could reignite tensions with its latest campaign.