A young man from Stamford Hill was jailed last month for a number of sexual offences against underage Orthodox girls.

The episode prompted Pajes, the Jewish Leadership Council’s schools’ network, and the Metropolitan Police to launch a series of evenings for parents about the risk of grooming.

A mother, who attended one meeting geared particularly towards Charedi school parents, said, “What police found so interesting was there was zero awareness around the basics of safety and relationships. They said they were so shocked at how trusting these girls were.”

Some parents believed their children immune from exploitation by predators because they did not have a smartphone or access to the internet. But some girls were given phones by the man who targeted them and the “parents had no clue about it”, said the mother, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Grooming may begin with an approach by someone lurking outside the school gates who makes the victim feel special, the mother explained. “They call it the love chain. It starts off with contacting them through social media or personally and it goes on to giving them presents and money. And they think they are falling in love with this person.

“That’s a standard way of how they work and our children fall for it because we are not aware.”

But a one-off meeting for parents is simply not enough, she said. Schools should be doing something. When she went home afterwards, “I was boiling inside, I was so angry.

“Our children need sex and relationships education more than any other child in the country because we are so insular. Because we are brought up to be compliant, to be trusting, to be obedient, without any knowledge of the outside world.”

She had no truck with the argument that questions of relationship and sexuality are matters best left to parents and not for schools — or the way to protect children from harm is not to talk about certain subjects.

“Education should not fall solely on the parents,” she said. Parents can’t be expected to keep an eye on their children all of the time, especially with those in large families whose children run from babies to teenagers. Children need to be taught to be safe.

 
So strongly does she feel that if Charedi schools are unwilling to give their children an adequate relationships and sex education, the government should ensure they do. “It has to be forced because the slowly, slowly method is not working and in the meantime there are children being abused.”

Relationships education will become compulsory in schools next September. And secondary schools will have to teach sex education, although parents can request the withdrawal of their children up to the age of 15 — after which it is the child’s decision.

Charedi leaders have been especially unhappy that the new RSE curriculum requires teaching LGBT awareness (at least in secondary school) but the mother had no sympathy with the rabbis’ stance. “You can’t deny there are LGBT children in our schools,” she said. “They need to know about all relationships.”