The 1400 girls are supposedly in an area of South Yorkshire of around 200,000 population.
Most if not all of these unfortunate girls were from the English white underclass, which bears remarkable similarities to our own black underclass. See the writings of Theodore Dalrymple.
IOW, there isn’t a father around, and generally not all that much in the way of a mother.
Oddly enough, I woke up this morning with just that idea -- I've read all about this before, here in the USA.
So, to explain it all, we're talking just two words: projects and politics.
Projects:
Bluntly stated: "projects" are warehouses for the poor, maintained at government expense, in which all semblance of family & community is stripped away, by government policy, where drugs and violent gangs run wild, and whose sole contribution to society at large is to provide enough votes to keep Democrats permanently in power.
So we are talking about children from the projects, in the US mostly black, but in Britain mostly white.
As you say, no fathers and barely a mother, on reaching puberty young girls often move in with an older man, let's call him "sugar daddy", frequently become pregnant, and so we speak of "children having children".
Having babies makes the girls eligible for welfare, and at a certain age (is it 18?) for government housing assistance.
At that point, if they wish, they & their children can move out of "sugar daddy's" place into their own apartment -- providing they don't marry, or show evidence of a permanent boy friend.
And that is the most benign of possible outcomes.
Very often drugs & other crimes are involved, girls are trafficked, go to jail and/or lose custody of their children -- all that in the USA.
So (hypothesizing here) this is the background, the "real story" in Britain, in which we now see Muslim men becoming new "sugar daddies", a role perhaps cynically accepted by police, until something triggers a crackdown -- such as public outrage over increasing reports of astronomical numbers of girls being abused.
Politics:
So why are we seeing such reports?
Are there really more "projects" girls being raped today than ever before?
Probably not, but note that the first report was five Pakistani men convicted of raping seven underage girls -- in 2010, the same year as the current British Conservative Party government took power in Parliament.
Seven girls seems like a lot, but hardly enough to support a media crusade against British Conservatism ("conservative" in Britain being strictly a relative term), and so that number must be seen to grow regularly, first seven girls, then 50+, then another 60, and now 1,400!
All under the Conservatives' watch -- doubless implicitly or explicitly blamed on "heartless conservative budget cuts".
So, my hypothesis is: it's a media campaign against "those heartless conservatives" who want to see young English girls raped by raging Muslim men!
What is the truth of the matter?
Likely Muslim gangs have taken over some of the turf & girls previously ruled by other British gangs, police have continued to turn a blind eye, as always, until as is not uncommon amongst Muslims, there is evidence of gross-brutality, and now police must begin to crack down -- just as soon as that heartless Conservative Government votes them more money.
Anyway, that's my hypothesis, and I'd welcome anybody's evidence either way, confirming or falsifying it.