Advertiser dismisses BNP campaigner's claims of sex grooming cover-up

The party’s Simon Darby reacted angrily when the Advertiser approached him after the girl complained.

He then attempted to link the complaint with the stories the Advertiser has run highlighting the issue of Asian gang grooming of youngsters.

He claimed in a blog, posted in the week leading up to today’s by-election: “Apparently one complaint like this is enough to warrant a full journalistic investigation and a major story.

"I was told that this was the newspaper's policy and that they wanted an official party response. What a pity I said that this policy had obviously not been applied over the years when it came to the hundreds of teenage girls and children being racially raped right under the newspaper's nose.

“The financial pressure is really on a lot of these regional titles and that makes the hold that councils have on them by way of vital advertising revenue even greater.”

Mr Darby also claimed our reporter 'reacted angrily' to his response to our questions.

Advertiser editor Andrew Mosley said: “It’s a bit of a cheap and somewhat desperate shot, but then it wouldn’t be anything else.

“Their campaign has been blown out of the water by Respect and UKIP and, as usual, it’s the fault of the media.

“It’s also a complete lie that we allowed any, as he calls it, 'racial rape', to be carried out under our noses.”

"Our reporter didn't react angily and there was no 'major investigation'. Mr Darby was asked one simple question and couldn’t manage to answer it properly without losing his temper and, as is the case, lapsed straight into the sort of racist comment his party likes to deny it espouses.

“Also, if we were so reliant on the advertising revenue provided by councils we wouldn’t repeatedly brink them to task over various issues, as we will be doing in tomorrow’s paper over the UKIP fostering story.”