A POLICE and crime commissioner branded a petition by sexual violence charities “ridiculous” at the weekend after campaigners raised concerns over alleged racist overtones of a new child sex exploitation awareness poster.

Northamptonshire commissioner Adam Simmonds entered a Twitter spat with the local Rights and Equality Council chief after she shared information on the Scrap the Trivialising and Racist Posters on Child Sexual Exploitation petition.

The petition reached over 100 signatures after being launched last Thursday by anti-racist and women’s groups including Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis.

According to critics the new campaign by Northamptonshire police on child abuse “plays into racist stereotypes.”

The offending poster shows a young girl with a dark-skinned adult hand over her mouth.

In a series of tweets, Mr Simmonds addressed Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council Anjona Roy saying: “I would have hoped you would have thought that this is one of the most ridiculous perceptional campaigns you’d seen.”

He said that the advert was meant to focus on child sex exploitation and that: “Instead you’re directing people to a petition about the colour of a hand on a poster? Unbelievable in circumstances!”

Creators of the advert argued the campaign was not racist as “the hand in the image is in fact a white man’s hand, caught in a shadow.”

Ms Roy told the Star that as soon as the poster was launched her group “started getting complaints.”

She said: “When I tried to find out more about the posters and how the images were selected, the responses I got reflected a lack of maturity in dealing with the issues of race and child sex abuse.

“The argument that the poster is OK because it’s a white hand that just looks like a black person doesn’t seem to grasp the point that this kind of promotion causes real harm in our communities and fuels hate.”

The groups involved also argued that similar imagery was used by the fascist English Defence League “to inflame racial tension.”

Ms Roy added: “At a time when we need to ensure that cuts to services don’t make children even more vulnerable to sexual exploitation we were all surprised that Adam Simmonds wasn’t prepared to consider the negative impact [of the poster].”

When contacted by the Star, Mr Simmonds said: “Children are being sexually exploited.

“This is a campaign to stop that.”