There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

Thank God for Maggie Oliver and those who supported her campaign for justice

Indeed, @EasternStandard, but as another read of her evidence showed, what happened before in terms of shutting down avenues of enquiry can hap-pen again and almost certainly will

Whatever it takes ... "losing" records, blaming a lack of action on "lack of resouces", discrediting key witnesses, replacing inconvenient personnel and all the rest ... I fully expect that it'll happen again for the simple reason that our authorities don't want to address the more difficult issues

And unfortunately there's no process or law which can overcome the mindsets of those charged with enacting them

Starmer can't even bring himself to apologise for framing those who have concerns about this issue as far right adjacent.

I can’t believe the narrative that closed it all
down. There should be resignations over this.

If this is true ( and I don’t trust Cummings) then not only should heads roll but there should be criminal proceedings if there were attempts to block justice.

Dominic Cummings has talked about how this cover up will be shown to go all the way to Whitehall.

At the Dominic Cummings’s Pharos Lecture in Oxford: He talked about the scale of arse covering.

“In January, No. 10 Downing Street claimed that Elon Musk was spreading conspiracy theories about national cover‑ups. This is wrong. I witnessed the attempts at these cover‑ups myself when I was in working in Whitehall – including the deliberate attempt by government departments to use courts to block reporting of the entire story"

Absolutely horrifying.
Thank God for Maggie Oliver and those who supported her campaign for justice.

This is pretty damning

Or as the former labour MP of Rochdale, Simon Dancuk put it...

"It was a harrowing experience that revealed to me the strength of the Labour Party's willingness to cover up the scandal in order to protect its support among local ethnic minorities.

"In effect, innocent young girls were sacrificed on the altar of political expediency"

We all know how we got here and the long, hard path. It’s not difficult:

Nervousness about social unrest from official confirmation of facts of abuse: Tories and Labour

Terror at confirmation of cover up and protection of party interests: Labour

I agree. If there is a pattern it shouldn’t be ignored. The communities the perpetrators come from need to address it from within.

I'll probably be flamed for saying this, but I think that along with Ethnicity, they should also have details on which countries these men or their parents originally came from and what their religion is. If they had this data, they would definitely see some patterns.

And I say this as an Asian woman!!

This is pathetic by Starmer. He was head of the CPS when this was all going on. There was clearly a cover up at the time yet this enquiry will uncover nothing other than the usual "lessons will be learned" BS.

So the ethnicity of the perpetrators was a factor in the failure to protect these girls.

All those posters who told us we were racist / far right etc should be ashamed.

• A report into sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales says there was a "collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs"
• The ethnicity of grooming gangs is "shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators", it finds
• But the report says in areas where more data was recorded, there was a "disproportionality of group-based child sexual exploitation offending by men of Asian ethnicity"
• Baroness Louise Casey - leading the audit - was asked by the prime minister to review new and existing data, including the ethnicity and demographics of these gangs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c6292x36d4pt

Yes . It feels as if we’ve been gaslit by the authorities.

Quite frankly anyone who says the majority of offenders of group based cse is white is lying

Yes, and this being stated at the outset restores some trust that this won't be another exercise in diluting the truth behind a wall of misinformation.

Right here the link to Baroness Caseys report :

https://t.co/wm6olbZyT6

Interesting paragraph

The 2020 Home Office paper183, ‘Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation:
Characteristics of Offending’, which we discuss in chapter 4, reached a conclusion
that “it seems most likely that the ethnicity of group-based CSE offenders is in line
with CSA more generally and with the general population, with the majority of
offenders being White.” It is quoted and requoted in official reports, the media and
elsewhere as proof that claims made about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ are
sensationalised or untrue, although this audit found it hard to understand how the
Home Office paper reached that conclusion, which does not seem to be evidenced in
research or data.

Quite frankly anyone who says the majority of offenders of group based cse is white is lying .

You too

Sure. Enjoy your day.

Of course you have every right to agree. I do not as I do not think that consensual activity should be in any child abuse/rape/sexual assault definition. I think it should be specific to ensure that the child is never blamed or it is ever suggested that they consented. We can agree to disagree.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I see nothing wrong with the definition.

Not doing myself favours by saying it is rape, sexual assault and abuse?

It is those three things so why not say it? the reason it isn't written as those three things is that the definition prior to today said it was a choice and they just removed the word prostitute that is why.

Prostitution - engaging in sexual activity in exchange for money, drugs etc.
Rape of a child - engaging in sexual activity in exchange for money, drugs etc.

See the correlation?

You were saying that we cannot use them as they do not apply to all. I said yes that is correct not all are raped but we can put it in the definition as being this is one element of CSE.

Sexual activity is what I do with my partner and is consensual activity so why would you want to include consensual activities in a child crime definition as then it implies a choice which is what the definition originally said. That is why it is in there because originally it was defined as a choice. It is in there because this was called prostitution and they just removed that label from the top of the paragraph.

It is rape, abuse and sexual assault. We are too scared to say those words when it comes to these cases.

I came across a piece in The Spectator by Julie Bindel, titled "Grooming gangs inquiry is welcome – but too late." www.spectator.co.uk/article/grooming-gangs-inquiry-is-welcome-but-too-late/

Before anyone reaches for the smelling salts at the mention of The Spectator, it’s worth acknowledging that the magazine has consistently covered this issue, along with others relating to sex-based advocacy that are too often ignored — or dismissed as far-right posturing. I’m looking at you, Guardian.
I believe in reading a broad range of sources, especially when they’re prepared to confront difficult or uncomfortable subjects head-on.

Julie Bindel, for those unfamiliar, is a left-wing radical feminist who has campaigned for women’s rights for over 30 years. Her perspective is not rooted in sensationalism, but in long-standing, often courageous advocacy.
She makes two major points:

1. A national inquiry into grooming gangs is long overdue. Local investigations have been painfully slow, lacked real powers, and frequently failed to confront institutional failings.
2. Media silence and official inaction were driven, in part, by fear — fear of being labelled racist, of disrupting community cohesion, or of attracting reputational damage. This, Bindel argues, allowed years of harm to be swept under the rug.

You keep misrepresenting people’s points on here . It’s not doing you any favours.

You've completely lost me. I said that rape and sexual assault are specific crimes; I didn't say that those crimes aren't serious or don't happen. Sexual activity covers all sexual related crime as well as rape and sexual assault.