There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

It needs to look at why this was allowed to happen.

IMO, it doesn't matter if the men involved were Pakistani, white British or Martians. The point is that they identified that no-one cares about working class white girls in care. The authorities and the caregivers who were supposed to protect them didn't. Whole groups of girls who can go missing for hours or days on end with no-one looking for them, be picked up by adult men with no-one asking questions, desperate for the attention and love that they should already by getting, that's a dream for any violent sex offender, regardless of where they are from.

For me, acknowledgment and apology helped with letting go of self blame and shame. It gave me a closure.
As part of therapy, I contacted my old school and spoke to the safe guarding lead, who happened to be an old teacher (she was new and young then). I barely got the words hello out before she apologised for the school failing me. She told me their procedures now too. While the head teacher now is one of the teachers who failed me and that pisses me off, I felt able to put down a massive weight that I was carrying. I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t naughty or dirty. They should have protected me and they admitted it.
So for me personally, accountability is healing. I’ve had no such acknowledgement or apology from the police.

Well yes, those who were complicit and aiding these groomers, and we know that there were people in the police force who did this and councillors too, should face jail. We can't believe that more won't come out in the wash.

The cowardly won't go to jail but, yes, there should be a heavy shame laid on those who allowed this to happen and the way the system created the space to allow this to happen, and that should be widely documented and known even if the individuals remain anonymous.

Confront in what way? Are people expecting social workers and the police to be put on trial?

Agreed. And it is decades and thousands upon thousands of girls that were raped and maimed. And we need to confront how that happened and who let it happen.

It doesn't. That's why I said "if".

And you are saying "don't look there... look over here" because you don't seem to want to even think about white men doing this.

I'd hope that you want justice for ALL victims, not just those who are victims of brown men.

Do we need another inquiry? Depends on what has truly driven this. Is it to placate the public who are basing calls for inquiry on short press articles or to really do something about it? I have lived in a few countries and don't know any country that does as many inquiries than the UK. Including multiple inquiries on one issue across decades and inquiries on inquiries. Sometimes these are justified. At other times it just placated people in the short term buy does not actually lead to solutions, to implementing recommendations of the inquiries or addressing deep rooted causes rather than symptoms. At the end of the day I hope we will understand the deep rooted causes of these grooming gangs, punish them adequately, provide full and comprehensive support to victims, prevent future grooming and have in place well funded response structural for when it happens again (because regardless of prevention measures it will likely happen again)

It's exactly that kind of attitude which resulted in the police taking no action and thousands of girls being abused over the course of decades.

Good. The institutional failings to address this issue and to cover it up is a national disgrace and those with blood on their hands should be held accountable.

I am a victim. Though I was “lucky” because I was kept as a girlfriend to one so not passed around. The men were all white. I was middle class. As were at least two other victims. Vulnerable because of very strict and controlling parents but not in care or neglected. We were still treated like the perpetrators by the police. I had a police office yell at me. I was arrested too. Social services were useless and school just punished. I was sure I was wrong and to blame.
So I don’t buy the narrative that it’s a classist. It is a female thing. I don’t buy that it’s a particular racist, it’s a man thing. Men abuse women. Men abuse girls. Not all men, but always men.

The stories from these vulnerable girls are absolutely horrific. Their treatment indefensible. Some have sadly, taken their own lives.
It's time for justice for these victims.

It’s all the rhetoric that goes with Labour and from them before they u turn. Everyone is wrong for wanting one, loads of negative stuff lobbed at anyone asking for an inquiry.

This. Why do the needs of women and girls always come below men's wishes, of whatever ethnicity?

The elephant in the room is that we like to say 'not in our culture' but it bloody well is.

Exactly! Talk about looking the other way. There are people on this thread who are infuriated that I would shine a light on the very clear statistics that show that the large majority of offenders are white. They only want to talk about the offenders that they can 'other'.

ALL grooming gangs are evil. If we only focus on those from other cultures, it's leaving those girls who are victims of white men, in the lurch.

Hopefully this report will look into how different environments and cultures (including white ones) play into the causes of such gangs. Denying that white gangs exist of every bit as bad as the denial that enabled the Rotherham gangs.

Exactly

Absolutely

Blimey
It seems you blame the media / the far right and the ignorant general public rather than the authorities who turned a blind eye to the rapes of children and the perpetrators of the rapes?

YABU and YANBU

Not necessary - but given how much shit the media and the far right are stirring up about the apparent lack of one big beautiful enquiry, the government is right to respond to the public's feelings, how uninformed and misinformed they are.

Having an "inquiry" or a new one with a slightly different focus into a thorny issue is standard Government practice into kicking the can down the road whilst looking concerned about an issue. If too much time elapses between commissioning and delivery or implementation of recommendations, a fresh government can have a "new" inquiry and just keep the process going. Just two examples of this tactic are that most of the haemophiliacs ( or their relatives, since many victims are dead) from the 1970's and 80's infected blood scandal are still waiting for their "compensation." The Kincora Boys Home abuse scandal rumbles on after mutiple inquiries, allegedly involving top establishment men and a cover up despite almost 50 years of allegations and campaigning.

Starmer can now shelve the issue of the rape gangs and respond to questions with the answer that "the Inquiry team will respond in due course"...

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Maggie Oliver should be a significant part of the enquiry. She was the original whistle-blower, she kept on being a thorn in the side of the authorities until they acted. A lot of this stuff would not have come to light if it hadn't been for her. She's a proper hero when it comes to child protection.

It doesn’t matter what race they were it’s about protecting children and making sure this doesn’t happen again.

Children as young as 10 referred to as prostitutes and that authorities weren’t sure they could prove there was no consent. In children. Who can’t consent.

This needs to happen and new protective laws put in place so no child goes through this again.

The Windrush Scandal included. Compensation has still not been paid out, in full, to all those people who were affected. It is a disgrace, and should never have happened in the first place.

I believe the victims told that to him. That's the point.

Except they didn’t say they would decide after her work was complete. They were emphatic that it wasn’t necessary, said they would fund 5 local inquiries (10% of the towns and cities identified) and then withdrew the funds.