Gov refuses home office investigation into historic child sex abuse in Oldham

[Perzival]

I've just read on x that Jess Phillips has formally declined Oldham council's request for the HO to investigate the grooming gangs in Oldham. Why on Earth would they do this? Apparently JP says it should be a local investigation? Clearly that is a conflict of interests and if the council are asking for help they should?

The only link I can find other than x is GB news (apologies).

https://www.gbnews.com/news/oldham-grooming-gangs-labour-government-inquiry-abuse-scandal

It’s been going on for decades @Alexandra2001 and continues to do so. The only reason anything is happening in the courts is due to continuous public outcry which police and successive politicians have done their best to supress for fear of impact on community relations. The prosecutions happening now are way too little and way too late. I demand to know why and to see all those involved in this cover up dragged into the light and made accountable.

National public enquiry now while the existing prosecutions in progress continue.

And absolutely not allowing individual councils to carry them out themselves when many of the councillors may have good reason to want to cover this up. Also, by putting out to individual councils, you can’t identify similarities and whether/why this is a nationwide problem.
However, I’m inclined to agree with Maggie Oliver. What’s the point in an enquiry set up by the authorities who benefit not only from the millions spent on it, but also have vested interest in not finding conclusions that are inconvenient.

You have missed the point of Hillsborough entirely as a tragic one-off; it was a result of systemic failures and cover-ups by the authorities, which took 27 years to expose.

Hillsborough remains relevant today because it shows how those in power can cover up their mistakes, and a deep-rooted failure within institutions that allowed cover-ups; those in power often choose inaction, which leads to prolonged harm.

The comparison to Hitler is a distraction, the mention of Tommy Robinson typical and I am a little surprise you haven’t mentioned the far right yet. I didn’t realise that only the ‘right’ sort of people in your view can speak on this issue. To invoke Hitler, or any such extreme comparison, just shuts down meaningful dialogue. And it is lazy.

Musk’s politics are irrelevant to the real issue: the need for accountability and meaningful action. As I mentioned above that if our government whether Tory or Labour had actually done their jobs properly perhaps we wouldn’t have needed individuals like Elon - or anyone else—to step in and highlight these systemic failures.

Yes, as i said earlier, i first realised this was happening in the mid 80s.

There has been prosecutions for at least 20 years.

For me, its not just about prosecutions but prevention and that means properly funded social services, child protection, yes Police too, courts and justice systems.

CSA more generally needs to have a far higher priority, how can this happen when we so underfund childrens services, scrap family support programs etc.

https://www.publicsectorexecutive.com/Public-Sector-News/underfunding-leading-to-vulnerable-children-being-overlooked-

Nothing done, yet another report ignored, from 2017.

I'd like to know why you feel Alexandra that you know more about this then the people who have been at the heart of this issue for decades.

They don't feel enough has been done and they want accountability from those in cps , government police at that time do you feel Gordon brown should answer why he apparently sanctioned a memo to police to not arrest people because the girls made life style choices.

Maybe this didn't come from him but police at the time said he and Jacqui Smith sent that memo out.
It needs too be investigated.

@Barr77

No, i disagree... its lazy to think Musk gives a flying fuck about the UK or its children, he is using the situation for his own ends.

Praising Musk is exactly what he wants but shouldn't get.

I linked to a 2017 report into childrens services... no one could care less then, just as most don't now, its all about cutting services and giving people tax cuts, the moment a govt looks like not reducing taxes, the opponents dive in.

Its a not a right vs left issue at all, not even a Lab vs Tory one.... its about doing the right thing and a costly long inquiry is, atm, the wrong thing to do.

So just throw more money at the existing services with their existing vested interests and hope for the best then?

I don’t see why it needs to be either/or Alexandra.

Continue with the prosecutions in
fight and implement existing recommendations while a national enquiry into the clusterfuck of politician, social worker, cps and politician obfuscation, prejudice and failure to protect the girls takes place. I demand to see them
all held to account.

Their inaction allowed the rape and torture of thousands of girls. This is much worse than the post office scandal, heads must roll.

Thank you for that link. I wasn’t aware of it. I have to confess, I stepped away from the issue for a few years as it took its toll, mentally and socially. The vitriol and fury with which we were met trying to raise awareness was breathtaking.

I realise now that it was probably down to two things:

• terror that uncovering the issue would stir up a hornets nest in a culture that has no fear of death and an utter disregard for women and girls’ rights and lives
• A profound ignorance of other cultures, which manifests as moral superiority and virtue signalling

I do understand both of those attitudes; this country’s tolerance is why I chose to settle here.

But this is not tolerance. And as I’ve said before, any mother on this site who is not howling with outrage and disgust at this heinous practice, who DARE level the smug, cheap accusation of racism at anyone who discusses it, should hang her head in shame.

These are our children. Children. Drugged and gang raped and terrified and damaged beyond belief.

And yet even after the Post Office scandal, very few heads have rolled and taxpayers are paying out for the damage, not that they shouldn’t be compensated. The authorities never pay the price for their incompetence - there might be one symbolic firing - but then everything just carries on as it did before after a bit of handwringing. As for this scandal, it Epstein and Maxwell can be jailed for trafficking kids to no one, not one client exposed and punished (in fact his friend Mandelson is now ambassador to the US!), then I don’t hold out much hope for this.

A reasonable course of action.

But i believe that a public inquiry now would lead to inaction, as funding requests will be met with "oh lets see what Lord XYZ comes up with in 5 years time, don't want to waste tax payers money do we?"

But i also see your point too.

@Cloclo15 These services fail, partly due to a lack of funds, just look at how the privatised childrens homes exploit the tax payer? or how a SW in Manchester will have dozens of families to shift through and prioritise, whilst all the time being told to stop spending so much time with his/her current case load.

My DD works in adult acquired brain injury in the community, same there, huge pressure to stop providing support for severely neuro injured patients, in order to take on another one and "reduce waiting lists"

Same in childrens services.

@Cloclo15 throwing money always helps in some ways but there is a background culture, lens here that needs too be investigated.

Why would a memo go out to say these girls made life style choices.

Money can't tackle that mentality and that culture and mentality is what need too be investigated.

How did two people get into our highest offices believing that 11 year olds are fit to make such lifestyle choices.
At the time there were no go areas of the UK, glodwick for instance where a mum was told if she's taken there your daughter will be gang raped and will disappear.

It's a mind set and culture.
The first job of any government is to protect it's people.

Why are 3 ring leaders walking free in Rotherham even when their citizenship has been stripped.

Is our government, labour or Tory, protecting US

You re making my argument for why inquires are such pointless exercises.

No one at Horizon or the PO will ever face prosecution and the man/woman at the bottom of the pile will always get the blame.

So what if someone resigns or hands back a CBE? they just move onto the next corporate job etc... much like NHS trust CEO's

Maggie Oliver on Talk Radio earlier basically saying that while she would love another enquiry, she doesn’t trust anyone to carry it out properly

She's got a very valid point about the trust

Unfortunately there's almost never any such thing as an independent inquiry; they're too susceptible to influence from whoever's paying, whether that involves the choice of someone "sound" to carry it out, direct interference in the actual process or something else

In any case, as so many have said, we don't need another inquiry but action as a result of the ones already carried out, and the only real point of another would be to delay that action still further
Whether we'll ever get any is something else though, and right now it doesn't look hopeful when too many are seized with the single aim of not upsetting communities

No, they aren’t protecting us. Of course they aren’t. There are lots of no go areas in this country and I’m sure the problem is getting worse, not better - it would be very difficult to change that situation now without the military on the street which of course would never happen.
However, to simply fund services more without changing the attitudes and bringing down the corruption of those within would be a waste of resources and not solve anything. How exactly would a state run care home be better than a privately run one if the same people work in it?

The ones carried out were deliberately set up to minimise the scale of the problem, so how can the recommendations be enough to deal with it?
Sorry, I sound a bit fatalistic, but after everything I have read in the last couple of days I think it’s the realisation that no one is going to help these children except a few brave people like Maggie Oliver because ultimately they don’t matter enough to powerful people, and we have no one to vote for to change this. And then I have to see people complaining about Musk commenting on it, as if that is the issue at hand!

It can be run differently, IF it has better leadership... better resources, better staff training, more staff and yes, getting rid of people unfit to be in that sector.

But whats your alternative right now?

To me, amongst many things is cutting time the to prosecute, it takes years, young women in that time can easily lose the will to give evidence, suspects leave the country, threaten the victims, victims continue to be abused, by other men.

Of course hiring more Police, SW's better run Children's homes will help.

Another inquiry wont, at least not right now.

No, its not about Musk commenting, its about the blind faith some have that he is acting in the childrens interests, he is not.

Honestly, I think there should be some kind of consolidated reporting on the scale and commonalities of this, with recommendations - but if anything, I've been quite heartened by the ability of investigative journalists to produce reporting... Should they be the people who write it? They derive their trust by being forced to produce receipts and provide direct primary sources out in the open.

Charlie Peters was just a random person who just hopped on the train and went to Rotherham. That was before he was with GB News.

The discussions on X that kicked this off were from people who noticed what was going on and wrote it up, like the guy who listed 50 towns or the guy who first posted the screenshots. They don't seem to be government officials or insiders or anything. Just people who have been slowly consolidating reports from different local newspapers and local inquiries.

@CherryBowl agree it's a national scandal and I think we need to decide as a county whose more important to us to protect.

There's nothing to apologise for, Cloclo15, because you're quite right and the comments about the framework of the prior inquiry merely confirms what I said above

Unfortunately there's no way to force authorities to grasp this particular nettle unless sufficient people care about it - and as they'll know perfectly well, by next week most will have moved on to something else

@Alexandra2001 if that's your main gripe you've got yourself in a false trap.

" I need to endlessly post to show people musk doesn't care for our children*

Many many People have said they don't care.

They don't care one jot what he feels or doesn't feel.
The result here has been to keep this issue in the public domain, asks difficult questions, educated us all far more on this subject (except some who seem unable to assimilate it all) and hopefully open up debates about this national shame and explore the mindset behind it

It wasn't ignored on my blog. FWR has been transfixed by the trans issue (rightly so) but it also has a rather middleclass Labour orientation and is shy of the racism accusation.
http://hurryupharry.net/category/grooming-gangs/
http://hurryupharry.net/category/child-grooming-scandal/

@Cloclo15 only a few dogmatic posters care about the conduit and they are well known labour supporters who won't have a bad word said about them.

Puzzled perhaps but this has got lots of traction, it's exploded its everywhere