There will be a national enquiry into the grooming gangs

[inkognitha]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/14/keir-starmer-national-inquiry-grooming-gangs

Posting here for traffic

YABU: this was unnecessary
YANBU: this was the right thing to do

I'm not here to say what I expect to be revealed. I expect them to do a proper fucking job of it and not a succession of papering up the cracks with underfunded, under supported, limited bollocks to show that they did "something".

That's not possible however you could prosecute perpetrators instead of creating a culture of impunity and blaming victims.

It's about 30 years too late, many people raised concerns, in schools in my personal experience, but were castigated because it would upset the 'community' to appear to criticise the practice and keeping the 'community' happy was deemed more important.

So many used language and attacks to keep it suppressed. The latest from Labour over last ten months, ‘far right, dog whistle’ etc

Absolutely you could however they felt it was possible to remove the child not the perpetrator despite knowing the perpetrator. So if they can remove one human from a place surely they can do the same to another.

When the law says the victim is to blame then they will continue to lean on that to justify why they do blame the victim. That needs to change to stop blaming the victim. It is sick that even today the definition puts the blame on the victim.

I don't understand what you mean. It's illegal to sexually abuse a child or have sex with a child under the age of consent. What definition?

Casey's audit will be published this afternoon. It was this report that supposedly changed Starmer's mind about the necessity of an inquiry. It marks out the scale and nature of the grooming gangs and establishes an explicit link with Pakistani men. So, we'll get more information later today.

Even if it causes further harm and trauma to the victim?

They're unlikely to demand testimony from victims, whose accounts of rape and torture are plentiful and forthcoming. It's the institutions and services who limited their exposure to criticism through their silence that will be dragged into the light.

The reason prolific offenders have abused with impunity is because of people turning a blind eye and covering it up. Reporting could mean that further victims are saved and we don't have decades of abuse.

There's been an explicit link with these cases for years. In fact, that's one of the reasons people didn't act.

You go tell her about why you don't think it's necessary then. I'm just adding to the conversation about what's happening next.

The definition of Child Sex Exploitation says that the child has sex with someone as a reciprocal agreement.

The word rape doesn't even appear in the definition but it bloody well should. Using sex/sexual activity instead of rape implies that consent was given as sex is consensual and rape isn't and the fact that it mentions a reciprocal agreement again should be removed as it is not reciprocal exchange at all. That implies choice and consent which there isn't. It also mentions paying for their service. Rape isn't a sexual service. Rape is an abuse of a person not a service. Service implies a choice.

Presumably the point she is making explicit is that this won't be couched among other cse types and the specificity of the crime won't be watered down. As happened in the recent cse inquiry.

A child can't consent.

I'm just wondering what they are hoping to gain from the inquiry. It's usually set out beforehand so it will be interesting to see if they are going over old ground, trying to uncover how big this is, exposing safeguarding failures or questioning police and other agencies on failure to protect.

👏👏👏

Yes - that’s why there has been such a loss of trust . The “far right” “racist” insults flung at people whose only concern is that this scandal is not repeated…
And the deflection is still going on …
Why are some people so worried about a full transparent national enquiry ?

This is the minimum that should be expected. Everyone going on about 30 years ago, this was happening in Sheffield and Rotherham with taxi gangs less than 10 years ago. Police officers took bribes and reported when victims got the courage to go to the stations. Care houses had taxis lining up to ferry girls around the country. Social workers smoothed the waters and assured anyone concerned that the girls were rotten and the problem. They need exposing and some need charging.

A child 16 or 17 can consent as the age of consent is 16. So yes a child can consent if they are at or above the age of consent. But no child consents to being raped as rape is not consensual and CSE is rape not sex so it is never consensual no matter the age and even if the child is above the age of consent it is never consensual.

Which is why sex shouldn't be in there as it is not sex. They are raped. Sex is consensual rape isn't. So why is the word sex in there not rape?

Nobody is held to account but truth is important.

Liverpool fans fought for over 20 years for that inquiry just to get the truth out of what actually happened. Justice is another matter.

But we know what happened.

Let's hope so. Only person in Westminster with any balls.

Mostly. Do we know the full extent of it? The full extent of the cover up? To what extent it still goes on now?

It's the biggest scandal we've had and the establishment have continually tried to brush it off to protect themselves.

You can't consent to being abused or exploited. I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. Is it possible to quote?