Labour rejects calls for Oldham grooming gang inquiry

[Signalbox]

Are Labour right to push the responsibility for carrying out a public inquiry back onto Oldham Council?

I don't understand how it is considered acceptable for local authorities to carry out their own inquiries when they are often part of the institutional failure that allowed these crimes to be carried out on such a large scale over decades. Councils, police and social services were/are all implicated in the failure to act (or to actively obstruct) in some way or another.

"Phillips’ letter to Oldham Council, seen by GB News, claims it is for the the local authority ‘alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene.’ Reports have previously been commissioned and produced in Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford; Oldham now plans to launch its own Telford-style inquiry. Given the strength of feeling – which Phillips acknowledges in her letter – it seems inevitable that there will be questions or debate in the Commons when parliament returns next week."

"Yet for the hundreds of victims and those invested in bringing perpetrators to justice, this will seem pitifully inadequate. In each town where grooming gangs operated, similar patterns emerged: victims were ignored, law enforcement complicit and political officials more concerned about reputational damage than lives affected. Local authorities can hold their own inquiries, of course. But given the scale of these crimes, the fact they took place over decades, in many towns, suggests a level of institutional complicity requiring the attention of central government."

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labour-rejects-calls-for-oldham-grooming-gang-inquiry/

Archive...

https://archive.ph/3greC#selection-1667.0-1759.570

No it's not just Musk who is asking for a new inquiry. This inquiry, unlike the other national inquiry would need to focus on these criminal gangs as a specific phenomenon.

It would examine how the men could get away with it in plain sight, and investigate the failings in the police, social services, and local authority, as well as central government. It would look at the commonalities between the gangs and bystanders in their community who enabled the rape and repeated abuse of tens of thousands of teenage and younger girls over decades, and any links between different local gangs.

How do we achieve this without an inquiry?

Jess Phillips knows what she is doing, she has a plan and is going to do a fantastic job. If only the rich, white, racist man would stop his verbal diarrhoea and let the people with the actual skills do their job.

Just because a few egomaniacs decide to join in with the rich, white, racist, man's virtue signalling / way too late / way too off the mark / stupid ideas for what they think is right - does not mean they are right.

Let Jess Phillips get on with the job she's been working on for god knows how many years. She has listened to the victims, she is following their lead on this.

I trust her, as do many of the grooming gang victims she has been supporting all these years.

A wise woman once said that creating sacred casts is inviting and allowing abuse.

I would like to see an inquiry reach this this understanding, by examining how having created such a cast people with power and influenced chose not to act, as it would have been career ending, not just of their own career, but that of many others.
Those who wanted to retain their power and influence, deliberately threw children under the bus to achieve this, and we see this happening again and again, wherever a sacred cast has been created.

It would be useful if this fact was learned and taken into account going forward, in politics, education, social work and policing. Whether that would be achieved by an inquiry I do not know.

A wise woman once said that creating sacred casts is inviting and allowing abuse.

I would like to see an inquiry reach this this understanding, by examining how having created such a cast people with power and influenced chose not to act, as it would have been career ending, not just of their own career, but that of many others.

Those who wanted to retain their power and influence, deliberately threw children under the bus to achieve this, and we see this happening again and again, wherever a sacred cast has been created.

It would be useful if this fact was learned and taken into account going forward, in politics, education, social work and policing. Whether that would be achieved by an inquiry I do not know.

Exactly, and maybe it's my failure of imagination but I can't see how that can be achieved without an inquiry of some kind. Open to suggestions though.

Let Jess Phillips get on with the job she's been working on for god knows how many years. She has listened to the victims, she is following their lead on this.

I trust her, as do many of the grooming gang victims she has been supporting all these years.

Jess Philips is largely irrelevant apart from Musk singling her out. I don't think much of her though for many reasons. And some prominent grooming gang victims do want a national inquiry and justice rather than "toolkits".

I am curious, given the results of many expensive recent enquiries, what people want or expect from a new enquiry, which has not either been covered by the 2014 enquiry or isn’t entirely unrealistic.

People have made it clear what they want to happen. They want the grooming gangs phenomenon to be investigated fully and those who enabled it to face consequences, and for steps to ensure it can't happen in the same way again. What's been proposed before goes some way towards that. But it was a missed opportunity, and a whitewash, as Maggie Oliver says.

https://x.com/samanthataghoy/status/1875224480651379147

"Now think about the people that were meant to protect them. Who comes to mind? Police, local councils, social services, sexual health clinics, schools, care homes.

But they didn’t.

Those in positions of power turned a blind eye for decades while little girls were being raped, tortured, and murdered.

They branded them “white slags”, “child prostitutes”, and “paki shaggers”. They walked in on victims naked and drugged with 20+ adult men and only arrested the child, they arrested girls for prostitution and handed them back to the same men that were exploiting them, they added the victims to dockets as co-defendants in their own abuse, they downplayed the scale of abuse, they refused to investigate reports, they paid for the taxi rides the girls got raped during, they silenced whistleblowers (like^ @MaggieOliverUK^), they blamed the girls for their own abuse, they tried to block inquiries, and more."

These enquiries aren’t really set up to solve issues but to expensively kick the can down the road and keep high profile people safe from real consequences.

Out of interest how do you think high profile people would ever face real consequences without an inquiry? Is there another mechanism by which this could be achieved?

As I said, if you think this outcome or anything like it can be achieved without an inquiry, please explain.

What Ereshkigalangcleg* said.

The Police are there to prevent and detect crime - they failed, they turned a blind eye, they did not investigate. Social Services are there to protect the vulnerable - they failed, they turned a blind eye.

All the agencies and personnel who enabled, condoned and did nothing should be held to account publicly for their failings and face severe consequences. Trite lessons will be learnt (which never are) phrases are not good enough.

That is what an enquiry should do - find out why they did nothing and in some cases actively enabled the abuse of girls and hold those who did so personally and institutionally responsible for their actions and lack of action.

Failure to do so will mean it will happen again and again and again because those mentioned above got away with it.

The Police are there to prevent and detect crime - they failed, they turned a blind eye, they did not investigate. Social Services are there to protect the vulnerable - they failed, they turned a blind eye.

All the agencies and personnel who enabled, condoned and did nothing should be held to account publicly for their failings and face severe consequences. Trite lessons will be learnt (which never are) phrases are not good enough.

That is what an enquiry should do - find out why they did nothing and in some cases actively enabled the abuse of girls and hold those who did so personally and institutionally responsible for their actions and lack of action.

Failure to do so will mean it will happen again and again and again because those mentioned above got away with it.

👏

This article is worth a read. I think it perhaps explains why victims/survivors don't feel that justice has been done. It reports on the outcome of the IOPC investigation on South Yorks police.

"The IOPC on Wednesday published what it described as its overarching report from Operation Linden, the name given to a series of investigations it carried out into how South Yorkshire police responded to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation between 1997 and 2013.

It is estimated that more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham across the 16-year time span.

The report concludes that the force failed to protect vulnerable children. The IOPC carried out 91 investigations into police failings covering 265 separate allegations made by 51 complainants.

In total, 47 officers were investigated, with the IOPC concluding eight had a case to answer for misconduct, and six for gross misconduct.

Not one officer lost their job as a result of the process and the most severe sanction was a written warning."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/22/costly-report-into-rotherham-police-failings-lets-down-grooming-survivors

There's been a lot of commentary on Starmer's statements yesterday, in the Q&A after his NHS speech.

So I've transcribed the parts which were about the child sex abuse rings. (They were mixed in with NHS and other Qs.)

This is just my amateur effort, and timings are from this vid of the whole speech and Q&A:

(This was just the first copy of the full press conference that Google served me, I'm sure others are available.)

24:46
[Beth Rigby from Sky News]
On Elon Musk I
do need to ask you this. He called your safeguarding minister Jess Phillips an “evil witch”, a “rape genocide apologist” who
“should be put in jail”. Does that sort of abuse of a minister make you feel angry, and what is your response to that?
[...]

25:59
[Starmer]
You asked me a really important question that’s been in the news for the last few days. I am going to, with permission, just answer it quite fully, because it is a really
important set of issues. But let me start with this: child sexual
exploitation is utterly sickening. Utterly sickening. And for many, many
years, too many victims have been completely let down. Let down by
perverse ideas about community relations, or by the idea that institutions must be
protected above all else, and they’ve not been listened to, and they’ve not
been heard. And when I was Chief Prosecutor for five years I tackled that head
on, because I could see what was happening. And that’s why I re-opened
cases that had been closed and supposedly finished. I brought the first
major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang – in the particular case it was in Rochdale – but it was the first of
its kind. There were many that then followed that format. We changed, or I changed, the whole prosecution approach
because I wanted to challenge and did challenge the myths and stereotypes that were stopping those victims being heard.
So we changed the entire approach – not without criticism at the time, I might add. And when I left office, we had the
highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record. Now that record is not secret. As a public
servant it’s there for all of you or everybody to see it. I also called
for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. I called for that a decade
ago. The Tories did nothing about that for those 10 long years, including
when the Jay report came out nearly three years ago now. A central plank: mandatory reporting; still hasn’t been done. We’re
going to do it. But let’s just to bring it in closer and I will answer you on Jess Phillips in particular. Because those that
are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not
interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves.
Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson aren’t interested in justice;
they’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing
a grooming case, a gang grooming case. These are people who are trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill from
street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote. And those attacking Jess Phillips – who I’m proud to call a
colleague and a friend – are not protecting victims. Jess Phillips has done a
thousand times more than they’ve even dreamt about when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse throughout her
entire career. And so just as I took on the criminal
justice system and the institutions when I was Chief Prosecutor, I’m prepared to call out this for what it
is. We’ve seen this playbook many times. Whipping up of intimidation and
threats of violence, hoping the media will amplify it. Now Jess Phillips
does not need me or anybody else to speak on her behalf, but when the poison of the far
right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and
others, then in my book a line as been crossed. I enjoy the cut and thrust of
politics, the robust debate that we must have. But that’s got to be based on facts
and truth. Not on lies. Not on those who are so desperate
for attention that they’re prepared to debase themselves and their country.
So this government will get on with the job of protecting victims, including
child sexual abuse mandatory reporting, accelerating the
processes. But what I won’t tolerate is this discussion and debate based on lies,
without calling it out. What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the
bandwagon simply to get attention. When those politicians sat in government
for 14 long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing
anything about it, now so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what
the far right is saying. So that’s what I say about Jess Phillips. Thank you.
[...]

31:23
[Robert from ITV]
Forgive me for going back on Musk’s attacks. You’ve described what he has been alleging as lies against Jess Phillips. This morning he said you should be in prison. You’re a lawyer: that sounds libellous. Will you take legal action against him?
[...]

33:06
[Starmer]
I’ve said quite a lot about the various lies and misinformation that
are put out there. My record is it’s, it’s open. I mean
there was nothing secret about being Director of Public Prosecutions. Every single case I prosecuted went to court,
was looked at by a judge. I had an independent inspectorate with access to every single file of every case any time he or she wanted, and I was overseen by the attorney general which for three
of the five years was a Tory attorney general. So that record, I mean, and so
in a sense, rather than me trying to say any more about what I did when I was
in office you can access this material. You know where it is. You know what the facts are. But it is an important point.
that’s more, this is, the reason I’ve emphasized this today is because it’s more, this isn’t about whether I defend
myself on my record, frankly. That record is there, you can see it, you can make your own mind up. It is something
about the nature of our politics. Because once we lose the anchor that truth
matters in the robust debate we must have, then we’re on a very slippery slope.
And when politicians – and I mean politicians, who sat in government for many years – are casual about honesty, decency, truth and
the rule of law, calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far
right, then that affects politics, because a robust debate can only be based on
the true facts. And that’s why this is, this is actually an important point about our politics, not about what
anybody may or may not say on Twitter – that actually isn’t the main issue. The main issue is what are politicians here
doing to stand up for the things that matter to our democracy and the way that
we have robust debate. That’s why I want to call this out. Because I think it really matters. And it matters not just to me, not just to the Labour Party, but it ought to matter – and it used to matter – to all political parties. And it’s a sign of where the Tory party have got to that we’re even having this debate. Thank you very much, Robert.

35:19
[Chris Hope, GB News]
I must ask also about the grooming gang scandal. Critics
will say it is not a far right bandwagon issue, Prime Minister. The IICSA report
looked into six towns where grooming gangs were operating. Rochdale got one mention in 400 pages. We have found at GB News
court reports showing gangs operating in 50 towns, 50 towns across
the country. Are you certain as Prime Minister it’s not going on today? Why don’t you order a national public
inquiry to join the dots between 50 towns not 6 barely mentioned in the Jay report?
Are you afraid it might expose failings as your role as a DPP and that’s why Elon Musk says “Were you were complicit in the rape of Britain”? You have not, to go after the far right on this does not go to the heart of the problem.

[Starmer]
Well Chris look, on
my record, I think you were actually covering crime when I was DPP; you were quizzing me at the time, for the
Telegraph as the crime correspondent – I think, for the entire five years, if I’m right. And quite rightly too, I’m not complaining in the slightest. But you
looked at my record for five years with me as I was doing the job, facing your questions; you’ve got access to all of
the material so in a sense, you can
look at it. I’ve set out what I did. I actually changed the system because I could see some of the things that were going wrong. I wasn’t prepared, unlike, you
know, some Tory politicians, I’m not Tweeting about it or talking about it, I got on with changing it. In relation to the serious point you do make, because you know this is, the victims here suffered terrible abuse, unthinkable,
unspeakable, genuinely sickening abuse, and then they weren’t listened to. And that has to be taken seriously. We have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that never happens again. That’s why
I made the changes I did within criminal justice. Among the reasons I came into politics was because I felt it
couldn’t all be done within the criminal justice sphere alone. It had to be done
more broadly. On the question of this sort of call for an ever-increasing
number of reviews there have been, there have, there have been a lot of reviews including localized reviews;
including into Oldham for example, the Mayor of Manchester did his review;
and the Jay report was intended to look at the different types of exploitation that
went on. It was a comprehensive review. What Professor Jay said, was really
important there – and I, ‘cos I completely agree – which is this doesn’t need more consultation; it doesn’t need
more research; it just needs action. There have been many, many reviews. This constant asking for a further review – no turn stone should be left unturned, but frankly it’s time for action. Get on with
it. Why didn’t the last government implement the Jay requirements? Got to answer that question. For 10 years we’ve
had reviews and reports. Did they act? No. They’re tweeting and talking about what they think should
have been done. They’ve got some pretty basic questions to answer in relation to that in my view. Thank you very
much Chris.

43:55
[Max from the Times]
You say the sort of language Elon Musk uses matters
to democracy here, and has a serious negative impact on it. Musk is in a
couple of weeks’ time going to be a senior member of the US administration led by Donald Trump. So are you taking
this as a direct attack from his administration, and will you ask Trump to tone it down?

[Starmer]
I’m actually making a more
general point, I’m not going to individualize this to Elon Musk or anybody else. I’m making more, because actually I’m, I’m very concerned about where the Tory Party is going on this, in this country. Because
they are not, they, I think only a few months ago it would have been
unthinkable for things to have been said about Jess Phillips that were said recently,
without all political parties and the leader of the opposition calling it out in terms. I genuinely believe that. I
don’t think it was that long ago that you would have all expected that reaction. You’d have all been challenging the leader of the opposition, “Will you denounce this, this isn’t fair”, because it’s put a member of Parliament – my
Member of Parliament – at risk. That’s not good. That’s, that’s why I say a line’s been crossed. So this isn’t about America or Musk. I’m talking about our politics. I’m talking about responsibility that our politicians have
in calling this out for what it is and distancing themselves and condemning it. Because if you’re not stand, prepared to
stand up as a Tory MP and denounce what’s being said about Jess Phillips, who’s now had threats made to her, then you need to seriously consider why you’re in politics in the first place, in my view.

[45:36]
[Jack Ellison from the Sun]
You correctly
identified that the Jay inquiry looked at the wider issue of child sexual abuse, but by refusing to hold a
national inquiry that zeroes in on these rape gangs, can we take it that you are
therefore satisfied that there are no more failings of wider state that need
to come to light?

[Starmer]
Well I don’t think we should leave any stone unturned, but
I think we know what the basic failings were. The reason I brought the
first mass prosecution for an Asian grooming gang is precisely because I could see that these warped ideas
about community relations were possibly having an impact. Because I could precisely see that the myths and
stereotypes about the victims were preventing some of the most vulnerable in our society from the protection they needed. And that’s why we took that, that action was taken over a decade ago.
Yes, of course you’re right to challenge and say “Well, couldn’t there be something else?” But the basic problem here is
pretty well known. It was pretty obvious. That’s why I did what I did in the Crown Prosecution Service. Because I could see
what the problem was. And so there’s always this sort of suggestion: let’s have another
review. I think Professor Jay – I mean she did look at this for a very long time – there were, you could sense a slight impatience on
her behalf, which is to say, just get on with the things that have already, there were what is it, 20-something recommendations in the Jay
report. None of them have been fully implemented yet. None of them were fully implemented by the last government. So
for the leader of the opposition now to call for a further inquiry, but she didn’t even implement the 20 recommendations of the Jay report, which is
about as comprehensive as you could get, then I think that shows perhaps where
just the, you know, trying to get noticed is becoming more important than the issue itself. So I don’t duck your
challenge, but I do genuinely say, for those that are really concerned with protecting these victims – and I really am –it’s time to get on with it. Implement all the recommendations so far, and you’ll make a material difference to the
lives of very, very many victims. And that’s why I think Professor Jay said, you know,
let’s just get on with what we’ve got. And I think there’s an element of truth in that. I’m not closing my mind. If you or others
put specific allegations or issues to us then we will faithfully deal with them, absolutely rightly. I’m absolutely
not prepared to have this, you know, pushed under the carpet. But I’m slightly impatient with people who just
say “Do another review” when they haven’t got on with implementing the, the very many reviews. There are seven pretty big
reviews; there’s been lots of localized reviews; no end of reviews. It’s time for
people to take the action. That’s why I did what I did as DPP. That’s why I’m going to do what I need to do as Prime Minister.

Thanks for transcribing this @PerkingFaintly so everyone can read what he said.

I know his supporters think he did a great job in this press conference. Many other people disagree.

He's explicit – says it twice – that he's talking about politicians who sit in Parliament when he says they are jumping on the far right bandwagon.

He absolutely doesn't say or in any way insinuate, that people who are concerned about child sex abuse gangs are far right.

He is very clear that he was and is one of the people who wants to actively prosecute and jail them, and disrupt future abuse.

So if that's "far right", then Starmer's "far right".

He says some politicians are "jumping on the far right bandwagon". He's vague about who the "far right" are. Which is why some grooming gang victims and their supporters like Maggie Oliver have interpreted him as referring to them as well, and at the very least handwaving them away, which I agree with.

You're going to have to accept that people disagree with him, in good faith.

He is very clear that he was and is one of the people who wants to actively prosecute and jail them, and disrupt future abuse.

It needs to go further than the perpetrators, those who enable it, fail to investigate it, turn a blind eye to it for whatever reason need to be held accountable too and, in my opinion, should be facing criminal charges too.

Love her or not love her [I don't think she has earned anyone's actual hatred, whatever her shortcomings], you have to love Jess Phillips' response to being called an “evil witch” and a “rape genocide apologist” by Elon Musk:

She said he knows nothing about the subject, and should 'crack on with getting to Mars'.

Saying anyone - politicians or otherwise, is jumping on a far right bandwagon is bonkers.

Wanting an inquiry isnt a far right request. He could justify why one isnt needed without ridiculous insults.

It needs to go further than the perpetrators, those who enable it, fail to investigate it, turn a blind eye to it for whatever reason need to be held accountable too and, in my opinion, should be facing criminal charges too.

Yes, he neatly brushes that off apart from slagging off the Tories (who should absolutely be held to account for their own failings).

I agree that the mandatory reporting is a good idea but I don't understand why it's either/or.

Interesting post here from someone who I don’t believe shares JP’s politics https://x.com/KingBobIIV/status/1876722998821998652