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

I would definitely support a similar approach.

Failure acts as an open goal for the far right
Precisely.
Not letting people talk publicly about things doesn't mean that they don't think about them and talk privately. When they get pissed off enough they build up a head of steam which will vent, somehow.

And nothing fucks people off more than what they can clearly see is gross injustice.

Expect this to blow up badly in political faces in a couple of year's time.

The recommendation as I understand it is for an enquiry similar to Telfords. Have you read the Telford enquiry? It was an extremely robust and helpful enquiry which has massively shaped their approach to CSE in a meaningful way. Whilst the enquiry was commissioned by the local safeguarding partnership (not the council alone) it was not delivered by the local authority or any of the local partner agencies and I can't imagine for one moment this one would be either.

There is a difference between a national enquiry - ie an enquiry which looks at CSE across the UK (would the scope here not be too much?) and a national enquiry into Oldham - at which point ask the question why Oldham, wouldn't the government need to them do lead an enquiry into every area where there's been significant CSE (most councils) - how would that be workable.

There is a difference between a national enquiry - ie an enquiry which looks at CSE across the UK (would the scope here not be too much?)

No I don't believe the scope here is too much. I believe it is essential to treat these rape gangs as a phenomenon in and of itself. So not an inquiry into all CSE, just this specific form which has features common to many locations and in which there are allegations of local corruption.

They will have recognised that it was important for the commonalities in the different grooming gangs run by the Police, for example in terms and attitudes and culture, to be understood.

Edit: this was a comment about the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

I think the problem here that it has been repeatedly pointed out (by the investigations) that race (of the victims and perpetrators ) played a big part in why these things were not investigated. If for decades local authorities were aware of abuse and didn’t act because they thought maintaining race relations was more important than the rape of children then race becomes the issue.

They were saying “this specific set of people are beyond the law” it wasn’t really all the commentators making it a race issue. The police and authorities in these areas are the ones who made it a race issue themselves. Then the defendants in trials made it a race issue by screaming racism or insulting the victims. If the police and authorities had stood by the basic principle that a child cannot consent to sex or to be trafficked then this wouldn’t have become a problem. But they didn’t because of the race of the perpetrators.

if you have multiple towns where a very specific crime has happened and the perpetrators are a very specific set of people it’s ok to notice that. When many of the perpetrators are related to each other and that is also repeated (brothers, cousins, uncles) then it’s fine to notice that too. Most paedophiles aren’t acting with family members, this is a distinct pattern and points to a cultural problem.

It’s much like the BBC and all the perverts it seemed to be harbouring. There is a specific problem with the culture there that ignores predators despite all the warnings.

The problem with avoiding a national inquiry that spans decades is that it's going to continue to be politicised until one occurs.

Continued disparate and fragmented information and investigations will obscure clarity moving forward with real safeguards for children but, imo, as can be seen on SM and bouncing around the newspapers, also enflame racist notions.

Safeguarding children should be the primary aim, not which government did or didn't do what and the only way to do that is to gather all the information and work out how to best make sure it doesn't happen again.

There's no room for sacred castes in safeguarding.

All of this.

Frightened of dealing with it due to the predominant racial issues involved

User37482 agree with your post and also Ereshkigalangcleg:

I believe it is essential to treat these rape gangs as a phenomenon in and of itself. So not an inquiry into all CSE, just this specific form which has features common to many locations and in which there are allegations of local corruption.

Yes, exactly.

Reform are loving this. I don't believe for one moment they truly have the safety of these girls at heart. It's also gift for prime grifter TR.

Which is exactly what the worst examples of cse have always relied on; people avoiding challenging them due to fear of back lash

It's a very common theme in safeguarding. From individuals (Vanessa George) to organisations (the church, bbc, police.)

When the paedophile priests scandal erupted in the Catholic Church, the approach wasn't to say that cultural issues shouldn't be considered because of the risks of stigmatisation. People would not have accepted that analysis should be at a high level of various isolated instances of men abusing children without there being a deeper consideration than that.

Quite.

Men are the problem, regardless of culture and race. Men are the class of human that make up the vast majority of child rapists and abusers. That should be the starting stance. Politics ought to be irrelevant.

However, it stands to reason that men in the UK come from a large variety of cultural backgrounds and if you're an abusive man, your cultural background will have an influence on the way you choose to abuse children. Opportunity, networks and personal beliefs influence everything humans do! An example of a different cultural background influencing the way the abuse is carried out might be Epstein etc.

I am finding this situation incredibly distressing. It is not fair to sacrifice child safeguarding out of guilt for our country's institutional racism problem. The issues are entirely separate and both need tackling. It is hard to imagine this happening, but if we ever decide to face our country's institutional classism problem will that mean victims of working class men won't get justice either?

I agree with this

There is one difference between when the Tories said no and Labour saying no now. The national CSA inquiry has now reported. Do Labour then, regard all the relevant recommendations as adequate for dealing with this?

They are here:

www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/investigation/cs-organised-networks/part-l-conclusions-and-recommendations/l2-recommendations.html

www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report/ii-inquirys-conclusions-and-recommendations-change/part-k-summary-inquirys-recommendations.html

Looks like toolkits, guidance, technical stuff about "empowering victims", categorisation, "making amends". Nothing about what's being said here and in AIBU and elsewhere about corruption. Or indeed what this phenomenon looks like - organised torture of children.

There will never be any progress if there continues to be such broad brush generalisations about men. What is needed is specifics that you can actually address in a focused manner. Just saying "men generally" is not going to address or change anything.

If there is a specific issue with Asian grooming gangs targeting white girls in northern towns then it needs to be addressed as such. If there is an issue of young boys being groomed by on-line misogynistic influencers, then that needs to be addressed at source too

If there is an issue of religious leaders/priests/vicars abusing children and being exonerated then that also needs to be addressed at source...and so on.

If there is a specific issue with Asian grooming gangs targeting white girls in northern towns then it needs to be addressed as such. If there is an issue of young boys being groomed by on-line misogynistic influencers, then that needs to be addressed at source too

This.

Looks like toolkits, guidance, technical stuff about "empowering victims", categorisation, "making amends". Nothing about what's being said here and in AIBU and elsewhere about corruption. Or indeed what this phenomenon looks like - organised torture of children.

It's all pretty toothless, and too broad.

Yes, great post.

Any inquiry, or data collection of previous inquiries or however they want to structure it, should be national in scope but specific to this one pattern.

Statistics that conflate all CSA and advice docs that talk about safeguarding your child from your creepy uncle at Christmas aren't really relevant to this.

Any inquiry, or data collection of previous inquiries or however they want to structure it, should be national in scope but specific to this one pattern.

Exactly this.

So is the consensus that there should be one national statutory inquiry into rape of children by Muslim gangs?
And the failings of the authorities in dealing with these?

There have been multiple inquiries and findings into both individual local authorities (such as Oldham and Rochdale)
Ongoing inspections into current cse cases as both single agency and joint agency to make sure they are bf rung investigated correctly.
Legislation has been changed such as the DOLS act, sexual offending legislation.
There is significant investment into historic investigations (bearing in mind evidence shows many CSA victim survivors don't want to prosecute or come forward for years post the crime)

The Labour council in Oldham got elected on the back of this as one of their pledges to continue to push for another independent inquiry.

I would rather we put the money into our children and young people now as there simply isn't the resources to deal with the online current CSA threat in addition to county lines, and focus on encouraging children within black Asian and other ethnicities to come forward about rape and familial sexual abuse which is significantly under reported to authorities

So is the consensus that there should be one national statutory inquiry into rape of children by Muslim gangs?
And the failings of the authorities in dealing with these?

I personally don't care what the "consensus" is. It's what I absolutely believe needs to happen. All the stones need to be turned over.

Not a toothless, overly broad in scope box ticking exercise that ends by recommending "toolkits".