Labour rejects calls for Oldham grooming gang inquiry

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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

There are some shocking accounts on X atm. Obviously it is possible they are not true or exaggerated or they may be politically motivated but no wonder there are many people who are against inquiries if any of this is half true there is so much more to come out.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1875301146467955177.html

The review revealed the details about Shabir Ahmed - https://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/146572/paedophile-shabir-ahmed-worked-as-a-welfare-officer-in-oldham-unchecked-for-a-year-%E2%80%93-despite-being-accused-of-serious-child-sexual-abuse

The Mayor denied he gave a reference https://www.oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-features/139/main-news/147050/deputy-council-leader-says-claims-he-gave-grooming-gang-ringleader-a-reference-are-%E2%80%98categorically-untrue%E2%80%99

I think it needs a nation wide enquiry because its a complex issue that goes to the heart of many national issues such as porn, cultural differences, failures of integration and police and political priorities. None of these are merely local.

Excellent article by Louise Perry.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rotherham-cover-up/
Extract;
I never witnessed anyone failing to follow the procedures formally demanded of their role. What I did witness, however – many, many times – were charity workers and (to a lesser extent) social workers and police officers clamouring to insist that ‘the stereotypes’ about CSE were not true. That is, that the victims were not always white girls, and that the perpetrators were not always Muslim men.Which, technically, is true – in large part because the definition of CSE adopted by government agencies came to be so expansive that it included all sorts of sex crimes that had nothing to do with what ‘Rotherham’ represents. Teenage boys groomed into sending naked photos to adult men on the internet, for instance, was a kind of crime that I repeatedly saw categorised as CSE. ‘People of all genders sexually assault people of all genders’ was a phrase one of my colleagues was fond of repeating. It was all obfuscation. They must have known that.

Which, technically, is true – in large part because the definition of CSE adopted by government agencies came to be so expansive that it included all sorts of sex crimes that had nothing to do with what ‘Rotherham’ represents.

It's similar to prostitution being lost in 'sex work'.

All child sexual abuse is horrific, but having the same phrase to describe every aspect doesn't help. To understand the issues, we have to see the differences, it doesnt mean that we are ranking abuse from the worst to the 'not that bad'.

Which, technically, is true – in large part because the definition of CSE adopted by government agencies came to be so expansive that it included all sorts of sex crimes that had nothing to do with what ‘Rotherham’ represents. Teenage boys groomed into sending naked photos to adult men on the internet, for instance, was a kind of crime that I repeatedly saw categorised as CSE. ‘People of all genders sexually assault people of all genders’ was a phrase one of my colleagues was fond of repeating. It was all obfuscation. They must have known that.

Exactly. That's my problem with the most recent inquiry.

It's similar to prostitution being lost in 'sex work'.

And domestic violence being subsumed into all "domestic abuse" which is obviously highly interlinked and entirely valid to want to measure, but the actual violence costs 2 women's lives a week.

Thanks for that, I thought there was too so was surprised to see it but then thought “fuck why don’t we have this, we need it immediately”. I wonder if what the baroness is trying to do is tie it all together more robustly. Will try to do some more reading when I have time.

I'm less than hopeful with KS currently at the reins.

KS and his Labour party are hell bent on causing more wars in the middle east, pushing more and more Muslim men into our country as they have no where else to live. The Tories obviously started this mess but the Labour party are at it on steroids.

The genocide in Gaza first, and now they've started on Syria these places are just the beginning. KS is up for a mass extermination in the ME. Where else are Muslim men who hope to survive this onslaught in the middle east meant to live? KS seems to think they should come here!

Thank you for sharing this. Louise Perry captures it so well, the way generic terms like "CSE" get used to smudge out the data and derail the conversation so you get posters over and over repeating generic statistics that don't help us understand and prevent another Rotherham.

Different types of abuse clearly require different approaches.

A lot of the left wing media have down played the scale of abuse for some time given that it helped a narrative that multi culturism fails at some.levels. There has been no real exploration of how a culture of CSE can be ingrained within some communities as sadly the avoidance of being perceived as racist has been prioritised over the lives of you girls. Language has been used to continually hide the fact that a sub group of Asian Muslim men have systematically abused young vulnerable girls.

We need to step away from an investigatory culture that is unwilling to focus on certain demographics as the cause of the problem when it manifest it is the cause of the problem. Statements like white men abuse children too, while obviously true, does nothing to aid understanding of this particular crime and there has to be the ability of a report to be unashamedly focused or it looks like more cover up.

When Islamaphobia is a hot topic an enquiry must be brave enough to tackle the cultural, ethnic and religous aspects of this and if it needs doing there needs to be a clear denunciation of the misogynistic culture amongst some Asian men that has allowed the crime to proliferate it and means to change that culture.

This is still blowing up on X/Twitter and in centre or centre right press. Shocked that the bbc lead story was the weather. Guardian and Times also silent despite the Times initially blowing open the cases to the public with Andrew Norfolks series about 10 years ago. Not much on mumsnet. Though I’ve had a low level awareness of it from years ago was in tears reading about some of the horrifying abuse and the scale of it.
When you think of the weeks we had of Gregg Wallace and his sock dangling penis compared to the severity and horror of these crimes. Worth a look at Maggie Oliver’s profile and her interview - it’s all still going on too…

Yes I'm glad the Telegraph has been covering this. It's good to be able to provide links to a "mainstream" paper. I just read this from Guy Dampier (co-creator of the GB News grooming gangs documentary):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/04/need-more-than-inquiry-to-end-injustice-of-grooming-gangs/

"A decade after the scandal broke, the need for stronger measures is obvious. Not one police officer or council official who was complicit has been jailed. Many rapists have faced only a few years in jail, with early release and a welcome back to their community."

He proposes some steps beyond just an inquiry, what do we think of them?

• Public sector blacklist for anyone in positions of authority at the time who failed to act
• Elevate whistleblowers like Jayne Senior and Maggie Oliver to the House of Lords
• Build a public memorial
• Arrange visits to schools to talk about how anti-white racism caused this issue
• Heavily restrict immigration from the relevant countries, particularly family immigration routes
• Deport any grooming gang members who can be, using visa enforcement powers as necessary

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1875912522965946870.html

@OneAmberFinch those seem like a sensible starting point

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8xl4d3m81o

Keir Starmer's response to question from Beth Rigby...
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1876215812429643937

Interesting how Starmer is quick to publicly support Philips , but continues to ignore one of his own MPs Rosie Duffield , who has been bullied and threatened for years. Joan Smith and Maggie Oliver are both women who he has ignored on this issue and many other issues pertaining to women and children. He is utterly pathetic and weak

He really is a waste of space. And reminder that Jess Philips handwaved away the mass sexual assaults in Cologne and other cities in Germany on NYE 2015, saying that "it sounds just like a Saturday night in Birmingham." She can fuck off too.

Still calling those who disagree and challenge him "far right". I wonder when he will learn that this doesn't work anymore.

He really isn't very good at politics is he, he and his advisors are making this situation so much worse, I can almost hear the lurch to reform.

one of the few people I know who fails the Turing test. He seems to have an almost complete lack of nous. Even the average Joe in the street would know, for example, that accepting freebie clothes, glasses etc. whilst on his salary is just plain stupid.

Interesting old piece from Ann Cryer that also touches on how the way this has been handled impacts girls and young women from all communities. Essentially calling people racists does nothing for young Asian girls either.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4780326/Branded-racist-trying-save-girls-vile-abusers.html

I thought he started off well, but I don't know what lies he's talking about and who he means.

Also, its as if tommy robinson is he's biggest political threat.

They like to align things like this with TR so that people don't want to be seen as being in agreement with him and look away from the problem as if he is in involved it must be far right.... not sure what "misinformation" he referred to either...