Government on child sex abuse and rape gangs - new authority set up, gang enquiries dropped.

[ArabellaScott]

New child protection authority to be set up.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/government-jess-phillips-home-office-inquiry-elon-musk-b2729520.html

“Building on the national child safeguarding review panel, the child protection authority will address one of IICSA’s central recommendations for providing national leadership and learning on child protection and safeguarding.
“Work to expand the role of the panel will begin immediately, and we will consult on developing the new authority this year.”
...
'Baroness Casey’s three-month national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse is ongoing. It is building a comprehensive national picture of what is known about child sexual exploitation, identifying local and national trends, assessing the quality of data, looking at the ethnicity issues faced, for example, by cases involving Pakistani heritage gangs, and reviewing police and wider agency understanding. We are developing a new best practice framework to support local authorities that want to undertake victim-centred local inquiries or related work, drawing on the lessons from local independent inquiries such as those in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester. We will publish the details next month.'

However:

Five enquiries into grooming gangs are dropped.

'Katie Lam MP, who responded to the statement, told GB News: “Children across Britain have been sexually tortured by gangs of men.
"We must confront the reality of these crimes and how so many people in positions of power let them go on so long.
“Local inquiries are not good enough — they can’t compel witnesses, they can’t look at themes across the country, and they can’t address national issues like deportation.
“Now the Government is watering them down even further. We won’t let them get away with it.”

'In January, the Home Secretary said that the Government would conduct five local inquiries into the rape gangs who have terrorised so many innocent children. More than three months since the Government announced those local inquiries, Tom Crowther KC, a barrister invited by the Home Office to help establish them, knows almost nothing about their progress, and neither do we. Why is the framework for local inquiries now being led by Ministers, rather than by independent voices such as Tom Crowther? Why is the £5 million set aside for inquiries no longer being allocated, but instead delivered on an “opt-in” basis? What do the Government intend to do about local leaders who say there is no need for an independent inquiry, as they do in Bradford and in Wales?'

https://www.gbnews.com/news/labour-grooming-gang-inquiries-plan-dropped-jess-phillips

Hansard:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-04-08/debates/4FDDC9A4-1AC6-4F34-8E6B-3DF6CC2C981A/TacklingChildSexualAbuse

Content warning: The most upsetting speech I've ever heard from Westminster. Details of CSA.

"It’s odd because when communities are doing things to their own girls (FGM, forced marriage, child marriage) we have no problem acting."

There have only been two convictions in 40 years plus one for "conspiring to commit FGM".

FGM Law, Trials, Prosecutions, Convictions, Protection Orders and Mandatory Reporting
14 May 2024

"The practice of ‘FGM’ in the UK has been a criminal offence since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985."

"Although 60,000 under 15 year old girls living in the UK are believed to be at risk of FGM, only six prosecutions have been heard to date. From these, two convictions have been delivered . . . In January 2022, Karlsen and colleagues reported a clear discrepancy between the prosecution rates reported by the Crown Prosecution Service (n = 5) and Home Office (n = 2)."

"The Ministry of Justice collates data on FGM Protection Orders. There have been 600 applications and 860 orders issued to 30 September 2023. There were no reported proceedings for any breaches of an FGMPO by March 2019.
A critical piece about FGMPO’s can be accessed here."

"Section 5B of the FGM Act 2003 introduced a Mandatory Reporting duty on 31 October 2015. It requires regulated health and social care professionals and teachers in England and Wales to report to the police ‘known’ cases of FGM in under 18s which they identify in the course of their professional work. ‘Known’ cases are those where either a girl informs the person that an act of FGM – however described – has been carried out on her, or where the person observes physical signs on a girl appearing to show that an act of FGM has been carried out and the person has no reason to believe that the act was, or was part of, a surgical operation within section 1(2)(a) or (b) of the FGM Act 2003.

Data in regard to these reports appears not to be collated by the police so is unavailable.

Selective and critical contributions in regard to FGM legislation, monitoring and implementation to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, can be accessed here."

https://www.shiftingsands.org.uk/fgm-law-trials-prosecutions-convictions-protection-orders-and-mandatory-reporting/

I don't want to derail into a discussion of FGM so, if anyone is interested, this account of prosecutions and unwarranted suspicions and charges provides important context:

Prosecution of female genital mutilation in the UK: injustice at the intersection of good public health intentions and the criminal law
2 March 2020

https://bererblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/prosecution-of-female-genital-mutilation-in-the-uk-injustice-at-the-intersection-of-good-public-health-intentions-and-the-criminal-law/

One of those prosecutions for FGM was a doctor who was faced with terrible injuries post delivery of a woman who had previously suffered FGM. He repaired the injuries as best he could to stop the bleeding and ended up being arrested.

Maybe they need to do an inquiry into the rape gangs (it is clear the gov hope this issue will go away) and then someone should see if there is any correlation to these other barbaric crimes?

The lack of responses on this thread has surprised me. Why aren’t more people disgusted by Jess Phillips and wanting to comment? Or suggest ways we could help these girls?

This is the naughty corner of MN. Avoided by many.

Labour councils are in it up to their necks that's why they don't want an enquiry.

I never venture onto these FS&G boards tbh. I'm usually on the politics threads. I was actively searching for a thread on the subject and happened to find it on this board.

The lack of responses doesn’t surprise me. This board is really mostly left wing women and many of them are just not sure exactly how to respond to this for fear of looking racist. THIS is where the near-complete destruction of child safeguarding has brought us to. These are child safeguarding issues all day long. But the left worry about looking somehow wrong in prioritising the safety of girls. It’s totally right that you should ask your MP to ensure children are being protected and those that might harm them are being investigated. That’s a normal thing to want to happen and to say out loud.

I had this conversation with my (labour) MP (doorstep) and there is clearly enormous fear around any criticism of Jess Phillips or any of the leadership team. After all, look what they did to Rosie Duffield. The cognitive dissonance must be very stressful.

I can see this. However, then I think of the fear in the trafficked, raped, tortured (and some of them, murdered) girls and I think…Do. Your. Job.

Agree.

Its the trouble with looking at everything racially and ignoring class.

If all politicians could see this as the working class being let down by the state it makes it easier to see what people are angry about.

Almost everyone involved - victims, perpetrators, police, social workers are of the same class and from the same area. Its the political class, who see everyone as a racial demographic, who have, i believe, stepped in to enforce a racial biased onto a safeguarding and justice issue. They are the ones who have stopped the good people doing their jobs and allowed the bad ones to take advantage.

I still consider myself as (just about) part of the 'left wing women' demographic and I agree, the pressure not to talk about this is like nothing else I've experienced. It's even more pronounced than the reluctance to discuss transgender issues or the Cass Review. The same women will happily discuss child abuse in the Church whenever the topic arises.

Yes. Whenever this is mentioned the aggressive response is to shout about white men committing the majority of abuse. Nobody is denying that, but this particular organised crime is very much confined to a specific group and fear of acknowledging that has led to this point where it is impossible to deal with.

Thank you for these insights.

ARE white men committing the majority of abuse? Which data supports this? CSA data - if it includes online crime - will almost certainly skew towards white men.

This could be because of indecent images, where each image counts as one crime. And it’s clear from the cases we see in court that these men won’t have small numbers of images. They’ll have hundreds or thousands. So crime data has to be fully set out and explained otherwise we lose important context.

CSA offending will also encompass location and opportunity. For white men, this might be more largely online. It will also - for all sexual predators - encompass boundary testing and escalation of offending.

Agreed. You can debate mostly anything with a Tory. You might have a very heated disagreement but you can talk. However, certain thoughts are completely off limits to the progressive left. You are shut down before the words are out of your mouth.

I think it does include all the online/images as well as the churches, boarding schools, sports, voluntary organisations, charities, and so on. I am just reporting the arguments that are raised every time the rape and trafficking (grooming) gangs are mentioned. It would be useful to know whether figures are calculated as a proportion of the general population. Ditto the type of crime - much of which might be cyber crime.
It is all horrific and shocking, but the reluctance to investigate this specific group is very telling.

Party fucking politics should fuck off out of this issue.

CSA needs addressed and all parties should stop sniping at each other and get on with it.

I do rec reading the Hansard, because in among the sniping there are relevant points about reporting, sentencing, police, etc.

I'm getting tired of the policing of the number of replies on threads. We don't all have to comment on every thread. I don't post unless I've got something to add, and a thread full of 'how awful' or 'I agree' isn't a productive discussion.

I apologise for not discussing productively enough😕

It’s an indicator of interest. One I’m sure we can all also see in the RL discussions we have

I think my very first post on this board was along the lines of, 'I agree' so maybe I'm being a tad defensive but, if a previous poster has just made the same point I was about to make only more eloquently, then it seems to me to be a perfectly valid and productive response.

And surely dismissing other posts / a discussion as 'unproductive' is in itself an example of policing?

(Edited for crimes against grammar.)

Yes, I agree. People shouldn't police the number of replies on a thread.

Also just to say, the buttons at the end of posts allow a reaction. This is only seen by the poster, so some excellent posts could get numerous agreeing reations which don't show up on the thread.

Well, there's been very little reporting on this either.

Totally. We should police the people who police the number of replies. That way we can shut down discussions without even mentioning the topic😍