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.

Ooo laughing emoji. Thank you @theilltemperedqueenofspacetime

Great news Raja Miah is involved in the crowdfunded inquiry.

Kemi has been invited too.

Neil Basu is asking for an inquiry too - telegraph article.

‘Ex-police chief: Officers have failed white working class girls – we need a grooming gangs inquiry
He was once the face of progressive policing, but Neil Basu says political correctness in Rotherham was a ‘fundamental’ mistake.’

Jess Phillips infuriates me in a way that few people do. I have worked in some awful places with people who have experienced terrible abuse. There is a type of individual who always makes it about themselves and builds a whole persona and career around making it all about themselves. Eyes on the prize and no real care about the victims, or tackling the perpetrators. I have seen this with charities too.

I agree about the shutting down.

I know KJK isn't to everybody's taste on here, but when she said "The Left - rather a rapist than a racist" that sums it up for me

This- We had a full national enquiry in 2015 costing £186.6m
Asking for another one is just another excuse to put off implementing the recommendations.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/alexis-jay-inquiry-keir-starmer-laws-iicsa-b2674490.html

“The previous inquiry did not examine one of the most important elements of this, which is the fact that most of the perpetrators came from a specific culture and targeted a different, specific group of girls.”

That was found to be a racist, right wing myth. The majority of grooming gangs are white British.
www.theargus.co.uk/news/national/24849607th.grooming-gang-offences-carried-white-men-police-chiefs-say/

No one wants to say ‘we think this particular element of culture in this particular group of Pakistani men should be condemned and all possible measures taken to stop it’.
Well Elon Musk loves saying it as does Farage but they aren’t known for truthfulness
“In 2023, the largest proportion of child sexual abuse suspects were white, accounting for 1,884 (83%), followed by 62 Pakistani suspects (2.7%), the NPCC’s data shows.
From January to September 2024, there were 1,623 (85%) white suspects, and 75 Pakistani (3.9%).”

@Kingfishersperch
Exactly - the report didn’t look at Pakistani rape gangs. People who say ‘we already had an inquiry’ either believe the government propaganda or sympathise with male rapists. Because it did not investigate rape gangs that operate all over our country and appear to be covered up by those that could stop it.

Yes it did look into the grooming gangs (aka rape gangs) across England and Wales:
”The £186.6 million inquiry, set up in 2015, looked at 15 areas scrutinising institutional responses to child sexual abuse – including grooming gangs, investigations into abuse in Westminster and the church – and more than 7,000 victims took part.”

No it isn’t “confined to a specific group” 🤨

Why can’t you acknowledge it’s an issue of class and misogyny. Making it about one nationality is what is hindering tackling it.

Yes, I have a lot of time for KJK. She is very brave and she makes me think, and that is a good thing. I certainly don't agree with everything she tweets or retweets, but that is ok. I do not have to agree with everything a person or an -ism or an -ology says.

Why can’t you acknowledge it’s an issue of class and misogyny. Making it about one nationality is what is hindering tackling it.

Why can't it be class, misogyny and culture in some cases?

This group of men were all from one particular small area in Pakistan. They were related to each other. They ran businesses together. They organised block votes together. Ignoring that is not helpful.

One group of men. Out of all the men who ran grooming gangs, of which over 80% are white British.

No ethnicity is over-represented for this crime.

What is not helpful in tackling this crime is posting xenophobic nonsense implying it is a crime that was imported in with a certain nationality of immigrants and therefore can be solved by focussing on only 2% of grooming gangsters (Pakistani).

Ignoring the 98% of grooming gangsters isn’t going to stop the sexual exploitation and rape of children.

Because the statistics do not support the “culture” angle no matter how much you feel it’s a brown Muslim men problem.

And this is why this went on for so long and continues. It is possible to investigate more than one grooming (rape) gang at a time and acknowledge that they are not identical.

The problem was and still is these Asian gangs were not investigated and charged to avoid accusations of racism. Sacrificing white girls as "sluts" and "worthless". Statistics as to race are thus meaningless.

The girls involved were doubly traumatised - first by the grooming and second by the betrayal when they asked for help from those who were supposed to protect them. Until Elon Musk raised awareness the only information on historic abuse trials was GB news.

Why is it only fringe right wing news is willing to stand up for victims' rights and justice?

Why is it important to your argument that you make me out to be a racist?

It’s not, I’m only paraphrasing you. If it looks racist, then perhaps you need to rethink what you’re saying.

Yes, the police were being classist and misogynistic. Don’t forget that the victims were also representative of the population in terms of ethnicity- as in white girls were not over-represented.

The police claimed they did not investigate certain gangs due to fears of being called racists.

So this was a problem with poor policing, not with “Pakistani grooming gangs”

Until Elon Musk raised awareness the only information on historic abuse trials was GB news. Why is it only fringe right wing news is willing to stand up for victims' rights and justice?

Hah hah this is bullshit. The “only information” my arse.

The mental gymnastics to deny this problem exists is appalling. There is very clear evidence that there is a problem with Pakistani men committing this particular type of grooming and rape. Alexis Jay found that in her investigation. The statistics bear this out:

“Figures from the police database show where ethnicity is recorded, that in the first three quarters of 2024 - 85% of group-based child abusers were white, while 3.9% were of Pakistani origin.
The figure increases for Pakistani offenders to 13.7% if you remove institutional groups, such as sports groups, schools and church-based group offenders, and group child abuse committed in a family setting.”

The article the quote above is from goes on to say that “in this specific category, there is a disproportionate representation to the number of Pakistanis in the population. However, this only relates to a very defined, and small section of the overall child abuse data.” Case dismissed, effectively. Nothing to see here because it’s only a ‘small section’ of abuse overall. Well it’s not small to those girls.

No one is saying that this is the only form of child abuse. No one is saying that child abuse committed by men of other ethnicities doesn’t matter. What we are saying is that this particular type of abuse happens, that it is a product of culture, that the men often shared racist beliefs about the girls they abused and that these cultural and racial elements must be understood if we are to tackle it.

Link to the article

news.sky.com/story/amp/wrong-to-say-group-based-child-abuse-is-predominantly-committed-by-pakistani-men-police-chiefs-13286550

Testimony from the victims stated that the perpetrators used racist language towards them. Called them “white slag” etc

? What is your point here? That some rapists can also be racist? Yes we know that.
Testimony from BAME victims is not dissimilar.

To see if there was or is a systematic racial targeting of “white” children by grooming gangs at the population level, you’d need statistics to back it up, unfortunately for you, the statistics don’t indicate this.

Unfortunately for me?

You’re not here in good faith.

The evidence from the victims suggests that the men targeted them because they were vulnerable and also because they were perceived as inferior racially and culturally. A proper inquiry could root out whether this really was just a few casual racists as you suggest, or whether it was intrinsic to the particular pattern of grooming and rape.

This states that 97% of the Rotherham victims were white, with caveats about data quality: fullfact.org/crime/grooming-gangs-what-we-know-about-perpetrators-and-victims/