Keir Starmer to launch grooming gangs inquiry that will make witnesses testify

[IwantToRetire]

Keir Starmer has confirmed that there will be a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs which means it will have the power to compel witnesses to testify and provide documents

The Prime Minister, who has previously resisted calls for another probe, said it was now "the right thing to do". And he confirmed it would be a statutory inquiry, which means it will have legal powers to compel witnesses to testify and produce documents. It comes as the findings of Baroness Dame Louise Casey's rapid audit into group-based child exploitation and abuse are due to be announced next week.

Mr Starmer said: "I have never said we should not look again at any issue. I have wanted to be assured that on the question of any inquiry. That's why I asked Louise Casey who I hugely respect to do an audit.

"Her position when she started the audit was that there was not a real need for a national inquiry over and above what was going on. She has looked at the material she has looked at and she has come to the view that there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she has seen."

The PM added: "I have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation. That is the right thing to do on the basis of what she has put in her audit.

"I asked her to do that job to double check on this; she has done that job for me and having read her report, I respect her in any event. I shall now implement her recommendations." According to a leak of Baroness Casey's review, it is said to state some victims were "institutionally ignored for fear of racism."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/keir-starmer-says-grooming-gangs-35393814

Fucking finally.
Has Kier been pushed off the fence by Reform...?

Reform pulling the strings here, he’s shit scared and rightly so.

We need name and shame of any complicit bleeding heart fuckwit who enabled this.

Every police force that described girls between the ages on 10 and 16 as prostitutes, should hang their heads in shame, and be required to apologise publicly to the victims.

And not just police but social workers too! These people were responsible for children's safeguarding. It's bloody disgraceful and you'd be forgiven for thinking this attitude was buried back in the Victorian times but here this happened in the 2000's.

Yes - rape and torture gangs.

And was happening during and after the publication and implementation of The Victoria Climbie Inquiry: report of an inquiry by Lord Laming through statutory means, i.e. The Children Act 2004. Fucking hell.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-victoria-climbie-inquiry-report-of-an-inquiry-by-lord-laming

Yes one of the social workers went to the wedding of one of the victims, who had been coerced into marrying one of her torturers.

Human traffickers as well. They moved those children around the UK for others to rape.

Rachel Reeves failing to inspire respect or confidence when asked simple question by Trevor Philips.

https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1934157146280653303?t=n5JDdE5cAA1rsUuIXnacXA&s=19

The most important thing is not people’s hurt feelings about how they’ve been spoken about’

@TrevorPTweets presses Chancellor @RachelReevesMP on whether the government was wrong to dismiss calls for a grooming gang inquiry as misinformation.

I also hate that its called grooming.

Grooming makes you they have these young girls i a powder pink room sat in front of an 1990s argos style vanity mirror and these creeps are behind them giving their hair 100 brush strokes with a sliver plated paddle brush instead of the reality which is drugging, raping, torturing and terrorising them and then firebombing their families homes when they try and get their daughters away from this scum.

Is anyone following Raja Miah on this story? He’s been blowing the whistle for years, but has had no interviews on mainstream media. I don’t know whether the story is too hot for them to handle, or whether they think he’s lying (or a loony). I’m inclined to believe him, but I know my instinct ain’t evidence… Anyone know him or any insight on him?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1UaSLx-6EI

I agree with earlier post that it seems really strange that Labour was so adament that a national enquiry wasn't needed when they were waiting on this "rapid audit".

Personally having Louise Casey do anything means that in the end nothing will happen.

If she had any intergrity should would refuse to do any more and say I am not going to go on doing this audits or whatever because nothing every happens.

I dont think a national enquiry will produce any results. Leaving aside which communities the men concerned are part of, it has been known for years that local councils either cover up or are just unable to take action because too often it is their politics or failed social services that allow the exploitation to continue. Remember Lambeth, victims are still asking for a proper report and this is decades ago. And Islington that despite obvious evidence nothing happened and the then local Labour politicians are now "esteemed elders" of the Labour party.

And this is why local enquiries wont work. They could never be neutral or not be fullly informed.

I really dont know what the answer is.

This article argues that as per the IICSA (now 3 years old) action needs to be taken.

The final report of IICSA put forward 20 core recommendations, including on mandatory reporting of sexual abuse, action on online abuse and the creation of a Child Protection Authority. We are still waiting for change.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/new-inquiry-child-sexual-exploitation

This needs to change:

"Of course, it is one of the biggest weaknesses of the public inquiry system: it is wonderful for establishing truth and so on, but the big weakness is that there is no provision for structured monitoring of whether action is taken or not, and verification of that action as part of the whole system afterwards."

Professor Alexis Jay CBE, Chair, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
Home Affairs Committee
Oral evidence: Implementation of Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, HC 616
Tuesday 21 January 2025

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/22869/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

I have come across Miah. I am a bit suspicious of his claims, he seems to be tied into local Oldham internal politics, and maybe be publicity motivated. When I dug around came across some interesting elements from his background he doesn't mention. Take a look at this article. However he claims to have this huge dossier of evidence relating to Oldham so if he does now is the chance to turn it over to the enquiry. He refused to do it before for another enquiry which is suspicious. If he does have real information then why not share it? Yes people have been targeted because they wanted to say the truth, but a lot of women with more to lose have have taken the risk.

https://manchestermill.co.uk/elon-musk-thinks-there-is-a-hidden/

*fromorbit *that sums up my impression too.

I came across him a few years ago and found the info about the financial issues and the interminable and impenetrable run-ins and infighting between local politicians, what seemed like a lot of smoke and mirrors.

On the other hand, the trail did lead me to videos of Oldham Council meetings. These were pretty shocking and I was not impressed at all by Sean Fielding. Joshi Herrmann, Founder of The Mill, has written a virtual hagiography of Fielding in his 2021 article about Miah, so I am not too sure about his objectivity either.

https://manchestermill.co.uk/the-poisoning-of-oldham-politics/

Given the above, I have ignored Miah's recent output.

I spent too much time following up his earlier writings plus writings about him, trying to work out what could be substantiated and what was actually relevant. Life is just too short to go down that rabbit hole again.

It is a job for an investigative journalist from completely outside all the local shenanigans and politics to explore. That is something that I would definitely be interested to read.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a terrible idea that just kicks the can years/decades down the road and costs hundreds of millions?
We've had an enquiry, it took seven years and cost £200 million and produced 20 recommendations. Have they been implemented I wonder? I would much, much rather tell police to investigate cold cases, encourage victims who didn't get justice to report to police. Give police the power to investigate the people who covered up or dismissed victims (including police officers who did this).
Ffs, no more talking, we all know what happened, action is what's needed.

that’s really interesting, thank you. It explains some things about him that have niggled me.

Miah had been telling his followers it was designed to further the cover-up rather than expose it. In a sense, anyone who followed Miah had been primed to dismiss Newsam and Ridgeway’s work before they had even put pen to paper, which they duly did.

this tactic is now commonplace everywhere. We will certainly see it with this enquiry. It’s clear that it now has to happen as there is so much distrust in past and current ongoing investigations.

Unfortunately I’m starting to think the purpose may end up being as much around establishing the truth about the councils and professionals who did do their best in order to protect them, as much as the victims and protecting future victims.

What I would like as an outcome is for more specificity about how these gangs operated and were sheltered by authorities, so we can be more alert to similar cases.

For example the oft-cited "were scared of seeming racist": I think people assume that this was just a general fear of "PC gone mad", but did anyone run up against, say, some specific policy or implementation of equality law? Did this prevent accusing any specific non-white person, or did it prevent types of profiling and general analysis that might have helped, and if so what types? etc

I also am interested in, to what extent was it a matter of bored authorities failing to act (e.g. "they're just slags, who cares") vs intentional cover-up/abetting, e.g. by family members or the community. The news cycle in January alluded to some of the latter but I think that since they were mainly reading older and anonymised reports containing anecdotes it was hard to get a sense of the scale. (Potentially, it changed over the decades as the makeup of councils/police changed.)

That’s not true. Only a minimal part of that inquiry dealt with these specific gangs, which are a phenomenon in their own right. It wasn’t predominantly about them so it ended up being a bit of a fudge. Listen to Maggie Oliver. https://www.themaggieoliverfoundation.com/latest-news/what-iicsa-didn-t-report

This.

Yes, that is what I would want to see too.

I'm also fascinated in a way with the question of who will be on the inquiry team. Surely it cannot possibly be led by someone of Pakistani heritage*, but at the same time, how... I don't even know how you would make that stipulation. Is that even legal? At what level does it make sense to have community members involved, and at what point would that perhaps be desirable e.g. to decode in-group dynamics? I have not seen this discussed anywhere in the mainstream media probably for obvious reasons.

*For optics/public trust reasons if nothing else. I'm not saying every Pakistani-heritage British person is a grooming gang member, obviously; but this is a case where networks of family connections are both a) clearly important to the investigation and b) mostly opaque to the average British person

For once Woman's Hour is doing its job with this issue leading today's programme with the handling being considered and with useful commentators invited on.

Just tuned in