Fiona Goddard, a victim of the grooming gang, has resigned from enquiry panel

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https://x.com/fionagoddarduk/status/1980169972413607999?s=46&t=ALGAiHxwK3XXeRoDQylnWA

Sounds like the enquiry is going well 🙄

Perish the thought.

I’ve been critical enough of this Labour government myself, but this isn’t fair about Jess Phillips. She is the best MP for the job, surely, given her background. She rose to MP via women’s aid and has been tireless in supporting women and girls. She really has. I would love to know exactly what has been said and gone on to date to cause this to have happened.

'this isn’t fair about Jess Phillips. She is the best MP for the job, surely, given her background. She rose to MP via women’s aid and has been tireless in supporting women and girls. She really has. I would love to know exactly what has been said and gone on to date to cause this to have happened.'

I tend to agree with you about her sincerity and suitability for the job. It was pretty shocking to hear her suggest that some of the survivors are liars the other day, and I also wonder what has been going on behind the scenes

But it isn't about her.

She might think he is the best for that job, and others may think that as well, but circumstances change. People change. Priorities change.

If she is, indeed, the best for the job, then she must surely also recognise she's turned into an obstacle.

The more she stays the more she makes the inquiry about herself.

This is an inquiry she didn’t want to - she voted against a national inquiry. So why would someone who didn’t want there to even be an inquiry be the best person to set one up?

Very good point.

Why is she clinging on to something she didn't want in first place?

I'm not her biggest fan to say the least but I think that JP does earnestly feel passionate about helping women and girls.

I also haven't seen her specific comments about survivors being liars, but I've heard comments from several different sources along the lines of, these girls are understandably very distrustful of authority, sometimes making accusations and then withdrawing them potentially out of fear etc, basically it can often be hard to get a coherent story out of someone who has been so deeply traumatised as they have been. I could charitably understand if JP has tried to explain this and it has been interpreted badly.

I think despite this JP cannot be involved in this, even if she is the purest human alive, so long as she intends to stand again in her current seat or one with similar demographics. The conflict of interest is too strong.

I would LOVE to know what’s gone on behind the scenes. What, precisely, have been her errors? What’s the bullet pointed list of wrongdoings? I’d like to see an independent analysis of the argument. You don’t rule someone out of a job because they wanted to broaden it. It doesn’t make sense. Something isn’t clear. There’s not much point in us guessing.

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If JP has allowed herself to become an obstacle, that's easily solved. They can hand over ministerial responsibility to Alex Davies-Jones who has the victims brief at MoJ. Jess would be annoyed, but she's the least important part of this.

The bigger problem is that the government never wanted the inquiry, and they'll have to be watched like a hawk for any attempts to widen the criteria so it loses its focus.

Do you think she would prefer to get up on stage and announce

A) All men are pigs, we did a study of all sexual violence everywhere and concluded that white men do most of it, but it was all men, they're jerks, just as I've been saying all along

B) Since the 1970s or earlier there has been systematic coordinated rape and torture by Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs on predominantly white girls in care, and these networks of extended family members and associates are essentially a criminal mafia also involved in hard drug trafficking - all covered up by some of my fellow Labour party members

And then head back onto the doorstep to chat up a bunch of people from the same community who previously slashed her tyres?

Of course she wants to broaden it. She'd be irrational not to.

these girls are understandably very distrustful of authority

They are now grown women. Calling them ‘girls’ is a disgraceful attempt to undermine them.

You absolutely do rule out someone for a job who votes against it then, when forced to do it anyway, tries to change the remit of the job away from that which she tried to avoid in the first place.

Sorry, that was not my intention.

I don't think the labour party ever wanted to acknowledge what has happened and is still happening, let alone actually have an inquiry. This is their worst nightmare. How can they possibly enable the fallout from the exposure of the appalling corruption in local government, the labour party, social services, the care system, the police and so on.
I am in no way suggesting that any of the other political parties are any better, just that the evidence is overwhelming and the cover up has been worse than Jimmy Saville, Cyril Smith, the Met Police, to name just 3 high profile scandals of the top of my head.

I can see no reason why a judge wasn’t appointed to lead this in the first place, other than a transparent attempt to influence the findings. Truly disgraceful.

If that Unheard article above is anything to go by, and then this is exactly what it is.

And what OneAmberFinch said

"...networks of extended family members and associates are essentially a criminal mafia also involved in hard drug trafficking - all covered up by some of my fellow Labour party members"

If the extent of the cover-ups and infiltrations have become steadily more obvious, it's got to be rather petrifying for government that the public are now demanding answers and know enough about it to realise when they're being hoodwinked.

Pandora's box is open

I disagree @GrassesSedgesRushes. You can vote against a remit if you think it doesn’t go far enough, for example. If that was a problem for the survivors, then perhaps it should have been taken in stages. As I said , we-none of us-have the full details, so I have no more comments at this stage.

Listening to the co writer of the Virginia guiffre /Roberts memoir who's detailing how she (VR) was recruited by Ghislaine, how by the time she was being abused she was simultaneously being told she was the special one with potential, and how by the time she was 17 they were already telling her she was over the hill and got her into recruiting other girls to feed the demands of clients.

I am not sure if I should link to it, she might not want ppl posting now to follow up if it might prompt the thread to get deleted, but there is an AMA from November 2023 claiming to be from a woman who's ex / fiancé was a grooming gang member. He was using her to access her friends who were white and in care. The Modus Operandi Is startlingly similar.

I've just been catching up on the final point in this about the victim liaison lead. Am I right in thinking this is Sabah Kaiser?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/21/grooming-inquiry-adviser-stop-blaming-brown-men-for-scandal/

(archive)

Ms Kaiser said she felt it was her responsibility to “point out the many problems and dangers that could arise from turning this important issue into a matter of colour and ethnicity”.She said: “The framing of childhood sexual abuse as a crime committed overwhelmingly by gangs of brown men against young white girls is destructive, distracting and irresponsible, but most importantly, it is not based on evidence.”

Note: Sabah Kaiser is originally from Pakistan and moved here as a child, where she was abused between the ages of 7 and 16 by men visiting her house - so she was a victim herself, from within the community.

It's very depressing but not surprising.
Women are seen as inherently subordinate, women who have been degraded and abused by men are seen as even more inherently subordinate.
Men and their reputations are protected because men are more of a threat and can do more damage if they don't get what they want.
Women are abandoned and thrown to the wolves because they have less power and therefore lack the ability to push back against the people who have attacked them.

I think this all comes back to the Labour Party not wanting the inquiry in the first place.

The thought process has been; "We'll do a show of what they want so lets start organising an inquiry, tell them we mean business but during the initial process of setting it all up we start feeding in things like 'expanding the remit/original terms of reference', suggest that the motives behind just looking into male Pakistani Muslims isn't right/fair and ensure we get a social worker and/or police person snuck in through the back door before they even realise what's going on..."

ooo good plan until they realised that they are dealing with deeply traumatised women who have had enough of being silenced, betrayed and ignored.

If only Labour had put in the required effort and belief that this inquiry is very much needed rather than putting that effort into trying to change/avoid/cancelling the inquiry, we'd be making a proper start by now.

As for Jess, I'm so disappointed with what is in the press about her atm. I always thought she was an incredible advocate for women and her work in VAWG was brilliant.

She is absolutely terrified of her constituents.

This inquiry absolutely must be judge (or retired-judge) led.

’she didn’t want an into trains but wanted ones into cars instead so she is making this government inquiry into trains about cars instead, but she is the right person to be told to set up an inquiry into trains even though that will no longer happen…’