School governors told to ‘dismiss’ grooming gangs concerns

[NoNever]

Article in the Telegraph.

Quote “ School governors have been encouraged to dismiss concerns about grooming gangs as “disinformation”, The Telegraph can disclose.
Thousands of governors undergoing safeguarding training this year were presented with a scenario involving rumours of “men belonging to a particular religion” committing “violent crimes against women”.
They were asked to identify the scenario as an “online safety risk” because children were spreading “disinformation”.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/04/school-governors-told-to-dismiss-grooming-gangs-concerns/

This is infuriating. For decades girls were told to shut up about grooming gangs and this is the training school governors are being provided in 2025.

To be fair.. it's because they do. Most threads like this are made to hate Pakistanis/Muslims. There's a clear agenda so people want to point out that these crimes can be committed by anyone

The wider problem of male violence? Everyone knows that. What you are doing, whether you admit it or not, is trying to control how people talk about this issue. The issue here is that in the grand scheme of things that hasn’t worked out very well for society, and that’s why genuine racists can weaponise it.

Really? I thought it was a thread about some badly-designed training material that encouraged school governors to minimise and disregard safeguarding disclosures.

Agreed. I thought the OP was very clear that this is about disinformation.

But certain comments on here showcase perfectly how certain people diminish, derail and obfuscate discussions about safeguarding children in order to push their own particular political agenda.

It's very depressing to see safeguarding being used in this way - especially on Mumsnet.

I changed my mind completely over the course of the thread.

I started on 'this was a clumsy attempt to encourage critical thinking about potentially dodgy online information',

then switched to 'this was a clumsy attempt to encourage a specific interpretation of a particular piece of potentially dodgy online information' (albeit maybe with a benign NAMALT motive, where M doesn't stand for men),

and eventually concluded the whole exercise is crazy, because it requires the creator of the training to decide in advance what is or isn't disinformation (thanks @Joeninety ). This is just as bad in principle for flat-earthism or lizard people as it is for grooming gangs.

I was about to disappear in a puff of logic when I remembered that @KateBAnd3 and @MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack have recently done similar training. So would like to ask if they had to answer questions about how to handle potentially dodgy online information, and, if so, what the examples, and the questions, were?

I grew up in Rotherham, near the town centre.
Many of the girls in my year were raped by these men. They were picked up in taxis from our school gates. They were threatened into silence by police, social workers, councillors.
I sat next to children who were products of their mums being targeted in the 80’s.
One girl in another school was impregnated after being raped BY AN ENTIRE TAXI RANK. There were zero arrests at the time. Just mutterings of “what did she expect going off with them?”
The problem is endemic and your bleating about “racism” does absolutely nothing.

If you wish to protect rapists by diverting people’s attention, then so be it. But don’t fool yourself that it makes you a morally superior person. You’re just another coward. And they’re ten a penny.

I'm not sure how you've got the idea from my posts that I'm "protecting rapists". That is very clearly not what I'm doing and you know it, you're just attempting to shut me down because I'm not complying with your particular narrative. Whatever, there is no point in engaging with someone who is just fabricating stuff.

Because when you dilute the investigation, when you widen the scope away from their crimes, you’re protecting them.

I’m sorry you’re unable to recognise that. Or that you refuse to.

I have fabricated nothing. I haven’t even told you the worst stuff.

I don't recall anything coming up in our safeguarding training about disinformation in relation to sexual exploitation. We talked about online safety and the dangers of kids being radicalised online etc. And we talked about grooming etc.

The overarching message was that all concerns and allegations should be taken seriously, that it wasn't our role as governors to investigate or make judgements about any specific allegations and that we should instead record any details that had been disclosed and escalate to the DSL/LADO as appropriate.

You have absolutely fabricated stuff, not least by accusing me of wanting to protect rapists. Frankly, that's offensive, and there is fuck all in any of my posts to support such an allegation. You're reading stuff into it that isn't there.

If you actually bother to read my posts properly, you will see that I am not in any way suggesting that the investigation should be diluted. Quite the contrary. But you don't want to acknowledge that because it clearly doesn't fit with your agenda.

If you are going to criticise what you think I'm saying instead of engaging in good faith with what I'm actually saying, then I can't be arsed to continue the discussion to be honest.

That sounds much more appropriate - escalate to DSL, rather than assume disinformation, as in the OP. Maybe the case in the OP is the outlier, and someone should be in for a carpeting.

pretending that this kind of abuse is perpetrated predominantly by one section of the community

Except that nobody is doing that. All we are asking for is the Pakistani Muslim rape gangs and their enablers at all levels (including government) to be subject to the same rule of law as everyone else.

Currently they are not.

It’s really not that deep.

Who is arguing that they shouldn't be subject to the rule of law?

I am not a governor and so was not being asked govenor-specific questions like the one concerned.

But there was a section on grooming - what it involves, how it happens, how to spot signs of it in kids, what to do (tell the SGL in all cases).

There were also questions designed to establish an understanding of the differences between misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories. I firmly believe that this is a poor attempt at that.

The exact wording (my emphasis) is: “At a board meeting, your staff governor reports overhearing pupils in her class talking about a video they were sent, falsely claiming that men belonging to a particular religion are using new tactics to commit violent crimes against women in your local area.”

Governors were told that “pupils have sent the video to their friends because they think it’s true and want to help girls in their class to stay safe”.

They were then asked:
What type of online safety risk are the pupils in her class participating in spreading?
Misinformation
Disinformation
Conspiracy theories

I could well be wrong. But if they had worded the question in a way that made the ‘new tactics’ sound completely outlandish and overtly racist, would anyone honestly have a problem with it?

I’m not sure about ‘arguing’ as such (and I didn’t say that) but all the police forces, local
authorities, councillors, care home owners and social workers that have colluded and enabled the rapists (and may still be doing so) are certainly preventing justice from being done.

We may never find out how much though as a certain minister with a large Muslim population in her constituency (and therefore a potential conflict of interest) appears to be attempting to water down the inquiry to slow down the wheels of justice further.

I don’t think anyone can assume that those specific gangs have been stopped yet. A few have gone to prison, some are already out.

I don't dispute the fact that justice hasn't been done in many of the cases associated with the grooming gangs, and I agree that there were numerous individuals and authorities that were complicit in this failure. And I also accept that this was, at least in part, the result of misplaced fears around being accused of racism because of the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Though I also think that certain assumptions about the social class of the victims were also at play. I am pleased that there will be a public enquiry into how these crimes were allowed to happen.

I haven't seen any evidence that JP is trying to water down the inquiry. I'm aware that some of the victims want her to resign, but I understand that there are others who also want her to stay. If she has lost the trust of the majority of them, then perhaps she needs to take a step back and let someone else lead.

I don't know anyone who doesn't recognise that there were serious failings in these cases, and that we need to understand exactly what went on in order to learn from those failings. But equally, I don't see why it's controversial to suggest that we need to learn from other examples in which the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women and girls has also been allowed to continue as an open secret. That isn't because I want to dilute anything - I'm not suggesting that the grooming inquiry itself should be broadened to include other issues, nor am I minimising the horrific crimes that have been committed by the Pakistani gangs or trying to detract attention from them. It is an issue that deserves attention in its own right. However, there is a wider context and I think we should look at that as well.

Who is “we” though? What do you actually want to happen?

My issue with your comment was that you made up something that isn’t true to argue against. I just pointed out your claim was incorrect.

You said:
pretending that this kind of abuse is perpetrated predominantly by one section of the community

I said:
Except that nobody is doing that. All we are asking for is the Pakistani Muslim rape gangs and their enablers at all levels (including government) to be subject to the same rule of law as everyone else.

And then you asked who was arguing against that, which again, I answered.

I haven't seen any evidence that JP is trying to water down the inquiry. I'm aware that some of the victims want her to resign, but I understand that there are others who also want her to stay

I’m sure there’s a thread on this. In summary Jess apparently invited some survivors of other types of sex abuse to join the panel (and lied in Parliament) which the original women were seriously concerned would significantly take the focus away from the very specific issue of the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs. Afaik the women that support her are the survivors of other abuse and not the grooming gang survivors. I understand the wish of the other sex abuse survivor’s to want their issues investigated but the end result is predicted to be an unwieldy and vast inquiry that will take even more years and not properly address a very specific problem.

Jess has a 45% Muslim constituency and the Muslim Council of Britain has expressed a degree of tetchiness about another inquiry so she may well have a serious conflict of interests.

That's a fair question. By "we", I mean society as a whole. I absolutely think that we - as a society - need to get to the truth about the grooming gangs and we need to tackle any uncomfortable issues that might arise from the inquiry. But I would like us - as a society - to situate our discussions about the specific issues that happened in Rotherham (and many other towns) within the wider context of discussions about the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable women and girls in general.

I would like to see justice and accountability for all of those involved in the grooming gangs, and that includes those who were complicit in allowing the abuse to continue as well as the perpetrators themselves. But I would equally like to see justice and accountability for others who have been involved in sexual exploitation and those who have helped to cover it up in other contexts. For example, I would like to know exactly who knew what and when in relation to the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor issues. The Church. Children's homes. And so on. Of course we need to look at the details of each of these issues in isolation in order to understand their particular characteristics. But I think there are commonalities that also need to be explored. I will be honest in saying that I don't really know what the best way of exploring those commonalities might be, but I don't think that people trying to shut the conversation down by saying "shame on you" or accusing them of trying to protect rapists isn't going to move the conversation forward. And personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to question the motives of those who only want to talk about offences committed by Pakistani men to the exclusion of anything else.

And personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to question the motives of those who only want to talk about offences committed by Pakistani men to the exclusion of anything else.

I’m not sure why you are stuck on this point. There is no other group who have such vocal and aggressive defenders at all levels of society. Keir Starmer is in talks with the Muslim Council of Britain to expand the definition of Islamophobia. The current definition on the Labour Party website includes a ‘targeting expressions of Muslimness’. Islamophobia is proposed to be a hate crime. This will have a chilling effect on the criticism and calling out and potentially even prosecuting many expressions of Muslimness including first cousin marriage (which produces a high rate of serious congenital abnormalities/death) or forced marriage etc.

Obviously we need to address all types of sexual abuse but while one particular group still has levels of institutional support that even Andrew Windsor struggled to achieve, we need to focus on getting to the bottom of why.

I didn't make anything up. There are absolutely far right voices trying to push the narrative that this kind of abuse is predominantly perpetrated by Muslim men. If you haven't come across that narrative, then I'm glad to hear it. Sadly, I've come across quite a lot of it.

That doesn't mean that I think anyone who is disturbed by what happened in Rotherham and want the truth/justice/accountability etc are racist for feeling that way. Of course they aren't, and I share their feelings completely. But there are some racists who are more than happy to exploit the trauma that these poor women experienced to promote their own agenda.

I don't think we are really disagreeing - I would like to see justice for the grooming gang victims as much as anyone. I want to see justice for all women who have been sexually abused and exploited, regardless of the perpetrators.

Re JP - yes, there may be a conflict of interests, and as I say, she should step away if her involvement is going to get in the way of the inquiry. It had been my understanding that no steps had actually been taken to broaden the scope of the inquiry, and that this was merely a question included in the consultation with survivors as different views had been expressed. It was also my understanding that the women who were supporting Philips were survivors of the grooming gang abuse. However, there is so much conflicting information out there about this that it is hard to know what to believe, and I may well have got this wrong.

And yet the enquiry, which was supposed to have a narrow focus on these specific injustices, seems to be being mysteriously watered down, as any examination of the wider picture relating to these gangs has in the past. How is that happening, you may ask? Well, pretending that we don’t understand what the “grooming gangs” refers to, for one.

I do think we should be able to debate issues freely. I agree with you about first cousin marriage and personally I would make it illegal. Forced marriage is already illegal.

But there is also a huge amount of hate and violence aimed at innocent Muslims. And indeed, often aimed at non-Muslims who happen to be brown because people can't always tell the difference. Do you not think that they need to be protected?

There is a vast difference between having a reasonable debate about specific issues and showing outright hostility/aggression towards people who are (or are assumed to be) from a particular faith group. Perhaps having a legal definition would help to distinguish between the two?

Can you provide me with some specific info about how it is being watered down. I'm aware that there was a question about whether the scope should be broadened, but as far as I understood, this was just a question included in the consultation rather than a decision that had been made. Am I right in thinking that the terms of reference haven't been finalised yet?

This thread isn’t about the actual rapists at all, regardless of their colour.

This thread is about school governors being trained that the should take any rumours of groups of men from a specific religion committing acts of violence against girls as false/disinformation.

We know for a fact that authorities pretending that similar rumours were false in the past allowed the systemic rape of working class white girls by Pakistani Muslim men to continue FOR DECADES and it still continues today. So teaching schools to continue that trend is appalling.