There has been a long history of the authorities resisting both scrutiny and accountability when it comes to the grooming gangs scandal. Those calling for a national inquiry into these gangs and the authorities’ response, are right to do so. There is so much we do not know and so much we have never sought to find out.
The line put out by the Government is: ‘We do not need a national inquiry as we have already had one.’ Let’s be clear. We have had a national inquiry (known as the Jay Inquiry) into child sexual abuse. A subsection of this inquiry included a review of child sexual exploitation by organised networks in six case study towns. The many towns with a known problem with grooming gangs, such as Telford, were not included. This was not a national inquiry into grooming gangs. This was not an inquiry into the response of the authorities. It makes no reference to street grooming, (at school gates, in takeaways, betting shops and taxis), the modus operandi commonly used by these gangs to target victims. The inquiry report says it did not receive data which gave a reliable picture of child sexual exploitation in the case study towns. The data it did receive was found to be confusing. Six recommendations were made, and these should be implemented now, particularly the recommendation to gather specific disaggregated data on child sexual exploitation.
In Telford, the Council also tried to use the Jay inquiry to block scrutiny. The Council Leader (now a Labour MP), claimed in a public letter to the Home Secretary that an inquiry in Telford was unnecessary because the Jay Inquiry would include Telford. This was untrue, as were the other arguments advanced to resist an inquiry. Whether intentionally or not, this response was deeply misleading – to the Home Secretary, to local partners and to the public.
When asked about grooming gangs, the authorities and officials would say child sexual abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by white men, mainly in domestic settings. This deflection approach obscured the reality of what was happening in Telford and across the country. Grooming gang crime and its victims were hidden away, buried within aggregated statistics. Specific data relating to grooming gangs was not collected. The crime was ignored and a blind eye turned to the plight of victims. The Crown Prosecution Service, as noted in the Jay report, only gathers data on child sexual abuse prosecutions. It has no data on child sexual exploitation.
This deflection strategy is being used by the current Government. When grooming gang crime is discussed, it is merged with all forms of child sexual abuse. Grooming gang crime is seen as such a small subset of the overall problem that it does not merit attention. These horrific crimes have long been in plain sight, they have just not shown up in official statistics.
The safeguarding minister has said we do not need a national inquiry because the Telford inquiry model could be used elsewhere. It could; once it started its work it was an excellent inquiry. The Minister knows how hard campaigners fought to overcome the council’s opposition and how aggressive the repercussions were. This is not the way forward.
When it comes to horrific national scandals, the British people have no truck with party politics. The Prime Minister should put aside his instinctively tribal approach. He should give credit to campaigners and victims on all sides; he should move beyond divisive political attacks and blaming others. He’s in charge now. Justice must be seen to be done. A national inquiry is long overdue, and the Prime Minister knows it.
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