Grooming gang victims hope to finally get answers as report unearths failings
Yvette Cooper offered an 'unequivocal apology' to young girls who were preyed on by grooming gangs as she warned paedophiles have 'nowhere to hide' amid a fresh wave of investigations
Victims of grooming gangs were repeatedly let down by the authorities in a catalogue of failure spanning decades, a damning review found.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper vowed to finally deliver justice for girls preyed upon by predators, warning vile perpetrators they have "nowhere to hide". Children as young as 10 were plied with drugs and alcohol, and brutally abused by gangs of men before being "disgracefully let down again and again" by authorities, MPs heard.
Ms Cooper offered "an unequivocal apology for the unimaginable pain and suffering" inflicted on young girls, and "the failure of our country's institutions through decades." But whistle blower Jayne Senior demanded to know why it had taken so long for victims to get justice.
Survivors of the Telford abuse scandal, exposed by the Mirror, said they hoped victims would finally get their answers. Crossbench peer Baroness Louise Casey laid bare the culture of denial in institutions that failed young girls in a report commissioned by Keir Starmer earlier this year.
She pointed to a "collective failure" to address the 'over-representation' of suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage men in local data - using figures collected in Greater Manchester, West and South Yorkshire. Lady Casey said there was evidence some authorities avoided the issue altogether for fear of appearing racist and raising community tensions.
In her report, Lady Casey said that vulnerable children were often treated as "wayward teens" by public bodies. Young girls were even prosecuted for offences relating to child prostitution.
Ms Cooper said the Government would accept the recommendations, including for a national inquiry which is expected to take around three years. More than 1,000 dropped child sex abuse cases are expected to be re-investigated by police, after too many cases where men escaped facing rape charges as blame was directed at their victims.
The Home Secretary vowed to change the law to ensure adults who engage in penetrative sex with under 16s face a mandatory rape charge - and convictions of victims who should have been protected will be quashed.
She told MPs: "The sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes. Children as young as 10 plied with drugs and alcohol, brutally raped by gangs of men and disgracefully let down again and again by the authorities who were meant to protect them and keep them safe.
"And these despicable crimes have caused the most unimaginable harm to victims, victims and survivors throughout their lives." She added: "We have lost more than a decade. That must end now."
The Government will also order police forces to properly record the ethnicity of perpetrators and victims. Lady Casey said it was a "major failing" that this data had not been properly recorded, meaning there was no clear picture.
She told reporters the data should be investigated as it was "only helping the bad people" not to bring a fuller picture to light, adding: "You're doing a disservice to two sets of population, the Pakistani and Asian heritage community, and victims."
Asked if she was worried recording the data could lead to civil unrest, she responded: "If for a minute you had another report that ducked the issue, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think they're not going to use that as well?"
"If good people don't grip difficult issues, in my experience bad people do." Jayne Senior MBE, the whistleblower who first raised the alarm about abuse in Rotherham, said: "Why are we where we are? Why has it taken so long?
"I have spoken to a few victims this afternoon. A few that are in tears, a few that are very angry. Some are relieved that they won't be seen as lying now.
"Others are saying it is opening things up again and we've been asking for this for years." The youth worker, who runs the Swinton Lock Activity Centre, near Mexborough, in South Yorkshire added: "I think the recommendations are good but this needs setting up now very quickly.
"It needs to be a Government appointed inquiry but externally led. I also think there needs to be a massive cash injection into therapy and counselling. "And survivors of the most horrendous abuse need to stop having to beg for compensation. "People wait years jumping through hoops before they get any compensation."
Holly Archer, a survivor and campaigner from Telford, said: "Baroness Casey's findings are not a surprise. But I'm glad to see there is finally some acknowledgment that there needs to be reform to cross border taxis, which is something I have worked on with Telford and Wrekin council.
"We wrote to the Government more than five years ago asking them to consider the regulation of taxi licensing. My only disappointment is that the review has focussed on the north of England, and there would have been benefit in choosing to focus the audit on locations across the country.
"I'm really hopeful that there will be changes now for all victims, past, present and future." Scarlett Jones, a second survivor from Telford, said: "I welcome Dame Casey's review and findings and I hope that this is the time that all politics are put to one side and everyone unites to give the victims and survivors the answers that they need.
"We have been working with the Home Office to make the framework as survivor focused as it can be, as it has been in Telford." Scarlett, not her real name, is one of three survivors working with Telford Council to implement 47 recommendation from the local inquiry into child sexual abuse that was produced in 2022.
Her report highlighted cases of grooming gangs targeting young girls in towns including Telford, which was exposed by the Sunday Mirror. It also pointed to groups preying on victims in Rochdale, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wrexham, Newcastle, London, Aylesbury, Oldham and Somerset.
Just three days before Lady Casey's report was published, seven men were found guilty of sexually abusing two teenage girls in Rochdale over five years.Girl A and Girl B were both groomed from the age of 13 and expected to have sex with the men "whenever and wherever" they wanted.
One of the victims, now in her 30s, said she was also labelled a "prostitute" by social services when aged 10. The gang was convicted of 53 sexual offences between 2001 and 2006.
The paedophiles were ringleader Mohammed Zahid, 64, Mushtaq Ahmed, 67, Kasir Bashir, 50, Mohammed Shahzad, 44, Naheem Akram, 48, Nisar Hussain, 41, and Roheez Khan, 39.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Western Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Louise Casey to appear before MPs after major review of child grooming failures
Baroness Louise Casey will appear before the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday morning, after the Government set out plans to launch a new nationwide inquiry into grooming gangs following her rapid review of the scandal. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper claimed officials have dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, even though available data showed suspects were disproportionately likely to be Asian men. Speaking in the Commons on Monday as the review was published, the Home Secretary said 'much more robust national data is needed' on the ethnicity of offenders, adding that the authorities 'cannot and must not shy away from these findings'. Doing so would allow 'the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities', she added. Lady Casey's report found that: 'The appalling lack of data on ethnicity in crime recording alone is a major failing over the last decade or more. Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years.' It added: 'We found that the ethnicity of perpetrators is shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we are unable to provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data.' Multiple convictions of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds should have 'warranted closer examination', it said, adding: 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it.' Former Tory government adviser Dominic Cummings meanwhile claimed in an interview with Sky News that officials from the Department for Education were supportive of Rotherham Council's suggestion of going to court in 2011 to prevent the Times' initial reporting of the scandal in Rotherham. Lord Michael Gove, then the education secretary, rejected the request for a judicial review on Mr Cummings' advice, the broadcaster reported. Ms Cooper said the Government would take action 'immediately' on all of Lady Casey's recommendations, after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer committed to launching a national inquiry into the abuse. Screen grab of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper making a statement in the House of Commons, London, on Baroness Casey's findings on grooming gangs (House of Commons/UK Parliament) The recommendations included: – Making it mandatory to collect ethnicity and nationality data of all suspects in child sexual abuse cases – A new national inquiry into child sexual abuse with statutory legal powers, which will co-ordinate the efforts of local investigations led by councils and set out 'strict timescales' for them to follow. – A nationwide National Crime Agency operation, targeting people who have sexually exploited children, and following up on an estimated more than 1,000 cold cases where no one was convicted. – A change in the law so that all adult sex with under-16s is considered rape. – A review of criminal records held by victims of child sexual exploitation. In the Commons, Ms Cooper 'unequivocally' apologised for the failings which had led to grooming and child sexual abuse. The Home Secretary also pledged to exclude convicted sex offenders from the asylum system, while the report warned 'a significant proportion' of live investigations into grooming gangs 'appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum in the UK'. In her report, Lady Casey said it is time to draw a line in the sand and take action over the issue, which she called 'one of the most heinous crimes in our society'. She also urged opposition politicians not to use the scandal as a 'political football', adding there was a chance to 'create a national reset'.
North Wales Chronicle
34 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Poll suggests support for better end-of-life care over assisted dying Bill
The polling, commissioned by a group opposed to assisted dying being legalised, 'blows apart the arguments that the public are desperate' for a change in the law, a campaigner claimed. Bill sponsor Kim Leadbeater said last week that MPs should not have to choose between supporting assisted dying or palliative care as it is not an 'either/or' conversation for dying people. She said palliative care and assisted dying 'can and do work side by side to give terminally-ill patients the care and choice they deserve in their final days', and urged MPs to support 'all options available to terminally ill people'. An amendment to the Bill, requiring the Health Secretary to publish an assessment of the availability, quality and distribution of palliative and end-of-life care one year after the Bill passing into law, could be voted on on Friday. Friday is also set to be the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill's third reading stage, which is likely to see the overall Bill voted on for the first time since November's historic yes vote, when a majority of 55 supported the principle of assisted dying for England and Wales. The latest polling, commissioned by Care Not Killing and carried out by British Polling Council member Whitestone, saw 2,089 UK adults surveyed online between May 30 and June 1. Respondents, who are said to have been weighted to be a representative sample, were told of concerns raised by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Psychiatrists and the Association for Palliative Medicine about the Bill in its current form as well as opposition from disability campaigners. In this context, they were asked about replacing the Bill with a plan to improve and invest in palliative care – to which 69% agreed, and about a Royal Commission being set up to consider and make recommendations for a holistic end-of-life and palliative care service – with which 61% agreed. Almost two thirds (65%) said the Government's priority should be sorting out palliative and social care before changing the law – down very slightly from 66% last year. Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said: 'This major new poll blows apart the arguments that the public are desperate for a so-called assisted dying law. 'The public want the Government and MPs to focus on fixing the NHS and palliative care which they know are broken. After all one in four Brits who would benefit from palliative care aren't currently receiving it, while in many places services are piecemeal, part-time or facing cuts.' It comes as former prime minister Gordon Brown repeated his opposition to assisted dying. Writing in the Guardian, he said: 'It has become clear that whatever views people hold on the principle, passing the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill into law would privilege the legal right to assisted dying without guaranteeing anything approaching an equivalent right to high-quality palliative care for those close to death.' He said MP's personal preferences 'cannot be separated off from the duties they have as members of a community to ensure that the way we treat the dying reflects the values of a decent, compassionate country'. He added: 'That should mean upholding the role of the medical professions as care-givers, and exclusively care-givers; avoiding the possibility of private profiteering by legal-medical consortiums which might well commercialise assisted dying as a lucrative business; safeguarding vulnerable people about whose fate the royal medical colleges have all expressed concern; preventing unacceptable coercive pressures that can be brought to bear on disabled people, and those who are incapacitated or mentally stressed; and thus showing that as a society we value life above death.' Dozens of Labour MPs called for Friday's overall vote to be delayed, asking for more time to scrutinise a Bill they brand as 'perhaps the most consequential piece of legislation that has appeared before the House in generations'. Writing to Commons leader Lucy Powell, they said: 'We implore you as the Leader of the House to allocate more Parliamentary time to the scrutiny of this Bill, the valid concerns that members have about its implementation, and the consequences it could have on vulnerable populations.' A Government spokesperson said: 'This Bill has been brought as a Private Members' Bill. The amount of time for debate is therefore a matter for the House.' The Bill's sponsor, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, has repeatedly stated that her proposed legislation has been strengthened since it was first introduced last year, insisting it is subject to robust safeguards. Medical staff are among some of the MPs who back the Bill. As it stands, the proposed legislation would allow terminally-ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. MPs are entitled to have a free vote on the Bill and any amendments, meaning they decide according to their conscience rather than along party lines. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer voted in favour of the Bill last year, but said the Government remains neutral on the issue. Both Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood voted against.
Leader Live
36 minutes ago
- Leader Live
Grooming gangs review to be unveiled as PM's inquiry plan gets mixed reaction
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is to address Parliament over the review, which prompted the Prime Minister to implement a full probe after months of resistance. The rapid national audit looking at the scale of grooming gangs across the country was first announced in January as part of a series of measures to tackle the issue. Earlier this year, the Government dismissed calls for a public inquiry, saying its focus was on putting in place the outstanding recommendations made in a seven-year national inquiry by Professor Alexis Jay. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), led by Prof Jay, found institutional failings and tens of thousands of victims across England and Wales. On Monday, a No 10 spokesman did not say how much the inquiry would cost and the timeframe, saying the Home Secretary would set out details in the afternoon. The spokesman said: 'It will be a full statutory inquiry. What this inquiry will do is build on the work carried out by Alexis Jay and her independent inquiry to child sexual abuse, but look specifically at how young girls were failed so badly by different agencies on a local level, strengthening the commitment we made at the start of this year to carry out locally led inquiries.' The Home Office has also said the National Crime Agency (NCA) will carry out a nationwide operation targeting people who have sexually exploited children, and follow up on more than 800 cold cases. According to the Home Office, the NCA will work in partnership with police forces to investigate cases that 'were not progressed through the criminal justice system' in the past. Meanwhile, the Times reported the review by Baroness Casey is expected to explicitly link the grooming gang issue to men of Pakistani origin and say that people were ignored for the fear of racism. The BBC also understands one of the review's recommendations is expected to order police forces in England to improve their data collection on ethnicity around child sexual abuse and exploitation cases. The MP for Rotherham said she was initially reluctant about another 'grooming gangs' inquiry but supported it after listening to the public. Sarah Champion told the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4: 'The thought of having another filled me with horror, and I was reluctant, but when I realised the overwhelming public concern, there's a real sense justice has not been handed out fairly and there has been a cover-up and intense frustration that there are still victims and survivors who haven't received justice.' She added that the biggest failing was that 'no-one has joined the dots up' when it came to grooming gangs of a Pakistani heritage. 'Are there any links between those different groups and gangs? Personally, I think it's highly likely that there will be,' she said. However Nazir Afzal, who was chief crown prosecutor for the North West from 2011 to 2015, told the Today programme he had 'pragmatic doubts' about the new national inquiry. 'Only criminal investigations can bring real accountability. That's what needs to happen. Not just for those who offended, but also those who stood by and didn't do what they were meant to do,' he said. 'Unfortunately my experience with national inquiries is that they take forever and don't deliver accountability.' The Casey review comes after a row on the issue was ignited earlier this year, when Sir Keir became embroiled in a row with tech billionaire Elon Musk over calls for a national investigation. In January, the Prime Minister hit out at politicians 'calling for inquiries because they want to jump on the bandwagon of the far right' but, on Sunday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Sir Keir had been focused on 'victims' rather than 'grandstanding'. A children's charity has said that the Government must not wait until the end of the inquiry to implement the recommendations from existing reports such as IICSA. Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo's, said: 'Children and survivors of abuse have already been waiting many years for action, so it's vital the Government doesn't wait for the outcome of this new inquiry to implement recommendations from previous ones. 'That includes upskilling social workers and other professionals to spot the signs of abuse, as well as investing in vital support services to help children experiencing life-changing consequences of abuse and to keep them safe from further harm.'
