Grooming gangs live: Baroness Casey to address parliamentary committee after inquiry announced
Watch live as Baroness Casey, author of a report into grooming gangs, gives an address to a British parliamentary committee on Tuesday (17 June).
Louise Casey, whose national audit was published on Monday (16 June), says there was a 'collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs'.
In her 200-page report, she called for harsher prosecution of men who have sex with under-16s to guarantee their charges are never downgraded from rape.
She said we have 'failed in our duty' to properly understand this kind of group offending as she hit out at an 'appalling' lack of data over offenders' ethnicities.
'If we'd got this right years ago – seeing these girls as children raped rather than 'wayward teenagers' or collaborators in their abuse, collecting ethnicity data, and acknowledging as a system that we did not do a good enough job – then I doubt we'd be in this place now,' she wrote.
On Monday (16 June), Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the House of Commons she would toughen laws and listed some of the 12 recommendations that Baroness Casey gave - all of which the government said it had accepted.
It comes after Sir Keir Starmer announced on Saturday (14 June) that he will begin a national enquiry into grooming gangs after 'reading every single word' of Baroness Casey's report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Nothing has damaged Britain more than the fear of being labelled ‘racist'
Have you ever been unjustly accused of ' racism ' in public? I have, and I can tell you it was one of the most sickening, paralysing moments of my career. During a broadcast interview, and only after listing some of the ways in which immigration has benefited Britain, I expressed concern that the current levels were unsustainable economically and incompatible with effective integration. My fellow panellist, a prominent member of the Green Party, who incidentally once claimed it was possible to enlarge women's breasts via hypnotherapy, then erupted into eye-bulging outrage. Harbouring such worries was manifestly bigoted and 'racist', he declared. In that stomach-churning moment I realised there was no smear greater and, importantly, no insult less likely to backfire on those hurling it, than this one. This is how authoritarians always operate, whether in Soviet Russia, Communist China or the committee rooms and seminars of modern-day Britain. They use taboos and speech restrictions to consolidate power, anathematise dissenting opinions and punish those showing the slightest reluctance to endorse progressive orthodoxy. And all under the banner of promoting unity in diversity and shielding marginalised groups from 'offence '. In the UK, reached a stage where people didn't care what happened to the country, provided they could say, from the rubble, 'well at least no one accused me of racism'. It's why Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, plus a thousand bemused footballers, famously took the knee – and it was right where the guilt grifters wanted us. Knowing the terror this labelling would elicit, politicians and activists gaslit the British public on an industrial scale. They didn't need to concede the economic costs of immigration were in danger of outweighing the advantages; they could just declare the country was built on hardworking asylum seekers, and denounce those who challenged this assertion as xenophobes. They didn't need to listen to warnings that discrete communities were living parallel lives, with some groups almost entirely sequestered from wider society; the received wisdom was that importing large numbers of people, whose values might be unreconcilable with our own, was unquestionably positive. What particularly aroused woke anger was when minorities refused to stay in Victim Street. Thus when Sir Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, voiced concerns about integration and community cohesion he was suspended from the Labour Party. Tony Sewell's Race and Ethnic Disparities Commission was denounced for Uncle Tomism when it suggested that perhaps the UK wasn't Full Fascist. And it wasn't enough to not be racist, we had to be 'anti-racist': a theory advanced by ludicrous pseudo-scholars such as Kehinde Andrews or Ibram X Kendi, for whom 'the claim of 'not racist' neutrality' is apparently a 'mask for racism''. New terms entered our lexicon, such as 'the global majority', which helped feed the narrative of an oppressive West, prosperous only through exploiting the poor. Parliament's useful idiots brought in the legislation – the 2010 Equality Act and 2015 Modern Slavery Act – that would facilitate and underpin the migration dogma. HR teams – now 450,000 strong in this country – played their part, squandering corporate time with mandatory unconscious bias training and telling colleagues that rolling their eyes could constitute a racial microaggression. But after years of this claptrap, we can begin to see the tide is on the turn. First, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), hitherto a reliable ally of the open borders brigade, released modelling showing the true cost of a 'low-wage migrant' to the British taxpayer. Then, Nigel Farage's Reform crossed the tipping point – 30 per cent – at which our electoral system starts to work in its favour. And this week, the Casey review put into black and white what we already knew: that thousands of vulnerable white girls were systematically abused by predominantly Pakistani men whilst our authorities turned a blind eye. Now, finally, we can talk freely about Pakistan's sexist culture and its incompatibility with notions of civilised behaviour. We can openly discuss reports of rape and assault perpetrated by those allegedly seeking asylum here. We can admit we are not realising a 21st-century version of Theodore Roosevelt's 'melting pot'. We can unashamedly demand a visa system which welcomes only those who subscribe to our values and contribute to our society. The fear of being labelled racist is toxic. It pushes discourse underground, driving people towards the very divisions which 'anti-racism' claims to oppose. It hands politicians carte-blanche to pursue ruinous policies and duck difficult decisions. And it waters down the term, when we ought to preserve its meaning so that demonstrable injustice isn't dismissed as noise. And remember, it's not just immigration. It's also 'transphobia' and climate change 'denialism'. We have to stop being so terrified. To believe we need market solutions to rising temperatures is not tantamount to denying the science. To believe in biological sex is not to discriminate against trans people. Enough is enough.
The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
Angela Rayner chairs first Cabinet meeting
Angela Rayner has chaired Cabinet for the first time in a rare move for the Deputy Prime Minister to lead the meeting while Sir Keir Starmer is away at the G7 summit. When the Prime Minister is unable to attend, the next most senior minister chairs the meeting under conventions set out in the Cabinet manual. A Downing Street spokesman said the Government was 'getting on with the job' while Sir Keir is away. He said: 'The whole Cabinet is focused on delivering for working people, and as the Prime Minister is at the G7, focused on exactly that, the Cabinet are doing the same within the UK.' The Prime Minister is 'always in charge' and kept updated and the focus of the G7 to urge de-escalation in the Middle East was reflected in the Cabinet meeting, he said. Ms Rayner opened the meeting by saying her thoughts were with all those who lost loved ones in the Air India plane crash last week and reflected on a 'very moving' memorial service at the Indian High Commission on Monday. She the report into grooming gangs published yesterday made for 'difficult reading for all' and that the sexual exploitation of children was 'truly heinous'. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said we cannot afford more 'wasted years' as she spoke about the response to Baroness Casey's report and the new statutory inquiry being launched. Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave updates on developments in the Middle East amid the intensifying conflict between Iran and Israel and efforts to support British nationals in the region.
The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
Channel crisis ‘deteriorating', No 10 admits as French use tear gas on migrants
French police teargassed migrants desperately trying to reach the UK as No 10 admitted the situation at the English Channel was getting worse. Hundreds gathered on the dunes before making dashes towards the Channel at Gravelines beach near Calais, all intent on boarding a single dinghy on Tuesday morning. The French authorities stood by and watched as those not deterred by the gas waded into the water intent on boarding a single dinghy to risk the Channel crossing. The scenes at Gravelines unfolded just hours after a meeting between Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in Canada to address a situation No 10 acknowledged was 'deteriorating'. Some 16,545 people have crossed in small boats so far in 2025 according to Home Office figures, a 45% increase on the same period in 2024. At Gravelines on Tuesday, migrants of all ages who made it to the sea had to wait in waist-deep water for almost an hour before any of them were able to board the small boat. An older man on crutches had to be carried out of the water by two others, who then ran off to re-join the crowd. Many others did not make it to the water, raising their arms in surrender under a thick blanket of tear gas fired by the French Police Nationale. Officers were trudging the sands at Gravelines beach before the sun had risen on Tuesday morning, armed with riot shields, tear gas and batons. Pictures taken by the PA news agency show a cloud of smoke as migrants ran from the dunes. A warning cry of 'baby, baby' was heard as a man carrying a tiny child sprinted out of the smog. Those who made it to the water bunched into three groups and waited for the dinghy to collect them, watched by the French police from the shoreline. While they waited, an Afghani migrant who wished to remain anonymous told PA that he was seeking a better life in the UK. 'Just I want to go for a good life, I have a situation bad in my country,' he said. Well over 50 migrants made it aboard the small black dinghy before it finally took off into the Channel. Others were left to watch as it floated out to sea. Pictures from the morning show a woman sitting dejected on the sand after chasing the dinghy as it left the beach. She and her friends, thought to be Ethiopian, complained that it was mostly men who had managed to get on the boat that morning. They had been hit by tear gas when the migrants were making their initial sprint to the water. The dinghy, which had originally come to shore around 7am local time (6am BST), headed out to sea at 9.30am. The boat appeared to be overloaded and witnesses saw it was eventually brought back to shore at around 11am local time. The police present on Gravelines beach would not confirm whether the use of tear gas had now become common practice during these clashes. A beach comber who has begun to document crossings was watching events unfold on Tuesday. The 28-year-old said of French police: 'I think they show them that they tried to stop them but they're happy if a few hundred or thousand are away because the camps are more empty.' The Prime Minister and Mr Macron will hold a summit in July focused on tackling the migration problem, No 10 said after a meeting between the pair in the margins of the G7 in Canada. ' Migration should be a key focus given the deteriorating situation in the Channel, they confirmed – adding that they should continue to work closely with other partners to find innovative ways to drive forward progress,' an official readout of the meeting said. Downing Street acknowledged there were 'no quick fixes', but insisted action was already being taken and 'the days of Britain being a soft touch for these gangs are over'. That includes measures aimed at getting the French authorities to intervene even if migrants are already in the sea. Asked if the Government approved of the use of tear gas, the spokesman said: 'Our work with the French has never been closer. 'We are the first government to have secured agreement from the French to review their laws so their border enforcement teams can intervene in shallow waters.' Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: 'Starmer is right, under his watch the Channel crisis is spiralling out of control.' He said 2025 was the worst year on record but Labour's answer was 'to ask the British taxpayer to foot the bill for their accommodation or to pay half a billion pounds for the French to wave the boats off and do next to nothing to prevent Channel crossings'. He added: 'The gangs are laughing, the boats keep coming, and Labour's response is to form another taskforce and hold a summit. It's weak and it's embarrassing.'
