Starmer dismissing calls for inquiry into evil grooming gangs was ‘extraordinary failure of leadership', rages Badenoch

The Sun

10 hours ago

GROOMING gang victims were failed by cops and public officials more bothered about not being considered racist.
A devastating report yesterday laid bare how the State was in 'denial' over the rape and abuse of white girls.
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Dame Louise Casey found perpetrators got away with it because of fears about inflaming community tensions.
Ministers have ordered an inquiry into the widespread cover-up of the crimes, which disproportionately invol­ved Asian men, many of Pakistani heritage.
The findings have forced the PM to bow to pressure for a national inquiry and pledge a package of measures to combat predators.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper yesterday apologised to victims for the 'failure of our country's institutions through decades to prevent that harm and keep you safe'.
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Sir Keir Starmer of 'an extraordinary failure of leadership' after originally dismissing calls for a full inquiry.
Across almost 200 pages, Baroness Louise Casey's report details how officials let down vulnerable victims on a devastating scale.
It highlights authorities' failure to collect - and even deliberately twist - data on the perpetrators' ethnicity.
The independent Whitehall troubleshooter says her rapid three-month audit into the scandal reveals that 'questions about ethnicity have been dodged for years'.
It uncovered many examples of the topic being avoided 'for fear of appearing racist'.
Baroness Casey says there have 'been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds to have warranted closer examination'.
'Cowardly PM gaslit survivors'
By Kemi Badenoch
LABOUR tried to gaslight the country and the survivors of rape gangs yesterday.
The party that said those of us calling for a national inquiry were 'dog-whistling' has U-turned.
Yet they now tell us this was what they wanted all along.
This Labour government needed a report to tell them to do something obvious to the rest of us.
It's shameful it took six months of pressure from the Conservatives.
This has been an extraordinary failure of leadership from the PM.
He was more worried about the views of his leftie lawyer mates than the brave survivors.
For decades they have called for their abusers, and those who covered it up, to face justice.
No one can be beyond scrutiny.
And it must be swift.
The PM's cowardice made them wait longer than necessary.
They must not wait another decade for justice.
But she added: 'Instead of examination, we have seen obfuscation. In a vacuum, incomplete and unreliable data is used to suit the ends of those presenting it.
'The system claims there is an overwhelming problem with White perpetrators when that can't be proved.'
A whole chapter is devoted to a culture of 'denial' by institutions - such as the police and councils - to confront the prevalence of Asian gangs.
She says: 'Blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions, all play a part in a collective failure to properly deter and prosecute offenders or to protect children from harm.'
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While two-thirds of perpetrators have no ethnicity recorded, police data in the few areas where it is collected show a 'disproportionate number of men from Asian ­ethnic backgrounds'.
Ms Cooper branded the findings 'deeply disturbing'.
She said she will accept a recommendation for all authorities to track ethnicity data.
Ministers will also take on the others, including mandatory rape charges for anyone having penetrative sex with an under-16.
The report also calls for an end to the harmful 'adultification' of teenage girls, especially those in care, who are too often judged as complicit rather than recognised as vulnerable children.
Baroness Casey said if we got this right years ago 'then I doubt we'd be in this place now'.
Child sexual exploitation should be treated with the same seriousness as major organised crime, she says.
Loopholes in taxi licensing will be closed as inconsistent local regulations have been exploited by some drivers, often placing kids at greater risk of sexual exploitation.
Grooming gang crackdown unveiled
BARONESS Casey's report sets out a series of recommendations, which the government has accepted in full
1. Strengthen the law: Tighten the law so that any adult who has sex with a child under the age of 16 is automatically charged with rape, removing current legal grey areas that allow abusers to avoid proper punishment.
2. Address Historical Failings: Through a national inquiry pursue justice for past cases and hold accountable those who failed to act.
3. Enhance Intelligence Gathering: Improve the collection and analysis of information to combat exploitation more effectively.
4. Improve Inter-Agency Collaboration: Foster stronger cooperation and information-sharing among agencies.
5. Mandatory Reporting: Require all services to share information when a child is at risk.
6. Introduce Unique Child Identifiers: Implement a system to ensure children are consistently and accurately identified across services.
7. Modernise Police Systems: Upgrade technology to enable seamless communication and prevent missed opportunities.
8. Treat Grooming Gangs as Serious Organised Crime: Employ the same robust strategies used to combat other forms of organised criminal activity.
9. Investigate Declining Reports: The Department for Education must examine why reports of child abuse are decreasing and take corrective action.
10. Understand the Underlying Drivers: Conduct in-depth research into the factors underpinning grooming gangs, including cultural and online influences.
11. Regulate the Taxi Industry: Prevent exploitation by restricting the use of 'out-of-area' taxi drivers.
12. Commit Government Resources: Ministers must allocate funding and ensure measurable progress is achieved.
Victims will be offered trauma counselling immediately and without legal delay, with their recovery treated as a priority.
Ms Cooper told MPs: 'This will mark the biggest programme of work ever pursued to root out the scourge of grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation. Those vile perpetrators who have grown used to the authorities looking the other way must have no place to hide.'
She also vowed to kick out asylum seekers who are found to have committed child sexual exploitation.
The Home Secretary will further strengthen the law so that any migrant convicted of sexual offences are denied refugee status.
The package will come alongside the national inquiry, expected to take around three years.
The National Crime Agency is also to reopen more than 800 closed grooming-gang cases.
Speaking from the G7 summit in Canada, Sir Keir said it will go 'wherever it needs to go' to uncover the truth.
After initially slapping down calls for a probe, he said he changed his mind 'on the basis' of Baroness Casey's findings.
The PM said: 'I've looked at her report, I've considered that material. I think she's right, and that's why it'll be a national inquiry. It'll be a statutory inquiry.'
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But he was savaged by Ms Badenoch in a fiery Commons debate.
She blasted: 'The Prime Minister's handling of this scandal is an extraordinary failure of leadership.
'His judgment has once again been found wanting.
'Since he became Prime Minister, he and the Home Secretary dismissed calls for an inquiry because they did not want to cause a stir.
'They accused those of us demanding justice for the victims of this scandal as, and I quote, 'jumping on a far-right bandwagon', a claim the Prime Minister's official spokesman restated this weekend.
'Shameful.'
Baroness Casey yesterday admitted she initially opposed an inquiry but changed her mind after realising that no local council except Oldham was willing to take part.
She warned that children across Britain are still being sexually abused in gangs but officials cannot say how many.
She found there is 'no recent study' and 'incomplete data' across police, councils and the justice system.
In 2023, cops logged 700 group-based exploitation crimes but the report said the true figure is much higher.
Some 500,000 kids are likely to be sexually abused each year, yet most cases are never reported or recognised, it added.
Whitehall officials attempted to cover up the scandal in 2011, ex-No10 adviser Dominic Cummings claimed.
He said they tried to help Rotherham Council block The Times from exposing it.
By Harry Cole, Editor-at-Large
WELCOME aboard the 'far-right bandwagon' then, Prime Minister.
It's been six months since Sir Keir Starmer airily dismissed those calling for a moment of reckoning over the wave of Asian rape gangs systematically attacking white British girls under the noses of officials and cops.
Six months since the PM whipped his Labour MPs to vote down an inquiry into the biggest scandal and cover-up in modern British history, yet mysteriously missed the toxic Commons vote himself.
And six months since our technocratic lawyer leader outsourced the problem to someone else, instead of gripping the issue from the centre.
Now Dame Louise Casey, the go-to woman to write long reports on issues ministers find too sticky, has reached the blindingly obvious conclusion that this blot on our national history deserves more than just mournful words and brushing under the carpet.
As one weeping survivor, Elizabeth, told GB News: 'We're not far-right — we were just children who were abused.'
We will find out what exactly Casey has unearthed later today when her report is published — but even on the facts as known already, the case for an inquiry is already overwhelming.
Hundreds of men of Pakistani origin, often working in cabs or takeaways, luring and drugging young girls with drink and drugs and subjecting them to the most horrific ­sexual abuse.
A generation of victims then failed by simpleton social ­services across ­dozens of mostly Labour-run local authorities.
Officials more worried about so-called community cohesion than rape, police forces suspiciously close to so-called ­community leaders, turning a blind eye or even returning young women into the hands of the evil perpetrators.
Girls branded slags and prostitutes rather than child-abuse victims — all in the name of multicultural harmony and cultural enrichment.
If you weren't already angry about this before Elon Musk took the issue stratospheric last Christmas, then you were not paying attention.
The court transcripts alone, such as one case in Dewsbury where a victim was told, 'we're here to f*** all the white girls and f*** the Government', should have been enough to trigger a wider review.
But the Labour Government again and again appeared to close the doors and windows to the much-needed disinfection of sunlight — in what could well be a brand-destroying inquiry into years of failure by the party across swathes of northern Britain.
To his credit, Sir Keir had a strong track record in ­beginning to crack this scandal as Director of Public Prosecution, banging up the first batch of abusers.
Which makes the lawyer leader's obfuscation earlier this year even more baffling — and even more personally damaging.
Rightly or wrongly, it looked like a political leader — who in a past life knew the horrors and evil that was wrought across northern cities and towns — now in charge of a party at the centre of the ­scandal and doing his utmost to avoid ­scrutiny.
A regularly repeated tale from those who have worked closely with Starmer in both Opposition and government is that the lawyer leader often refuses to take advice from those who genuinely mean him well and want him to do the right thing. Instead, the ­barrister locks himself away from aides, reads his brief and makes his own decisions, thinking he knows best.
It's said to be a trait the PM sticks to, despite the fact he has been shown time and again to suffer from a political tin ear, preferring the comfort of reviews and legalese over instinct and leadership.
And then the inevitable U-turns come when it turns out the lawyer did not know best, after all.
The case for an inquiry was as obvious in ­January as it is now, but the PM was clearly unwilling to be seen to be bounced into it by Musk, Reform or the Tories.
He could have shown a ­genuine moment of strong leadership and got on the front foot, but yet again could not see the chance.
So, the rug has now been pulled from under him by the very 'audit' he clearly hoped would make this thorny issue go away.
And frankly, the PM has only himself to blame for looking like he's been dragged into this kicking and screaming — once again facing massive questions over his judgment, nous or even emotional intelligence.
Plenty in Government saw an inquiry as not just the right thing to do, but a political no-brainer, given their hand would be forced eventually.
But it's not too late for the PM to do the right thing now, as he sets up the probe.
No wishy-washy old human-rights lawyer mate from his past will do at the helm.
Instead, we need a proper judge with a track record of not ­caving in to politically ­correct trends.
No Labour council, official or local organiser spared from testimony.
No police force off-limits for a hauling over the coals.
And Covid Inquiry -style ­powers to have council emails, phone records and court papers turned over and ­published in full, however politically toxic for Labour.
This inquiry needs to be no-holds-barred and it must be televised.
The victims — and this ­country — deserve the whole truth about these horrors, ­however long it takes and ­however hard that is for the PM and his party.