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.
Professor Alexis Jay (IICSA/PA)
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.'
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The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Dear Yvette Cooper, let the Casey review lead to justice – not the scapegoating of British Pakistani culture
Dear home secretary, Monday's publication of the national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse, led by Louise Casey, marked a pivotal moment. Not only in confronting the horrific crimes committed against vulnerable girls in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and Telford, but in deciding how we respond to them as a country. The Casey review offers a sobering account of institutional failure. These girls were not simply let down. They were failed by systems and individuals tasked with their protection. That must never happen again. Justice, accountability and reform are essential. I write to you as a British Muslim, a third-generation British Pakistani woman, and someone who has worked with communities across the country, to express deep concern about how this issue is being spoken about and misrepresented. You asked Lady Casey to examine ethnicity alongside 'cultural and social drivers'. The review identifies disproportionate numbers of Asian men among suspects in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. At the same time, it stresses that national data is incomplete and inconsistent. These findings are in tension. Yet the media and political response has amplified a simplified message: that there was a cover-up and that ethnicity itself was the cause. In areas where British Pakistani communities are more populous, over-representation may reflect local demographics, not cultural traits. Without that context, statistics are easily distorted. Crime patterns often follow social conditions. They do not reveal cultural predisposition. The way this has been framed has caused widespread fear and alarm. Over the past few days, I have received messages from friends and colleagues anxious about the direction of the national conversation. Terms like 'Pakistani rape gangs' or 'Asian grooming gangs' have dominated headlines. Social media are awash with commentators calling for the death penalty and a ban on Pakistani migration, while a sitting MP has called for deportations in the 'many, many thousands'. A complex issue is being reduced to harmful generalisations. The claim that British Pakistani culture itself is to blame for these crimes is not only untrue – it is a dangerous distortion, when child sexual exploitation and abuse affects the entire country. There is no credible evidence to suggest that ethnicity or religion are driving factors in this form of abuse. Turning this into a question of identity rather than accountability shifts attention away from the very systems that failed to protect vulnerable girls. It allows prejudice to masquerade as policy, and that cannot go unchallenged. When culture is invoked without evidence or definition, it does more than obscure the facts – it casts entire groups of people under suspicion. This has real consequences for people like me, my family and neighbours, who are being viewed not as citizens, but as potential threats. The risk now is that prejudice is embedded into policy. Institutional failures in safeguarding and accountability thus become repurposed to legitimise the collective blame of British Muslims. We have already seen what this kind of framing can provoke. Last summer, riots erupted in cities across England and Northern Ireland, stoked by misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric. Mosques and community centres were attacked. Vehicles were stopped because drivers 'looked Asian'. Just days ago, in Ballymena, there were racially motivated attacks on foreigners that 'left families cowering in their homes', according to the police, after days of disorder that left communities in fear and distress. Even in Liverpool, after a car was driven into fans gathered for a football parade, police were quick to confirm the suspect's ethnicity, a reflection of how heightened the atmosphere has become, and the fear that misinformation could spark race-related unrest. This is the climate in which any government intervention now sits. The need for not just reason and calm but a principled defence of minority communities, of fairness and proportion, is urgent. The pain of the survivors must remain at the centre of this conversation. Justice for them is non-negotiable. We must also not forget that some victims came from the very minority communities that are now under scrutiny. Their experiences are often erased. The perpetrators did not care who their victims were. Their motives were abuse, control and exploitation. The Casey review presents an opportunity to strengthen safeguarding and rebuild trust. We can only do that if we stay grounded in evidence, not prejudice, and in responsibility, not rhetoric. The forthcoming inquiry must examine how these crimes were allowed to happen, how institutions failed to respond and how to prevent such abuse in future. It must not allow the story to become one of racialised suspicion. That path leads not to justice, but to division. British Muslims, like all citizens, want justice and safety. We want our institutions to act fairly and with integrity. What we do not want is to be made to feel complicit in crimes we did not commit. Criminals must face the law, whoever they are. Zara Mohammed is former secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that the Russian Embassy in Tehran was working 'around the clock' to ensure nationals could leave Iran via a checkpoint on the border with Azerbaijan. 'All (Russian) citizens who are in Tehran and got in touch (with the embassy), for all of them the possibility of evacuating is being provided,' Peskov said during his daily conference call with the media. Moscow had earlier advised citizens to leave Iran and Israel by commercial means. The Russian Embassy in Tehran said several hundred people had already left Iran via the Astara border crossing into Azerbaijan, including the families of those working in Iran, members of the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, and citizens from Belarus, Serbia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Peskov said that he was unaware of state-organized evacuations, but that such plans could be put in place if needed. The Astara crossing has also been used by citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Portugal, the Philippines and Finland. Pakistan has started voluntary repatriations from Iran by bus to land border crossings. Pakistani passport holders are barred from traveling to Israel. China said that its Foreign Ministry and diplomatic missions in Iran and Israel had promptly activated 'emergency consular protection mechanisms' upon the outbreak of hostilities and was 'actively assisting' Chinese nationals seeking to leave. Third-country options Cyprus, the closest European Union country to Israel, says Portugal and Slovakia have asked for help in repatriating their citizens. Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said Monday that his government has received informal requests from other governments about Cyprus' ESTIA plan, which provides for the brief accommodation of evacuated third-country nationals before their repatriation. 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Guidance and eventual help The French Foreign Ministry has urged citizens in Israel to be ''in a position to reach a shelter in a short time frame' and said there is a ban on any public gatherings and nonessential professional or educational activities. It has urged citizens to register with French authorities for eventual help. The ministry reiterated an earlier warning against nonessential travel to Israel and provides guidance on overland journeys to Jordan or Egypt. It also reiterated warnings against all travel to Iran. The Thai Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday advised nationals to leave the Iranian capital as soon as they could. It has set up a temporary shelter for Thai citizens in the historic Iranian city of Amol, which is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Caspian Sea. Thailand's government said that it's ready to evacuate Thai people in Israel and Iran if necessary, adding that no Thais have been injured in the ongoing conflict. The U.K. Foreign Office said that family members of staff at the U.K. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the U.K. Consulate in Jerusalem have been temporarily withdrawn as a precautionary measure. It advises against all travel to Israel and Iran, but hasn't ordered an evacuation. Instead, it advises people to 'register their presence' if they are in Israel or the Palestinian territories, and offers information on international land border crossings to Jordan and Egypt that are open. In Iran, having a British passport or connections to the U.K. can be 'reason enough' for authorities to detain someone, warns the Foreign Office. 'U.K. government support is extremely limited in Iran," it said. "Assume that no face-to-face consular assistance will be possible in an emergency.' ___ AP journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Public must ‘keep calm' over ethnicity of grooming gang offenders, says Louise Casey
The public must 'keep calm' over the ethnicity of grooming gang offenders, the author of a high-profile report has urged, saying police data from one region suggested race was proportional with the local population. The comments from Louise Casey came as Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, defended herself from claims that she was attempting to politicise the scandal of the organised rape of girls by men across dozens of towns over at least 25 years. Lady Casey's report on Monday found evidence of 'over-representation' of Asian and Pakistani heritage men among suspects of 'group sexual exploitation' of children, according to data from three police forces. Casey told MPs on Tuesday that she was concerned that the limited data available on the race and ethnicity of offenders was not being used responsibly as part of the public debate on grooming gangs. She said that the report examined data from Greater Manchester police (GMP), which covers towns including Rochdale and Oldham where convicted grooming gangs operated. 'If you look at the data on child exploitation, suspects and offenders, it is disproportionately Asian heritage,' she said. 'If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate and it is white men. 'So just a note to everybody, outside here rather than in here, let's just keep calm about how you interrogate data and what you get from it.' According to the report, GMP's figures showed that 52% of suspects involved in multi-victim/multi-offender cases of child sexual exploitation over a three-year period were Asian, compared with 38% who were white. When examining suspects for all child sex abuse crimes, not just grooming, the same force's data shows that 16% were Asian and 44% were white, while 32% of suspects were of 'unknown' ethnicity. The last census figures show that 57% of Greater Manchester is white and 21% is Asian, according to the report. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Casey told the BBC's Newsnight on Monday that she was 'disappointed' by the Conservatives' response to her review of the grooming gangs scandal. 'We need to change some laws, we need to do a national criminal investigation, we need to get on with a national inquiry with local footprint in it, and ideally wouldn't it be great if everybody came behind that and backed you?' she said. 'I felt the opposition could have just been a bit, you know, 'Yes we will all come together behind you.' Maybe there's still time to do that. I think it's just so important that they do.' At a hastily arranged press conference, Badenoch said she was 'not doing politics now' but criticised people who sought to 'tone police those who are pointing out when something has gone wrong'. 'I do think that we should take the politics out of it. But who was it that said when we raised this issue that we were pandering to the far right? That's what brought the politics into it,' she said. Badenoch said her party backed a national inquiry into the scandal and had been calling for one 'for six months'. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told MPs that officials had dodged the issue of ethnicity among groups of sex offenders for fear of being labelled racist, and called for 'much more robust national data'. A Downing Street spokesperson said the format and chair of the inquiry would be set out at a later date, adding that it would have the power to compel people to give evidence.
