11 hours ago
Grooming gangs targeted in major police operation after Starmer inquiry U-turn
National Crime Agency officers will lead an operation tracking down gang members (Picture: PA)
The Home Office has announced a nationwide police operation tackling grooming gangs ahead of the release of a major report into the issue.
Sir Keir Starmer confirmed on Saturday a national inquiry will be held into institutional failings that led to thousands of children being sexually exploited by gangs across the UK.
The move came after the Prime Minister spent months insisting a series of local probes would be sufficient to get to the bottom of the problem.
Travelling to the G7 summit in Canada, Sir Keir said he now believed an inquiry was 'the right thing to do' after reading 'every single word' of a report by Baroness Louise Casey.
Her report, which will call for a full statutory inquiry, is due to be published this afternoon following a statement in the House of Commons from Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Cooper has pre-empted the release by announcing an operation to be headed by the National Crime Agency, tracking down gang members who have abused children.
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She said it was 'wrong and unforgivable' that not enough people listened to the vulnerable young girls who fell victim to groups of adult men.
The Home Office previously asked police to look again at grooming gang cases which closed 'too early', resulting in more than 800 such cases being identified.
In January, Labour MPs were whipped to oppose a proposition to set up a national inquiry into grooming gangs tabled by the Conservatives in a House of Commons vote.
However, the amendment was set up in a way that meant voting to pass it would mean killing the government's major Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, making it extremely difficult for Labour to support.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will update MPs on the report this afternoon (Picture: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Opposition parties including the Tories and Reform have been calling for a full-scale inquiry for months, with the issue gaining widespread attention after billionaire Elon Musk repeatedly posted about it on his social media site X at the start of the year.
The Tesla boss, who worked in a high-profile White House role at the time, suggested Sir Keir Starmer should be arrested among dozens of highly critical posts.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who failed to launch an inquiry during her time in government, said: 'Keir Starmer doesn't know what he thinks unless an official report has told him so.
'Just like he dismissed concerns about the winter fuel payment and then had to u-turn, just like he needed the Supreme Court to tell him what a woman is, he had to be led by the nose to make the correct decision here.
'I've been repeatedly calling for a full National Inquiry since January. It's about time he recognised he made a mistake and apologised for six wasted months.'
Elon Musk drew attention to grooming gangs in controversial social media posts earlier this year (Picture:)
Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham where one of the most high-profile grooming gang cases was based, said the thought of another inquiry 'filled [her] with horror' but her mind was changed by the 'overwhelming public concern'.
Appearing on the BBC's Today Programme this morning, Champion said: 'I have an intense frustration that, not the frontline staff but further up the management chain, there were people who were actively blocking reports.
'People who I think, if not held to a criminal standard, should be held to a professional standard for their negligence in protecting those children.'
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