Latest news with #BaronessLouiseCasey
BBC News
11-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Ban on ticketless football fans set to become law
Football fans who enter or attempt to enter matches in England and Wales without a ticket face a ban after legislation cleared the House of Commons. The bill makes unauthorised entry to a football match a criminal offence. Following a conviction for that offence, a court would ban someone from attending any professional football fans would also face a fine of up to £1, draft legislation still needs to be passed by the House of Lords, but is likely to become law as it is supported by both the government and the Conservatives. Unathorised entry into a match can include tailgating a fan with a ticket through barriers, but it can also include forced entry, bribing stadium staff, or using deception to enter - such as impersonating a member of draft law comes following disorder at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley in 2021, when thousands of fans force entry into the FA-commissioned report led by Baroness Louise Casey said the disorder could have led to deaths and recommended making tailgating into a match a criminal measures would cover fans who attempt to enter the premises - such as the first ticket check on the run up to a stadium - but who fail to make it into a match it would not apply to fans who enter a match with a fake ticket they believe to be genuine, or entering a match with a valid ticket which they were not eligible to would also not stop those without tickets but with legitimate reasons to enter matches, such as stadium employees, journalists and emergency workers. Labour MP Linsey Farnsworth, who proposed the law, said it was needed as the lack of current consequences means "ticketless individuals can and do repeatedly attempt to gain entry to a match until they give up or are indeed successful".The MP for Amber Valley, in Derbyshire, highlighted the "uneasy" experience of two of her friends who were at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley, whom she said were put off from attending England games said the intention was for the measures to come into force at the start of this year's football Conservative backbencher Sir Christopher Chope criticised the change, saying it risked trivialising legislation and that the disorder at the Euro 2020 final was a "one-off incident".Security Minister Dan Jarvis said that the problem was a recurring one, telling MPs that "forced entry, tailgating, and so-called jibbing, are not victimless acts".He added: "Those involved are often aggressive, violent or threatening, and their actions can lead to overcrowding, blocked emergency exists and frightening conditions for innocent fans."A similar bill was introduced during the last parliament, but it failed to make it onto the statute book before the general election.
Daily Mail
02-07-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Revealed: more than 1,000 grooming gang suspects investigated by one of Britain's largest police forces in 59 separate abuse probes
More than 1,000 grooming suspects are being investigated by one of Britain's largest police forces as part of 59 separate abuse probes, a report reveals today. Over 300 police officers in Greater Manchester alone have been conducting live inquiries into whether 714 victims were preyed upon, it says. The staggering number is exposed by a report by the police inspectorate into how the force at the centre of the Rochdale grooming scandal handles such cases today. It was commissioned after an inquiry last year found that callous paedophiles were left free to groom a new generation of victims because police and council bosses ignored the abuse of scores of young girls. At the time, Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson acknowledged the findings were 'shameful' and issued a 'heartfelt apology' to victims. Today's findings come after Sir Keir Starmer staged a U-turn and agreed to a national inquiry into Asian grooming gangs following a hard-hitting report by Baroness Louise Casey. She condemned public bodies for covering up sickening evidence about the ethnicity of rapists preying on thousands of vulnerable girls 'for fear of appearing racist'. Today's report praises how Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has improved how it investigates child sexual grooming offences, saying it now has large and well-resourced teams. Underlining the scale of the challenge they face, it says that as of last October the force was conducting 59 'live multi-victim multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations'. 'At the time of our inspection, the force told us that in these active investigations there were 714 victims and survivors, and 1,099 suspects,' the report says. There were 'more than 300 officers investigating child sexual exploitation offences' which 'shows the importance' with which the force treats such offences. In her report last month, Lady Casey said GMP was examining 61 such investigations with 269 'known suspects'. The figure of 1,099 is understood to include cases where officers have only been given nicknames or descriptions of alleged abusers, meaning some suspects may feature more than once. Their ethnicities are not disclosed in the latest report. Just last month seven members of the latest Asian grooming gang to be brought to justice for preying on white girls in Rochdale in the early 2000s were convicted of using victims as 'sex slaves'. A further 20 men have been charged as part of the same investigation, with five further trials planned. Mohammed Zahid, 64 (left), ringleader of the latest Asian grooming gang convicted of exploiting young girls in Rochdale in the early 2000s Today's report was commissioned by Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham to examine how the force investigates allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation. While praising an overall improvement, it says some investigators need additional training. Additionally it highlights gaps in joining up police, NHS and social services records of vulnerable children. It also said that of 74 children who last year's report found were likely to have been left to be sexually exploited between 2003 and 2013 despite coming forward, ten had not received 'an appropriate level of service' from GMP. Some of these may have lost trust in the police due to 'victim-blaming' language being used at the time, it says. Inspector of Constabulary Michelle Skeer said: 'It is clear that that the force has for many years been trying to provide a better service to those who have or may have experienced sexual exploitation. 'But for some, trust and confidence in the police had been lost, and the force would not be able to rectify their experiences.' Responding to the latest report, along with a new Ofsted review into child protection across Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham said the findings meant 'people can have confidence that today's approach is fit for purpose'. 'I am confident in my view that the Greater Manchester system is in a demonstrably different and far stronger place today than it was when the failings happened,' he added. Sir Stephen acknowledged that victims were 'failed in the past' but said the report showed 'significant improvements' had been made. 'We owe it both to those abused in the past and to our children today to sustain this most pressing of priorities and I give my commitment to do just that,' he said. 'To those who are responsible for these repugnant crimes – as is now very apparent – we will pursue you relentlessly.'
Daily Mail
19-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The towns still living in fear of grooming gangs: Parents in areas preyed on by abusers are terrified their children will be targeted next as map reveals shocking scale of scandal
Parents in towns preyed on by grooming gangs say they still live in fear of abusers targeting their children. Rotherham and Telford were both epicentres of the scandal, which saw groups of mostly Pakistani men exploit vulnerable youngsters with impunity before the crisis was finally exposed. An interactive map produced by MailOnline shows the shocking extent of the outrage, with at least 41 towns affected across England, from Plymouth and Ramsgate on the south coast to Barrow and Newcastle in the north. Baroness Louise Casey's recently published review into the crime wave found public bodies had covered up evidence about Asian grooming gangs for years 'for fear of appearing racist'. Sir Keir Starmer has now caved into calls for a national inquiry, which locals in towns where gangs operated believe cannot come soon enough. An estimated 1,400 children were sexually abused in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, over a period of more than 16 years. But despite a wave of prosecutions, parents who spoke to MailOnline this week say they still live in daily fear of grooming gangs and are too scared to allow their daughters to get taxis home from nightclubs. They blame policing failures, lack of parental supervision among some families, and the dire state of the local economy. Katrina Tunstill, 36, said: 'It all needs sorting. It's been going on for a long time and it may still be going on but they are too sneaky to get caught. 'I have a 16-year-old daughter who is just leaving school so things like this make me very concerned for her welfare.' Mark Pritchard, 51, said: 'I think it is still going on, but you have to catch them. That's the problem. 'What makes me mad is it gives the town such a bad name when these crimes are only committed by a few bad apples. 'The trouble is the state of the town means it's easy for these grooming gangs to operate. And the police can't help because they're tied up in red tape.' Mark Brown, 63, insisted grooming was still an ongoing problem. Waving his hand towards a group of teenage girls walking up the street in clubbing gear, he said: 'You've got young lasses who are at risk of grooming, and there's no way to stop it. No chance. 'Of course, it's still going on. I don't know how it can be stopped.' Mother Sonia Pritchard, 52, claimed a 'blind eye' was still being turned to abusers, while Linda Milner, 74, said she had told her daughter she wanted to move elsewhere. Great grandmother Jen Hubbard, 64, also painted a gloomy picture of the reality in today's Rotherham. She said: 'I think it's still going on. I've seen a lot of changes over the years, and I think we are losing our culture. 'Fortunately, my kids have all grown up now, but I kept a close eye on them when they were little and they were never targeted. 'Our daughter did not start going to nightclubs until she was 21, and her dad used to pick her up every time to take her home. 'He would not let her get a taxi. I don't think it's fair just to blame the police and social services. All they're doing is doing their job. 'Parents need to take more responsibility and know where their children are and be vigilant.' In November 2010, five men were sentenced in Rotherham for depraved sex attacks against girls - some as young as 12. Razwan Razaq, Umar Razaq, Zafran Ramzan, Mohsin Khan and Adil Hussain were handed sentences lasting between four and 11 years. Over the next decade almost 50 men - and at least two women - were convicted for similar grooming charges. An investigation launched by the local council found that 1,400 children were sexually abused between 1997 and 2013 by predominantly British-Pakistani men. Tony Doyle, 45, who was born and raised in Rotherham, said every time he mentioned the town to people from elsewhere they mentioned its association with grooming. 'They ask where you come from and when you tell them, they say ''you come from where the sex gangs and child rapists are'',' he said. In the Shropshire town of Telford, at least three separate groups of men have been convicted after grooming vulnerable victims since 2012. On October 5, 2012, two Telford brothers were sent to jail for 18 and 14 years after they were found to have sexually abused, trafficked, prostituted or tried to prostitute local girls between 2008 and 2009. Youngest brother Ahdel Ali, was found guilty of one charge of rape, 11 charges of sexual activity with a child, three charges of controlling child prostitution, one of inciting child prostitution, an allegation of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and meeting a child after grooming. He was given the longer sentence. Eldest brother, Mubarek Ali was convicted of four charges of controlling child prostitution, two of trafficking in the UK for sexual exploitation and a charge of causing child prostitution. Over the next decade convictions were brought against at least 10 men in Telford for similar crimes in 2017 and 2019. An inquiry was later held into the Telford grooming gangs and its findings released in 2022 found that at least 1,000 girls had been abused in the town. Yesterday, one mother-of-three who spoke to MailOnline said she wouldn't let her 13-year-old daughter walk around freely for fear of being targeted by gangs. Catherine Wood, 37, said: 'I think it's scary. It hasn't gone away for the victims of it, it's part of their life. 'I've got a 15-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy and they are very happy, they go to school here. 'This area is lovely, but would I want my children walking around later on by themselves, definitely not. It's terrifying. 'I do think it still happens, I think it probably happens everywhere. I think it's really scary but the education of children about it has really built up.' On the ethnic aspect to the scandal, she said: 'I think it's a real shame as it tars them all with the same brush. Unfortunately all the ones we hear about are of an ethnic background. 'It's not about that, but people see that and use that in their racism. But equally you are saying that all of these people are dangerous.' Tony Morris claims he stopped a grooming gang from abusing a girl while walking around the town centre in the 90s. The 63-year-old said: 'It's still a problem now. I know exactly where they were primed and what they did. 'They operated all over. One time I was walking by near the station and they had all the cars. I dragged out a driver and said ''you leave those girls alone''. 'I said you're procuring them for sex. I said ''get out of that cab and let those girls go''. 'He had two girls who were about 14 or 15 and I said ''get the f**k out the cab or I will drag you out'. 'There's that many places around here, it's unbelievable, although I haven't seen it personally locally for a while.' An Asian businessman who runs a takeaway along Wellington High Street in Telford described seeing 'shady' guys walking outside his shop. But he insisted the area 'isn't bad overall. 'I see a couple of guys walking around at night, with hoods up. Shady guys. But I don't know what they do or want,' he said. 'This isn't a very bad area, I'm not worried at all about these things. I work here and don't hear a lot about outside.' Meanwhile, a 26-year-old woman said she lived nearby one of the ringleaders who had recently been released from prison. 'He came out of prison a few years ago. He doesn't come very often but he and his brother visit the house. 'I don't think it's as big as it used to be (grooming) but it could still happen. Likely in the Wellington area. The fact that they're still there puts me off a lot.'
The Independent
17-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Badenoch ‘not doing politics' on grooming gangs as report author urges ‘calm'
Kemi Badenoch has insisted she is not politicising the grooming gangs scandal after the author of a major review on the issue said she was 'disappointed' with the Opposition's approach. Speaking at a press conference alongside grooming gang survivors and campaigners, the Conservative leader said was 'not doing politics now', but criticised people who sought to 'tone police those who are pointing out when something has gone wrong'. She said: '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.' Her comments follow an interview in which Baroness Louise Casey told the BBC she was 'disappointed' by the Opposition's response to her review of the grooming gangs scandal. She said: '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 added: '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.' Mrs Badenoch said her party did back a national inquiry into the scandal, and had been calling for one 'for six months'. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who also spoke at Tuesday's press conference, called for 'the people who are responsible for covering this up' to face prosecution for misconduct in public office alongside the inquiry. He said the Conservatives wanted the inquiry to take two years, focus on 'all 50 towns affected' and 'look at the role of ethnicity in the cover-up'. But appearing in front of the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday morning, Baroness Casey urged people to 'keep calm' on the subject of ethnicity. Pointing out that her report had said data on the ethnicity of perpetrators was 'incomplete and unreliable', she said: 'If you look at the data on child sexual exploitation, suspects and offenders, it's disproportionately Asian heritage. 'If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate, and it is white men. 'So again, just (a) note to everybody really, outside here rather than in here, let's just keep calm here about how you interrogate data and what you draw from it.' Baroness Casey's report, published on Monday, found the ethnicity of perpetrators had been 'shied away from', with data not recorded for two-thirds of offenders. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told MPs that officials had dodged the issue of ethnicity among groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, and called for 'much more robust national data'. Baroness Casey also told the Home Affairs Committee that a national inquiry should be done within three years, rather than the two called for by the Conservatives. She believed three years would be 'achievable' to carry out the national and local inquiries. The crossbench peer also urged for local areas to 'think carefully' about not being open to scrutiny and to change. On the five local inquiries announced in January, she said 'only Oldham bit the bullet', adding: 'My understanding is nobody else volunteered for that. So that tells you something, doesn't it? It tells you something, and it doesn't tell you something I certainly would want to hear if I was a victim.' A Downing Street spokesman said the format and chairperson of the inquiry would be set out at a later date, adding that it would have the power to compel people to give evidence. The spokesman said: 'We want to get on with this, but we must take the time to sort out exactly how that works and get the process right. 'But to be absolutely clear, the grooming scandal was one of the greatest failures in our country's history, with vulnerable people let down time and again, and the Prime Minister is determined to finally get them justice.' He added that the Government had accepted all of Baroness Casey's recommendations, including making it mandatory for the police to collect data on the ethnicity of suspects.
BBC News
16-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Newscast The Grooming Gangs Report
Today, a report into sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs says there was a 'collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs'. The audit, led by Baroness Louise Casey, said the ethnicity of grooming gangs is shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators. Adam is joined by Alison Holt, social affairs editor and Judith Moritz, special correspondent. Plus, Iran and Israel continue to exchange missile strikes as world leaders gather for the G7 in Canada. Adam and Chris discuss if a meeting of President Trump, Prime Minister Starmer, President Macron and others will make any difference to the tensions. You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast'. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Julia Webster. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
