Latest news with #groominggangs
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Police in England and Wales identify 287 child sexual exploitation cases for review
Police forces in England and Wales have identified a further 287 outstanding cases of alleged child sexual exploitation by rape gangs, Yvette Cooper has disclosed. The home secretary said the government was also planning to wipe the convictions of grooming victims prosecuted over soliciting for prostitution, following concerns that children had been criminalised by the authorities. The disclosures were made on Tuesday before a hearing of the home affairs select committee, where she also: Indicated that the government would legislate for a 'fast track' system to speed up the removal of people applying for asylum from 'safe' countries. Called for the creation of a digital service for e-visas and border control so that the government could monitor who was in the UK legally. Voiced concern over the rising numbers of teenage extremism offences. Asked by MPs about grooming gangs, Cooper said she ordered all of the 43 police forces in England and Wales to review files to see if there were outstanding cases which should be reviewed. About half of the forces had reported back, she said. 'For those forces, 287 historic cases have been identified for review by the police child sexual exploitation taskforce,' she said. The government is considering a 'disregard' scheme for convictions of people who were under 18 when convicted of loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution, Cooper said. The criminal law changed so under-18s can no longer be convicted of those offences. Those changes were made in recognition that these people were not 'child prostitutes' but had been groomed and sexually exploited. 'We need to look at the action we need to take so that people do not carry around those criminal convictions for the rest of their lives,' she said. Her comments follows a campaign for 'Sammy's law' – led by Sammy Woodhouse, who was abused by a gang in Rotherham – which has been supported by a number of police chiefs, child protection experts and MPs. In a further development which will concern human rights organisations, Cooper said the Home Office was pushing for a 'digital ID for everyone coming to the UK'. 'We want to have a digital service linked to e-visas and linked to our border management process to be able to determine whether an individual is in or out of the UK, whether they have left at the point at which their visa expires or whether they are overstaying and immigration enforcement action is needed,' she said. Asked about the government's counter-extremism programme Prevent, Cooper said she was 'very concerned' by evidence of increasing extremism among young people. 'We are seeing the counter-terrorism caseload trebling in three years involving teenagers. This may be about far-right extremism, far-right extremism and violent extremism,' she said. The home secretary said there had also been a doubling of the number of young people being referred to Prevent since last summer. 'I continue to be concerned about the threshold ending up being too high and not enough Islamist extremist cases being referred to Prevent and the need to do more to make sure more of those cases were being referred to Prevent,' she said.
BBC News
6 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Police to reinvestigate child sexual exploitation cases
Fresh investigations could be launched into 287 child sexual exploitation cases that had been dropped by local police forces, Yvette Cooper has told home secretary said the cases had been handed to a national police taskforce which will look at whether to reopen them and "pursue any new lines of inquiry that have not been properly pursued".In January, Cooper asked all police forces in England and Wales to "look again at historic gang exploitation cases where 'No Further Action' was taken".So far half of the forces have reported back, with 287 cases identified for review by the national Police Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce. "Now we are awaiting reports back from the other half of police forces," Cooper told the Commons Home Affairs Committee earlier on government has resisted opposition calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs with powers to compel witnesses to give evidence. Instead, it has pledged £5m in funding for at least five local inquiries, with the location of those yet to be announced. It also commissioned veteran Whitehall troubleshooter Dame Louise Casey to carry out a "rapid" review of the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse, and a framework for the local had been due to release her report last month but has asked for a "short extension," Cooper told MPs."We do need her audit to inform the next steps and decisions around the local inquiries," she January, the national taskforce reported that there were 127 major police investigations underway on child sexual exploitation and gang grooming across 29 different police forces.
Times
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Andrew Norfolk obituary: Times reporter who exposed grooming gangs
Andrew Norfolk had given everything. Four years of obsessive and searing investigative journalism had exposed a scandal of negligence by police and social services, leading to many hundreds, if not thousands, of vulnerable young girls being raped by a ring of grooming gangs of Pakistani heritage. Emotionally battered and physically spent he may have been, but his investigation from 2011 made the most eloquent case for the importance of his profession: his reports in The Times led to several inquiries, a national action plan on child sexual exploitation, enhanced funding and training to tackle the issue, and new guidelines from the Crown Prosecution Service that led to a big increase in convictions. When Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, first raised concerns in 2003 about girls
Telegraph
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Grooming gangs scandal being weaponised, No10 says
The grooming gangs scandal is being weaponised, Downing Street has claimed, after a Labour minister was forced to apologise for her comments on the issue. Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons, apologised on Saturday after she accused a Reform commentator of engaging in dog whistle politics simply by speaking about rape gangs. But on Monday, No10 reignited the row by stating that it was 'disappointing' that some people were weaponising the issue of historic child sex abuse and were using it to make 'political points'. Asked if Sir Keir Starmer shared Ms Powell's view that rape gangs were being 'weaponised', the spokesman said: 'It's obviously disappointing for people to do so. 'But the Prime Minister is focused on taking the action that is needed to deliver for victims rather than on political point scoring.' Asked who was sharing political points, the spokesman said: 'I think any political point scoring on an issue such as this is disappointing. The Government is focused on taking action to deliver justice for victims.' Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said it was not 'weaponising' to speak out for rape gang victims. Mr Philp said: 'Pathetic from Starmer and No 10. Speaking out for rape gang victims and against the cover-up that followed is not 'a far right bandwagon', not a 'dog whistle', not 'weaponising' anything. 'They should deal with the issue and hold a proper national statutory public inquiry.' Marlon West, the father of a grooming gang survivor, told The Telegraph: 'I don't believe it's so much about scoring political points. It's because he's not acting on demands for a public inquiry that other parties are challenging. 'I speak to so many survivors and families. We really don't think this is 'weaponising'. They're refusing a public inquiry, and I disagree that it's being used to score political points. 'We just want a statutory public inquiry into grooming, which he's stalling on. The other thing that concerns me is that Dame Louise Casey should have brought the figures to us by now for grooming across the nation. I believe they're stalling on this issue.' Mr West's daughter Scarlett, a 20-year-old grooming survivor from Greater Manchester, was one of five victims who appeared in a hard-hitting Channel 4 documentary on the issue, which aired last week. On Friday night, Ms Powell described grooming gangs as a 'dog whistle' issue during a debate on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions. It came after commentator and Reform UK member Tim Montgomerie asked her if she had seen the Channel 4 documentary. On Saturday, the minister put out a statement to say she regarded child exploitation and grooming with the 'utmost seriousness', adding: 'I'm sorry if this was unclear.' Ms Powell said: 'I was challenging the political point scoring around it, not the issue itself. As a constituency MP, I've dealt with horrendous cases.' On Sunday, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said politicians sometimes say things 'in the heat of debate' that 'come across badly'. 'She's mortified and she does not want and would not want people who've campaigned on, or been victims of, these most appalling crimes to think she was in any way trying to undermine those experiences or those arguments,' he said.
