GROOMING gang survivors and their families said Sir Keir Starmer’s long-overdue inquiry does not go far enough – and warned they’ have got no trust in Labour to deliver justice.
They told how they were ignored, blamed and even punished by professionals who were supposed to protect them.
GettyTory party leader Kemi Badenoch hosts a press conference following the announcement on a national inquiry into grooming gang[/caption]
PAThe press conference took place in Central London[/caption]
And said only a fully independent probe will expose the truth and hold people to account.
Their comments came after the PM finally agreed to a national inquiry, months after dismissing calls as a “far-Right bandwagon”.
He was forced into a U-turn after a devastating report by Baroness Casey, which revealed that police and council leaders deliberately covered up the abuse – predominantly by men of Pakistani origin – because they feared being called racist.
The review also found that asylum seekers and foreign nationals are involved in a “significant proportion” of live investigations into grooming gangs across the UK.
At a press conference hosted by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, survivors and campaigners said the abuse is still happening and warned the system that failed them must now be held to account.
Marlon West, whose daughter Scarlett was groomed and trafficked from the age of 14, said his main concern is that the inquiry will be locally led – and warned councils should not be “answering their own homework”.
He later added: “I’ve met with Jess Phillips [Labour’s safeguarding minister], I’ve been campaigning for this for the last years and I’ve just had the door closed on my face.
“I do not trust them, so they still need challenging. Like I said, there’s more questions and answers.”
Fiona Goddard, a survivor who bravely waived her anonymity, said she was repeatedly blamed and labelled a “brothel-runner” at 16 by those who should have protected her.
She called for survivor-led education in schools to help children spot signs of grooming and abuse.
Theresa, whose son was abused aged 13 and later died before he could finish giving evidence, said she was warned not to dig for answers or her son “would suffer the consequences”.
She criticised the inquiry’s narrow scope, saying: “It’s not just girls. Boys are being abused too, and they need to know it’s not their fault.”
Lucia, a campaigner who has supported survivors for years, said: “We’re hoping this inquiry will give regular updates to restore the public trust and survivors’ trust more importantly because we do believe that is at an all-time low.”
Ms Badenoch, who first called for a national inquiry in January, said: “What we need right now is the moral courage to do the right thing, rather than continually finding reasons to kick stuff into the long grass.”
Asked why the Tories did not hold a specific inquiry during their years in power, she insisted the party “did a lot” and set up a taskforce under Rishi Sunak that identified hundreds of perpetrators.
She said her previous apology to victims still stood, but added: “Apologies are easy. What we need is action.”
On whether the crisis had become a border issue, the Tory leader replied: “Yes, I think this does go into borders beyond criminal justice.”
Appearing alongside her, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “The lack of control at the border is fuelling the risk here.”
Mr Philp also 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.
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