Home Secretary Announces Law Changes In Response To "Damning" Grooming Gangs Report
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper informed Parliament of the findings from a review of the grooming gang scandal (Alamy)
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Home Secretary Yvette Cooper apologised to child victims of grooming gangs and announced changes to the law in response to a report into the scandal.
The Home Secretary gave a statement to the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, after the Prime Minister told reporters on his way to the G7 summit in Canada that a national inquiry into historic grooming gang abuse would take place, having previously resisted calls to do so.
On Friday, seven men were found guilty of 50 offences relating to the sexual exploitation of vulnerable teenage girls in Rochdale. In recent months, multiple campaigners and the Conservative Party have demanded a national inquiry into the scale and nature of multiple grooming gang scandals, involving groups of mainly Pakistani-heritage men in areas including Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham, Telford and Bradford.
Earlier this year, Cooper commissioned Baroness Casey to carry out an audit of the “nature, scale and characteristics of gang-based exploitation”. Police have also reopened more than 800 historic cases of child sexual abuse by groups since January.
“I specifically asked [Casey] to look at the issue of ethnicity and the cultural and social drivers for this type of offending, analysis that had never previously been done despite years of concerns being raised,” she told the Commons.
This report has now been published, revealing evidence of “over-representation” of suspects of Asian and Pakistani heritage suspected of being involved in grooming gangs.
It also found evidence that authorities refused to examine the ethnicity of offenders for “fear of appearing racist”, and that there was a “continued failure to gather robust national data about the ethnicity of offenders”.
Casey’s report identified a “deep-rooted failure to treat children as children and protect them from rape and sexual violence”, recommending a change in the law to introduce mandatory rape charges for adult men who have sex with 13-15 year olds.
The government will accept all 12 recommendations made by Casey’s report, and a full national inquiry will be carried out. Cooper said that the government expects the inquiry to take "around three years", but that final details on the timings were yet to be determined.
A chairman of the national inquiry is reportedly expected to be appointed within the next few weeks, with the government having received Casey’s report 10 days ago.
Cooper said the findings were “damning,” and accepted that the state had repeatedly failed children.
“[Casey] finds too much fragmentation in the authorities’ response, too little sharing of information, too much reliance on poor data, too much denial, too little justice, too many criminals getting off, too many victims being let down,” she said.
The Home Secretary confirmed a “rigorous” new criminal operation led by the National Crime Agency will now be launched to coordinate police action on grooming gangs nationwide.
The government will also bring forward legislation to exclude anyone convicted of child sexual exploitation offences from the asylum system and deny them refugee status. Victims who were criminalised for child prostitution will have their convictions quashed.
Cooper said the Casey audit showed that some organisations had “avoided the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist or raising community tensions”, but warned that failure to confront the issue had worsened divisions.
“Ignoring the issues, not examining and exposing them to the light, allows the criminality and depravity of a minority of men to be used to marginalise whole communities,” she said.
“The vast majority of people in our British, Asian and Pakistani heritage communities continue to be appalled by these terrible crimes and agree that the criminal minority of sick predators and perpetrators in every community must be dealt with robustly by the criminal law.”
Cooper said she wanted to reiterate an “unequivocal apology” for the “unimaginable pain and suffering” that victims have suffered.
“But words are not enough,” she said. “The reforms I have set out today will mean the strongest action any government has taken to tackle child sexual exploitation.”
Responding to Cooper’s statement in the Commons, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “I couldn't believe my ears, listening to the home secretary’s statement as if this was their plan all along, when we all know it is another U-turn after months of pressure.”
