The chair of the upcoming grooming gangs inquiry has vowed to “not shy away from inconvenient truths” as he launches the terms of reference for the long-awaited review.
Former Children’s Commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield made the promise in her first statement since being appointed to run it statutory independent investigation Last December.
In this he has clarified that the investigation will focus on sexual exploitation. grooming gangsNot other forms of sexual abuse such as personal, familial or institutional.
The inquiry will examine institutions such as police forces and local authorities that failed to protect children and whether “the ethnicity, culture or religion of perpetrators or victims influenced crime patterns, and whether these factors shaped the institutional response”.
In what seemed like a criticism of previous investigations, the investigative team said: “These are questions that previous reviews did not address. This investigation will not avoid them.”
Baroness Longfield said: “Children across England and Wales have been and continue to be sexually exploited. Raped. Trafficked. Threatened into silence.”
“It is not disputed. What has been disputed has been minimized, explained away, or suppressed for too long, which is why the institutions that exist to protect them often choose not to act.”
The inquiry, which is expected to have offices in London, Leeds and Wales, is expected to complete its work by March 2028 with a budget of £65m.
There are several adverse circumstances that the investigating team is trying to cope with: the fact that the Chairman is not a judge; previous animosity of others regarding ethnicity; And a strong feeling among survivors, who have already been badly failed by the state, that this will be another cover-up.
Over the past three months, the team has been meeting dozens of victims and survivors who are facing skepticism and questions about whether this will make a difference.
This has helped set the terms of reference, he said, and the team has given assurances and promised to publish as they go so that the institutions under investigation can be exposed as evidence is found. It also pledges to look back 30 years, starting from 1996.
It promises to investigate how grooming gangs operated and were able to do so for so long, what police forces, social services, local authorities and schools knew, and what they did or did not do.
While Baroness Longfield is not a judge, she will use part of her budget for legal aid, and the inquiry will have statutory powers to compel unwilling witnesses to give evidence.
Emphasis was placed on the experience of the Baroness and two of her panel members: Zoe Billingham, who has spent much of her career inspecting public services, and Eleanor Kelly, the former Southwark chief executive who oversaw the response to the Grenfell disaster.
Baroness Longfield said: “Together, we bring decades of experience in protecting and promoting the interests of children, holding police forces and institutions to account, protecting vulnerable women and girls from violence and abuse, and providing strong local leadership in times of crisis.”
As well as the national inquiry, there will also be an unspecified number of local inquiries, each with a budget of £5 million. There will be one in Oldham, and there has been local pressure for one in Bradford.
This was in January last year when the government came under political pressure for this investigation after several tweets. Elon Musk about grooming gangs In Britain. The Prime Minister ordered a rapid national audit but initially opposed a full national investigation.
Then, in June, Lewis Casey’s audit found that “ignorance, prejudice and defensiveness contributed to the collective failure to protect children” and that data collection on ethnicity was flawed.
At this point, the government promised a full national statutory investigation.
It took until October to nominate two candidates for the chair, but both withdrew after poor reaction from survivors, many of whom wanted a judge to lead it. Then, in December, Baroness Longfield was appointed.
In recent days, Conservative MP Robbie Moore has expressed concerns that evidence may have been destroyed due to the time taken by the government to instruct institutions to preserve records.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Since Baroness Casey’s national audit, we have worked across government to ensure that records relating to draft terms of reference are maintained appropriately by public sector organisations.”
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Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “The grooming gang scandal is one of the darkest moments in our country’s history, where the most vulnerable were abused and exploited at the hands of evil child rapists.
“The Chairman and I have agreed that the investigation will focus on framing the gangs and will explicitly examine the ethnicity, religion and culture of criminals and the role that institutions play in the response.
“There will be no place to hide for the predatory monsters who commit these heinous crimes.”
The inquiry is due to begin its investigation on April 13.
