Calls for a national investigation into the rape and abuse of white working-class girls by predominantly British-Pakistani gangs are getting louder by the day.
Labour defeated a vote on a new inquiry in the Commons last week, insisting that the scandal, which ran from 1997 to 2013, had been sufficiently addressed and that further national inquiries would not add significant new insights or solutions.
This is despite a YouGov survey finding more than three-quarters of the British public back a national inquiry.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting cited the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) as evidence that the matter has been covered sufficiently at a national level.
IICSA was established in 2015 to investigate the extent to which institutions in England and Wales failed to protect children from sexual abuse.
Specifically, the strand of the inquiry dealing with grooming gangs was part of a broader investigation into organised networks of child sexual exploitation. The final report on grooming gangs was published in February 2022, with the overall inquiry’s findings released in October 2022.
The report has been heavily criticised, with survivors and advocacy groups expressing dissatisfaction with the glacial pace of change and the lack of comprehensive action following the inquiry.
Through extensive interviews and research, our national reporter, Charlie Peters has uncovered glaring failings within the report itself.
Here are five reasons the IICSA report should be scrapped in favour of a comprehensive national inquiry:
Too narrow a focus
In 2020 IICSA held two weeks of public hearings for its “organised networks” section. The grooming gangs were included in this section.
The hope was that this section of the report would shine a light on the national prevalence of the grooming gangs.
By then, the crisis was well-known. There had already been successful prosecutions of predominantly Pakistani gangs in Rochdale, Rotherham, Oxford, Telford, Burnley, High Wycombe, Leicester, Dewsbury, Peterborough, Halifax and Newcastle. Many more towns would follow.
Besides, our own analysis turned up at least 50 towns and cities across the UK home to grooming gangs
But where did IICSA look? St Helens, Tower Hamlets in east London, Swansea, Durham, Bristol and Warwickshire, none of which had witnessed a major prosecution of Pakistani abuse gangs.
In all six areas, the proportion of the population of Pakistani origin is lower than the national average. One witness, a senior copper from South Wales police, said there was “no data” to demonstrate the presence of grooming gangs in Swansea. So they chose to look into a town in Wales that literally had no data rather than any of the many northern towns affected by this scourge.
Henrietta Hill, QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, said at the time that IICSA had “carefully considered the extent to which, if at all, it should focus on areas such as Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford, all of which have attracted public attention”.
She said that the inquiry had found it was instead “more appropriate” to focus instead on “different areas, not least because it was intended that this was a forward-looking investigation building on analysis that’s already been done”.
Victims and campaigners argued at the time that there was a cowardly reluctance to confront the over-representation of Pakistanis in group-based abuse.
Changing one’s story
Peters has highlighted how senior figures have rolled back their previous statements on the report, casting doubt over its integrity.
In 2020, when IICSA’s approach to the grooming gangs was set out, then chief crown prosecutor for north-west England Nazir Afzal slammed the inquiry’s conduct as “nonsense”, adding: “With the other strands of this inquiry it’s been about looking back at what went wrong to see what we can learn from those mistakes. This section [on grooming gangs] decided it was going to look forward, but you can’t move forward without looking back at the failures.”
However, last week Afzal said that we do not need an inquiry because “there has been an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the catalyst for which was so-called grooming gangs. It cost millions and the last government failed to accept much of its recommendations”.
How about Labour MP Sarah Champion, who also voted against an inquiry. She recently told the Observer: “I don’t want an inquiry that will kick everything into the long grass – I want action.”
But what did she say in 2020 after IICSA decided to exclude evidence of sex-grooming networks in northern England?
“You have to question what they are trying to achieve. It’s more than a missed opportunity. So many survivors pinned their hopes on this inquiry getting to the truth.”
Evidence redacted
Rochdale whistleblower Maggie Oliver has accused has accused the report of being a “cover-up”.
The former detective constable, who resigned from Greater Manchester Police over the way they treated vulnerable rape gang victims in Rochdale, told GB News that the inquiry chose to prioritise the voices of officials over survivors.
Several official reports have found that public servants in towns like Rotherham and Telford were implicated in the failure to stop the rape gangs, either through covering-up the abuse or neglecting the issue.
Oliver, who has since set up The Maggie Oliver Foundation, which has supported over 1,000 victims of abuse, said that she had numerous victims who wanted to contribute to the inquiry.
Despite that, the £100million inquiry only heard from two victims, even as a stream of police and council officials were invited to speak.
Oliver has also criticised the inquiry for cutting out the majority of the statement she sent to it.
She told GB News that she still does not know why it was cut down so heavily.
She added: “But the fact it was cut from 50 pages prepared by lawyers to 18 is significant.”
A spokesperson for the inquiry said at the time that Oliver first raised concerns that they had published all the relevant parts of her statement.
It added that victims and survivors were “at the heart of this investigation.”
Grooming gangs lumped in with other abuse networks
Grooming gangs were “lumped” in with other abuse networks, while other subjects like online abuse, the Catholic Church, and care homes got their own investigation, Peters points out.
Grooming gangs were simply folded into a sub-section of a wider investigation into organised child abuse networks.
Oliver also drew attention to this, noting at the time: “The IICSA has been a missed opportunity to properly address grooming gangs. By lumping them in with other forms of abuse, we’ve failed to address the cultural and systemic issues that allow these networks to operate with impunity.”
So too did Tahir Ali, from the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK, who wrote: “The inquiry should have separated grooming gangs from other institutional abuses because the dynamics are different. There’s a community aspect, fear of racism, and systemic failures that require a nuanced approach.”
While the inquiry did not directly address this criticism in these terms, it did acknowledge in its findings that “there has been a lack of understanding about the nature and extent of sexual abuse by groups and networks”.
Only five out of 20 recommendations have been acted upon
The IICSA inquiry in England and Wales concluded with a final report in October 2022, making 20 recommendations aimed at improving child protection and preventing sexual abuse.
As of January 2025, it’s reported that only five of these recommendations have been acted upon, highlighting significant delays and challenges in implementing systemic changes.
Five Recommendations Acted Upon:
- Legislative Changes: For instance, the introduction of the Online Safety Bill, which indirectly addresses some aspects of online child sexual exploitation.
- Data Collection: Efforts to enhance the collection of data on child sexual abuse, though not fully aligned with the inquiry’s specific recommendations.
- Victim Support: There’s been some movement towards providing therapeutic support for victims, though not systematically as recommended.
- Training and Awareness: Steps towards mandatory training for professionals, but not comprehensive or uniform.
- Legal Reforms: Minor legislative tweaks rather than comprehensive changes like those suggested for limitation periods or compensation schemes.
Fifteen recommendations not acted on:
- Mandatory Reporting: Establishing a legal duty for those in regulated activities or positions of trust to report known or suspected child sexual abuse.
- Creation of Child Protection Authorities: Setting up independent Child Protection Authorities in England and Wales to monitor and enforce child protection practices across institutions.
- Minister for Children: Appointing a dedicated Minister for Children to ensure children’s issues are represented at the highest governmental level.
- Public Awareness Campaigns: Commissioning regular public awareness programs about child sexual abuse to challenge myths, inform about signs, and encourage reporting.
- Ban on Pain Compliance Techniques: Prohibiting the use of pain compliance techniques on children in custodial institutions.
- Amendments to the Children Act 1989: To provide better legal protections for children in care, allowing courts to intervene when children are at risk of significant harm.
- Registration of Care Staff: Requiring all staff in residential care to be registered, enhancing oversight and accountability.
- Registration of Staff in Young Offender Institutions and Secure Training Centres: Similar to care homes, to ensure better safeguarding practices.
- Extended Use of the Barred List: Enhancing the powers of the Disclosure and Barring Service to automatically bar individuals from working with children based on certain convictions or decisions.
- Review and Amend Disclosure Arrangements for Overseas Workers: Ensuring that those working with children overseas meet similar safeguarding standards as in the UK.
- Mandatory Age Verification for Online Platforms: Requiring stricter age verification for online services to protect children from inappropriate content.
- Pre-Screening of Online Content: Mandating that internet service providers actively screen for known child sexual abuse content.
- National Redress Scheme: Establishing a comprehensive national scheme for compensation for victims of child sexual abuse where institutions were at fault or negligent.
- Changes to Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) Rules: To ensure victims aren’t automatically excluded due to criminal convictions linked to their abuse or the outdated ‘same-roof rule’.
- Legislative Changes to Limitation Periods: Proposing reforms to limitation laws for child sexual abuse claims, allowing victims more time to pursue legal action due to the often delayed disclosure of abuse.
The last Conservative government issued a response to the IICSA recommendations in May 2023, where they acknowledged the need for action but criticised some recommendations for being too prescriptive or for not considering existing mechanisms. They announced plans for consultations on some issues, like mandatory reporting, rather than immediate legislative changes.
For their part, the new Labour Government has expressed a commitment to implementing the recommendations from the IICSA.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has stated intentions to work “at pace” to deliver these reforms, emphasising the importance of protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation.