Grooming gangs scandal: government plans safeguarding law but no inquiry
The Standard · Rachelle Abbott
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Show Notes
The government has announced new safeguarding legal guidelines as part of a crackdown on child exploitation in the wake of the grooming gangs scandal.
Measures revealed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper include criminal sanctions for professionals working with children if they don’t report sexual abuse claims.
The recommendation is among those within Professor Alexis Jay’s 2015 child sexual abuse inquiry - she also told Radio 4’s Today programme “enough of inquiries” and that instead victims need action.
Authorities face allegations that they ignored horrific abuse of thousands of vulnerable, mostly white girls trafficked, groomed and raped by groups of men predominantly of Pakistani heritage - in towns including Rotherham, Oldham, Telford and Rochdale - amid fears of being labelled racist.
The government has refused to relent to calls for a public inquiry, despite calls from opposition the Conservatives and an online firestorm fomented on X by the platform’s boss Elon Musk.
We’re joined by The London Standard’s courts correspondent Tristan Kirk, who covered many of the scandal’s criminal trials and argues a new inquiry is not the answer to the urgent action needed.
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