The Inquiry Must Go Further
The draft Terms of Reference for the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs are not strong enough. We have nine demands to ensure this inquiry has the power to uncover the truth and deliver real justice for survivors.
A Scandal Spanning Decades
For decades, thousands of young girls across towns and cities in the United Kingdom have been groomed, raped and trafficked by organised gangs. In case after case — Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford, Huddersfield and beyond — the same horrifying pattern has emerged: vulnerable children were targeted, exploited and then abandoned by the very institutions that were supposed to protect them.
There is now overwhelming evidence that police forces, local councils and social services knew what was happening and chose to look the other way. Whistleblowers were silenced. Victims were blamed. Concerns about community relations were put ahead of the safety of children.
The current Terms of Reference do not go far enough. Now is the time to ensure this inquiry has the scope and the teeth to uncover all of the rot that allowed this to happen for so long.
Our Demands
1 The Inquiry must examine whether the ethnic and religious background of perpetrators and victims was a causal factor in the abuse, and whether race and so-called community relations played a role in the deliberate cover-up by those in authority.
Court transcripts show perpetrators specifically targeting victims because of their ethnicity or religion. Evidence from multiple inquiries confirms that those in positions of authority — including the police and local councils — negligently ignored and deliberately covered up abuse because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani origin. The Baroness Casey audit on group-based CSE also found links with the taxi trade. The Inquiry must fully investigate the employment of offenders and the role that institutional cowardice played in allowing the abuse to continue.
2 Where the Inquiry finds evidence of negligence or deliberate cover-ups that may meet the criminal threshold, the matter must be passed to the police for investigation. The Inquiry must also proactively seek out evidence of institutional suppression.
The current terms of reference refer only to holding public bodies and individuals to account and making referrals to professional bodies. This is not strong enough. Those responsible for the cover-up must be held criminally accountable for the common law offence of Misconduct in Public Office or other relevant offences. The terms of reference also wrongly assume we already know the full extent of this scandal. The Inquiry must seek and consider any evidence that individuals within state institutions were aware of abuse but chose to ignore or suppress it.
3 All areas where there is evidence of material abuse must be investigated, including London. No local council must be able to veto a local inquiry.
The terms of reference do not set out which local areas the Inquiry will consider, or on what basis. BBC reporting has revealed that vulnerable women and girls as young as 14 are being raped by grooming gangs in London. The Chair must mandate a local inquiry anywhere there is evidence of material abuse, and those involved in local inquiries must be totally independent of the bodies being investigated.
4 The Chair must forward any evidence of possible criminality encountered during the Inquiry to the Police or National Crime Agency.
The Terms of Reference should make this an explicit and standing obligation throughout the life of the Inquiry, not something left to discretion.
5 The Inquiry must examine why the judiciary used inappropriate mitigating factors to give grooming gang perpetrators shorter sentences.
Court transcripts released by Open Justice UK show that judges used factors such as the importance of perpetrators within their communities and families as mitigation. Survivors deserve answers about why the justice system treated their abusers with leniency.
6 The Inquiry must investigate organised crime and trafficking overseas, including to countries like Pakistan and Albania.
There is no reference in the current terms to examining organised crime or international trafficking. Many grooming operations were embedded within wider criminal enterprises, some operating over several decades and across borders.
7 Survivors, their families and advocates must be closely engaged by the Inquiry. There must be clear, published processes and safeguarding for those who come forward.
Many survivors do not have any trust in the system that failed them for decades. The Inquiry must make clear what the process will be for those who decide to come forward, and there must be robust safeguarding in place. This should be clearly defined in the terms of reference — not left vague.
8 There must be regular progress reports to Parliament and the public throughout the Inquiry.
Transparency is essential to maintaining trust from survivors and the public. Without periodic reporting, there is a real risk that this Inquiry — like so many before it — will disappear behind closed doors. Parliament and the public have a right to know what progress is being made.
9 The Inquiry must have the power to examine cases predating the year 2000, including large-scale networks like the Hussain network in Rotherham.
The current terms of reference limit the scope to issues arising from 1 January 2000. However, high-profile cases such as the Hussain network in Rotherham involved trafficking, weapons, drugs and cross-regional criminal activity dating from the 1980s through the 2000s. The Inquiry must be able to examine cases of this scale and duration in full.