The official inquiry into the activities of grooming gangs will be expanded to cover areas beyond the three that have just been announced, the chair of the inquiry has told GB News.
So far, local investigations have been announced for Oldham, Bradford, and London, but Baroness Anne Longfield has said that “there’ll be more to come”.
The news emerged during an exclusive interview with the chair and two panel members who have described how they intend to set about investigating a “catastrophic” failure of the State.
Baroness Longfield told GB News reporter Charlie Peters: “Well, it’s a big day for us. It’s really when the inquiry moves into its next phase with its hearings and its investigations. We’ve chosen those three areas.
“We’ve also announced what we’re calling national accountability hearings and they’re important in themselves because they’re about holding to account those national organisations who would have expected to have implemented the 800 recommendations that we’ve now found have been made from previous inquiries.
“The three areas, though – Oldham was already selected, that was something that there’d been a commitment to from the start, and from the Home Secretary. And then we looked with clear criteria, looking at prevalence, looking at crime reports, looking at data, and what it tells us, and also public concern, so there were two areas that we knew we would need to look at urgently.
“One, Bradford, we know there’s been very strong campaign around that, very strong information being put forward that for us was really important, not only for itself but also relation with other areas in the north, and…with London especially.
“Obviously, it’s a complex area in terms of, you know, the administration of the area, but we also know it’s got a really key role with satellite towns all around London, Oxfordshire, Luton, High Wycombe, et cetera, and also a role in terms of its relationship with grooming gangs around the country. So, there’s an awful lot for us to look at there. These are our first two [beyond Oldham]. There’ll be more to come.”
Panel member Eleanor Kelly said: “The issue of trafficking and movement of both perpetrators and victims and survivors is incredibly important, because it actually shows and demonstrates that this was no one single area, or even a group of areas.
“If you look at how people were moved around, if you listen to what victims and survivors say about how they were moved around, both London and Bradford are incredibly important for their importance in terms of effectively being hubs. If we understand those hubs and we understand those connections, and particularly in London, as Anne said, it’s such a complex area.
“You have two police forces, five health boards, and 32 boroughs, plus the City of London, very, very complex systems, but you also have an interconnection with very high levels of child sexual exploitation, and you have the county lines, gangs, drug gangs issues. So we have to do that. We have to work within that complexity, but it will all be learning for us, and we will be led by the evidence, and we will make those connections.”
Panel member Zoë Billingham added: “We’re going to get right to the truth. One of the things that’s really important to stress is our starting point is that there has been a catastrophic failing of the State. That’s our starting point.
“We know these crimes have happened. We know this abuse has taken place. We’ve heard directly from victims and survivors who have had to endure this and are still living with it, even 20 or 30 years after their abuse. So, our starting point is this has happened.
“Our inquiry is about providing accountability to those victims and survivors for why so many people knew this was happening in plain sight but didn’t act, looked the other way, failed to join the dots.”
