Home Office delays in ordering records to be conserved may have led to evidence relating to grooming gangs being destroyed, MPs have warned.
Civil servants took seven months to contact police forces and other departments to request the preservation of rape gang documents, freedom of information requests have revealed.
Home Affairs Committee chairwoman Dame Karen Bradley has now written to Shabana Mahmood to demand an explanation for her department's delays.
She said: “The failure to provide timely direction to local authorities, police forces and other relevant agencies about the need to retain relevant documents means that some records which may be relevant to the independent inquiry into grooming gangs might have been destroyed.”
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Numerous councils and public bodies across Britain allow themselves to scrap any documents after just six years, placing vital records at risk.
And the revelations come just days before the long-awaited national grooming gangs inquiry is set to launch.
In June 2025, Baroness Casey's national audit urged the Home Office to demand relevant authorities to keep all records relating to the scandal.
However, civil servants did not begin making the requests until mid-January.
Home Office delays may have led to evidence relating to grooming gangs being destroyed
| GETTYTory MP Robbie Moore first raised concerns about the delays after discovering that authorities in Bradford - where well-documented child sex abuse rings operated - had not been told to hold onto records.
The MP for Keighley and Ilkley said: “This is a staggering failure at the heart of Government which once again undermines trust ahead of the national grooming gangs inquiry.
“In June last year, it was made crystal clear that authorities should be instructed to preserve key records.”
Mr Moore added that Ms Mahmood's department had “serious questions to answer about what data may have been lost.… the potential legal ramifications of that, and whether the [department has] been fully transparent with Parliament”.
GROOMING GANGS - BRITAIN'S SHAME:
Dame Karen Bradley has written to Shabana Mahmood to demand an explanation
| PA“Trust in this inquiry depends on historic evidence being protected and the Home Office acting with speed and clarity," he said.
"Yet once again, they have acted in a way that undermines public confidence in this process and, most importantly, undermines justice for victims across the country.”
The Government's grooming gang inquiry will have full statutory powers, which could see witnesses compelled to give evidence relating to the scandal.
It has a budget of around £65million and is due to report back in March 2029.
Robbie Moore MP labelled it a 'staggering failure at the heart of Government'
| HOUSE OF COMMONSThe draft terms of reference has said the inquiry must investigate “how ethnicity, religion or culture played a role in responses at a local and national level".
A Home Office spokesman said: “We have established the independent inquiry into grooming gangs to get the answers that victims and survivors of these horrendous crimes deserve.
“Since [Casey’s] national audit, we have worked across government to ensure records relevant to the draft terms of reference are appropriately retained by public sector organisations.
“The inquiry has the power to order the production of documents and failure to comply with such an order without reasonable excuse is an offence punishable by imprisonment.”
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