Hundreds of suspected child abusers have been arrested by the Grooming Gangs Taskforce in its first year, the Home Office has announced.
The specialist force, launched by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman in April 2023 after a GB News campaign, has also protected some 4,000 victims.
The Home Office said that the taskforce has trained hundreds of specialist officers to investigate child sexual exploitation (CSE), who have worked with all 42 police forces in England and Wales, generating some 550 arrests.
The creation of the specialist taskforce, supported by the National Crime Agency, was a campaigning victory for this broadcaster, which demanded it in the investigative documentary Grooming Gangs: Britain’s Shame.
The Home Office said that the taskforce has trained hundreds of specialist officers to investigate child sexual exploitation (CSE)
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Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “This despicable crime can have a lasting impact on a child’s life and I am pleased that in only a year, the Taskforce’s hard work alongside local policing efforts has led to more than 550 arrests and helped keep thousands more children safe.”
The grooming gangs crisis was brought to national awareness after a series of reports by The Times newspaper in Rotherham before in 2012, which led to an inquiry finding in 2014 that some 1,400 children had been abused by gangs from 1997 in the town.
Similar government reports in Rochdale and Telford have uncovered grooming gangs, which escaped prosecution for years due to nervousness about the ethnicities of the abusers and their victims.
When launching the taskforce last year, Suella Braverman said "justice is not racist," pointing to the overrepresentation of men of Pakistani descent in the gangs and how many had shied away from tackling the issue.
The fresh announcement on arrests comes after a report from the police watchdog warned last year that forces across the country had “widespread failings” in tackling child sexual exploitation.
In December, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) warned that 14 forces were found to be "requiring improvement" and four were deemed "inadequate."
At the time, National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for Child Protection Ian Critchley said that the specialist grooming gangs taskforce had “accelerated” police work.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
In December, it was supporting 40 investigations nationally, taking advice from the specialist Organised Child Sexual Abuse Unit within the Crown Prosecution Service
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I’ll never forget meeting the survivors of Grooming Gangs as Home Secretary.
— Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) May 21, 2024
The Taskforce that we set up last year brought together specialist police & @NCA_UK resource.
This is good progress with more to do.
Well done @CDP1882 for shining a light on this national scandal. https://t.co/PPbGPRPuWH
In December, it was supporting 40 investigations nationally, taking advice from the specialist Organised Child Sexual Abuse Unit within the Crown Prosecution Service. Critchley said “we are seeing more offenders being brought to justice for current and non-recent group-based offending.”
On the taskforce’s anniversary, he said that "significant strides" had been made to "enhance the policing response to CSE investigation as well as co-ordinate best practice and guidance to further protect victims and disrupt perpetrators."
He added: "Sadly, we know that CSE in many forms is still prevalent in our communities. The way we listen to, and support victims and survivors of these most abhorrent crimes is key to building on and maintaining the progress we have already made through the work of the CSE Taskforce and dedicated force teams."
In December, the HMICFRS report warned data collection was on CSE was “unreliable and intelligence gathering wasn’t prioritised.
“Most forces weren’t gathering data and intelligence on these crimes.”
The specialist task force, launched last April, is staffed by officers and “data analysts” who have long-term experience in tackling child abuse, the Home Office said.
It added that the development of a Complex and Organised Child Abuse Database had been “crucial” to the taskforce’s work."
The taskforce announcement comes a week after the Home Secretary announced a new legal requirement to report child abuse for anyone engaging in relevant activity with children in England, such as teachers and nurses
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The department said that the database provided "a more robust data picture of the scale, risk, prevalence and characteristic of group-based child sexual exploitation than ever before."
The taskforce announcement comes a week after the Home Secretary announced a new legal requirement to report child abuse for anyone engaging in relevant activity with children in England, such as teachers and nurses.
Solicitor at Hugh James Alan Collins told GB News: "The grooming gangs scandal which lives on is a scar on the national conscience. Efforts made by the government and police in addressing what is in many respects organised crimes should be applauded but this should not detract from the reality, which is child sexual exploitation.
"CSE is not going away and so neither is grooming. It is a subject we would like to pretend does not exist or it happens elsewhere.
"Too many vulnerable children are let down by the system that is there to protect them. What troubles me is the lack of accountability in the system, because until that changes it will be difficult to drive through the culture and attitude changes are needed.
Collins, a leading solicitor in the field of child abuse litigation, added: "It has been argued that there should be a mandatory reporting law that makes it compulsory for child abuse to be reported to the police. We know from the grooming gang cases had there been such a law some children may have escaped being abused.
"The government says it supports a mandatory reporting law but what it proposes in my opinion is no such thing at all . All it does is say that those who should report, should report and if they don’t, then they could be barred from working with children. That is not mandatory reporting."