Grooming gangs whistleblower Maggie Oliver accuses party leaders of 'playing politics' with scandal: 'Abhorrent!'

Reacting to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch's newly announced plans for an inquiry, the prolific grooming gangs campaigner and former Detective Constable with the Greater Manchester Police told GB News: "It's very much like we're going round and round in circles with this.

"And I listened to Kemi Badenoch today, they are playing politics with this topic, and caught in the middle of it are victims and survivors who have been desperately fighting for the truth to come out for decades."

Highlighting the most "abhorrent" element of the Government's handling of the scandal, Ms Oliver stated: "What I find abhorrent in a way is that we've got Kemi Badenoch now - the Conservatives were in power from 2010 to 2024.

"And when the last national inquiry was reported over three years ago now and made 20 recommendations, they failed to put them into practise. We've got this ping pong ball between them all trying to score points."

She added: "I'd like to say though that I don't engage in the noise. The victims and the survivors have got their voices.

"And Fiona, Elizabeth, Ellie-Ann and Jess, they have used their voices very well, and they've had horrendous abuse."

Revealing a key update in Ms Oliver's fight for the Labour Government to hold a full national inquiry, the campaigner told GB News: "From the perspective of me and my charity, we've just heard today that we are being given leave to appear in the High Court in London on February 3, 2026, because we've taken the this existing Government to a judicial review to try to force them to implement the 20 recommendations that the other original national abuse inquiry ordered.

"That was seven years and £200,000,000, and what I would say is if the Conservatives had implemented those recommendations three years ago, we now wouldn't have this national scandal. So they're all playing games with this. But we and I am not going away until we know the ethnicity."

Criticising the lack of data on the ethnicity of the grooming gang perpetrators, Ms Oliver made clear: "What I want is that we record the data from now on, with every rape, every element of child abuse that goes on by these gangs. Without the data, without the facts, we are constantly going around this same hamster wheel.

"And the the question has to be why on earth do we not just get a grip? The whole country knows that these gangs are predominantly Pakistani Muslim men. Now, I have never said that all abuse in this country is by these gangs, most abuse is in the home.

"But I have never seen any other kind of child abuse tiptoed around where perpetrators are cherry picked. There are political manoeuvrings going on here to cover up what has been going on for decades and the public are sick and tired of it."

Recalling her letter to the Government more than a decade ago urging them to publish ethnicity data, she revealed: "In 2013, I sent a report to the Government, to the Home Office, calling for ethnicity to be recorded. That's 12 years ago, and we are still having these same conversations which are pointless.

"Let's get a grip, Get the facts, deal with it, understand it and protect the future generations of children."

Accusing the Labour Government of attempting to "water down" the current pending inquiry, Ms Oliver fumed: "I have the greatest admiration for Fiona, Ellie-Ann and Elizabeth for sticking their necks on the block, because of what I believe was happening with this new inquiry.

"I have great respect for Louise Casey and I hope that she gets centrally involved in rewriting what is going to come, but what I believe the Labour Government were trying to do was to play off one set of survivors against another, water down this inquiry so that we include all kinds of abuse, and that is not what this is meant to be."

She concluded: "We are looking at grooming gangs. It is the only kind of abuse that I've ever seen that has been covered up by the state. We had cover ups in the Catholic Church, in the Church of England, but the church themselves covered that up in relation to these grooming gangs.

"It's not just been the community from which they come that's covered it up, it's been the police, social services, councils, politicians. This is the only area of abuse that I have seen this happen and it has to stop.

"So let's stop playing games, let's get a grip and do it properly."

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