How the grooming gang inquiry fell into chaos, and how to get it back on track - Charlie Peters

Her stark assessment has found some grounds for positivity, but many of the findings are disturbing.

It has been revealed that both the Home Office and the Department for Education have yet to fully adopt the official definition of grooming gangs and ‘group-based child sexual exploitation’ as an “organised network” in key guidance.

Elsewhere, Skeer’s team from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service said that more than half of police forces are still failing to include data from partners such as charities or social services in their assessments.

The watchdog also uncovered investigative delays, but praised forces for their increasingly swift and decisive reactions to reports of children at risk of exploitation.

Her findings on data problems come after Baroness Louise Casey’s audit in June found that the suspect’s ethnicity in two-thirds of grooming gang cases had not been recorded properly.

But it is Skeer’s findings about the definition that concern me most. “For victims, this lack of a common definition means the protection they receive can be a postcode lottery.”

Her assessment contained this critical warning. “Without an accurate picture of the threat, genuine cross-agency collaboration, and a grip on the unacceptable investigative delays mentioned in the report, we risk failing children in the most profound way.”

The publication of her findings could not come at a more prescient time. Because a failure to accurately define and prosecute the grooming gangs scandal is creating havoc in Westminster, and in the lives of thousands of victims across the country who have put their trust - once again - in politicians making promises to deliver them justice.

The Government is tangled in a red-hot political row over its national inquiry into grooming gangs. Launching it was the second of Casey’s 12 recommendations in June, but it is the demand that has attracted the most problems for the government.

After all, the Prime Minister accused those calling for a national inquiry of ‘jumping on a bandwagon’ and ‘amplifying’ the demands of the far right back in January when Elon Musk shared our reporting that reignited conversations about the scandal.

Rowing back on that smear and committing to this inquiry has been a costly political U-turn for Starmer.

In the four months since it was announced, concerns have swirled from my contacts in policing, the law, and victims and survivors and their families, that the inquiry was at risk.

Their fears were varied. They were worried about the probe being in a “legal mess”, as solicitor David Greenwood pointed out, arguing that the Government was going to struggle to gather evidence effectively because it had yet to launch targeted local inquiries before forming the statutory investigation.

Serving and former coppers told me that evidence risked growing staler with time and that an unacceptably long delay to the process could see critical investigations lost to time. Not to mention that the probe could be pushed into returning after the next election, which would be politically unacceptable.

But most importantly of all, victims and survivors on a panel engaging with the Government started telling me about concerns they had with the scope of the inquiry.

Several members of the panel spoke to me anonymously about this as early as September, following initial discussions. We reported on this sensitively and carefully, not referring to their membership of the panel.

But we also reported on it with evidence: the victims had been sent an email by the panel, organised by charity NWG, which asked if they wanted an explicit focus on grooming gangs or a wider investigation into CSE more generally.

Victims were fuming. After the seven-year IICSA review, which was blighted by a “cowardly reluctance” to prosecute grooming gangs, the last thing that abuse network victims wanted now was another broad-scope inquiry that didn’t have a laser focus on the form of abuse they had suffered.

The country has never faced up to this crisis, even after decades of dogged reporting, including this channel’s efforts to demonstrate the over 50 different towns and cities affected by the scandal and countless examples of cover-ups and silencing of the scandal.

But when we cautiously reported these legitimate concerns from survivors about a widening scope, minister Jess Phillips said they were “untrue” and “misinformation” in the Commons. Our contacts were appalled: they felt like she was calling them a liar.

Cue survivors quitting the panel, with Fiona Goddard outlining her anger and dismay at what she heard Phillips say in parliament, followed by Ellie-Ann Reynolds, Elizabeth Harper, and another survivor called “Jessica”. They all called for Jess Phillips to resign.

We’ve since had a letter of support for the Safeguarding Minister published in the Guardian, with one of the signatories also calling for the scope to be widened and saying that she is not a victim of grooming gangs.

There is now a letter from law firm Switalskis querying why the panel includes survivors of various forms of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), whereas it was “explicitly recommended by Louise Casey that the panel should focus solely on grooming gang survivors".

The solicitors continued: “This deviation has diluted the focus and purpose of the inquiry. Including all forms of CSE and CSA in this inquiry risks overshadowing the unique and horrific nature of organised grooming gang crimes. This would be a grave disservice to the hundreds of survivors and contrary to Louise Casey’s recommendations.

“The inclusion of a broad range of survivors has already created a divide, undermining the unity and trust necessary for a successful inquiry. This division stems from the inquiry’s misdirection from its inception.”

It should never have come to this. The inquiry was explicitly meant to focus on grooming gangs. Baroness Casey even put the term in the title of her audit so no one could fail to understand what she was referring to. The Government inquiry's title is even more explicit: "The Independent Commission on Grooming Gangs".

With those findings from the police watchdog, this crisis is all starting to make sense. It’s no wonder that the Home Office is struggling to launch an inquiry into grooming gangs: they can’t even define them.

This is surely why many survivors with non-grooming gang backgrounds are contributing, and why victims are being asked about that expanding scope.

It is a mess and it is surely the failure of ministerial management that this has happened.

There are now some critical questions for the state to answer: How was the panel formed? Why were the survivors asked about the expanding scope? Why was such a broad investigation being pushed?

If there are more nefarious reasons beyond a muck-up in leadership and direction, then these truths will need to come out. Victims and survivors deserve transparency and the truth. It's been lacking so far.