'Absolutely diabolical!' Susan Hall launches fiery tirade on Sadiq Khan's dismissal of London grooming gangs

An investigation conducted by The Daily Express and MyLondon revealed young girls had been raped in the capital's hotels by groups of men.

The Mayor of London was accused of ignoring concerns about grooming gangs operating in the capital following a spat with City Hall Conservative Susan Hall earlier this year.

In a fiery exchange, Ms Hall asked: "Grooming gangs, that I would call rape gangs. Tell me about them. How many of those have we got? Not county lines. Those particular groups."

Sir Sadiq told the London Assembly: "We know in London there are issues about exploitation of young people, but they are not as defined by the member in her definition of what those types of gangs are."

Reacting to the latest revelation into London's grooming gangs, the top Tory told GB News: "I think it's all too serious to even think of a cover up, I think it is absolutely diabolical.

"My job is to scrutinise him and ask him questions of the Mayor, the least you can get is a proper answer, and we never get a proper answer from him."

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Criticising his dismissal further, Ms Hall stated: "He could easily have said, 'we are concerned about this because there was a national issue at the time and it was being brought up, and we're looking into this'.

"The fact is that I've spoken to so many survivors, and this has been going on for a very long time, and he clearly knows it is. You've only got to look at some of the history here, so to pretend he didn't know what I was talking about was absolutely disgraceful."

Accusing Sir Sadiq of "scoring political points" with his response in the London Assembly, she explained: "I've had girls get in contact with me to tell me what's happened to them, and it's all pretty much the same in different circumstances. The groups are not always Pakistani men. I know in my questioning of him, he wanted me to say Pakistani men because he would then scream racist at me.

"I didn't because I don't believe that they are and they certainly aren't, the evidence I have is of various different people. But he just wanted to score political points, and this is just too serious for that.

"He could have come out with something that was far more sympathetic to any of the rape victims that heard it, and they could have said they'd look into it."

Praising the work of Maggie Oliver, who also took aim at the London Mayor on GB News, Ms Hall said: "What a wonderful woman Maggie Oliver is, we should all recognise that as well as Charlie Peters for doing so much to bring it out.

"I don't know whether you'd call it a cover up, but in effect, nobody wants to talk about it. In the meantime, these kids need to be looked after, and for everybody to shove it under the carpet is absolutely not good enough. This is way above politics.

"He should have answered my questions properly because he knows full well that is my job to scrutinize him and he won't answer questions properly."

A spokesman for Sir Sadiq said: "The Mayor has always been clear that the safety of Londoners is his top priority and nowhere is this truer than in safeguarding children.

"Sadiq is committed to doing all he can to protect children in London from organised criminal and sexual exploitation and bring perpetrators to justice.

"This includes his £15.6million Violence and Exploitation Support Service, which provides specialist support to young Londoners who are vulnerable, caught up in or being exploited by criminal gangs in the capital as well as supporting the Met to deliver a new child-first approach to safeguarding and enforcement action to tackle county lines.

"We remain vigilant to emerging and changing threats and will continue to do everything we can to protect children in the capital from abuse, violence and exploitation in all its forms."