City Hall Tories demand Sadiq Khan set up grooming gang inquiry
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In a letter to the mayor from his former election rival Lord Bailey, the London Assembly member claimed there is “a strong possibility” that grooming gangs have operated in the capital, and that a City Hall-led inquiry would have “significant resources available to draw conclusions from across all thirty-two of London’s boroughs”.
Sir Sadiq’s office said in response that “supporting victims of rape and sexual assault remains a top priority for the mayor and Met Police” and ministers are already taking action following the “woeful failure of the last Government to implement the recommendations of Alexis Jay’s national inquiry into child sexual abuse”.
Lord Bailey wrote to the mayor: “Given that there are more than fifty areas that have been identified as locations in which the systemic rape of young children by grooming gangs took place, there is a strong possibility that this criminality also occurred in London.
“The most recent independent inquiry into child sexual abuse – the Jay report – only examined six towns. None were in London. Similarly, no local inquiries have taken place across any part of London, leaving a significant number of unanswered questions around the scale of this scandal in the capital.”.
The assembly member’s reference to “more than fifty areas” appears to be in relation to a GB News article, in which one of the broadcaster’s journalists said they had identified more than 50 towns and cities which had “endured abuse gangs”. GB News reporter Charlie Peters is said by his employer to have drawn up the list after “sifting through court records, local media reports, and gathering first-hand accounts from several victims”.
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