Elon Musk's grooming gang comments slammed as 'reprehensible weaponisation' of victim's trauma
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Elon Musk's ill-informed comments about grooming gangs are a "reprehensible weaponisation" of the trauma suffered by victims, a survivors' group has said. Tech billionaire Musk has launched attacks on Keir Starmer and his government after Labour rejected a call for a new national inquiry into the scandal. The Prime Minister, who has said victims need action not more inquiries, hit out at "those who are spreading lies".
Musk has claimed Sir Keir had failed to bring "rape gangs" to justice when he led the Crown Prosecution Service. But the Prime Minister defended his record, which included bringing the first charges against an "Asian grooming gang" in Rochdale and prosecuting the highest number of child sexual abuse cases on record.
Responding to the X owner's comments, Gabrielle Shaw, the Chief Executive of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood, said on Friday: "If you've gone online, if you've seen people's responses to it, it is retraumatising the abuse that [they have] suffered. It's very, very sad.".
"The weaponisation of trauma is reprehensible," she added. Ms Shaw told journalists that an "incorrect narrative" has "real world effects", adding that the NAPAC helpline had received calls from victims who were "angry and distressed". She was speaking at a briefing by the National Police Chiefs' Council who revealed gangs are behind almost two child sexual abuse offences reported to police every day. The first analysis of its kind data from all 43 police forces in England and Wales reveals there were 717 child sexual exploitation "grooming" crimes recorded in 2023. There were 572 in the first nine months of 2024, the Hydrant Programme found.
