Home Secretary announces local reviews into grooming gangs
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A series of local reviews into grooming gangs has been announced by the Government a day after the Home Secretary was threatened with legal action over the issue. Yvette Cooper also said she had ordered a three-month rapid review of the “current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country”.
Her statement to Parliament on Thursday came a day after a former police detective warned she would take Ms Cooper to court unless she took “urgent steps to allay widespread public concern” over gangs sexually exploiting children. Maggie Oliver, an ex-detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012, said she had put Ms Cooper “on notice” about possible legal action if she did not support “my request for urgent, tangible and transparent action to combat the epidemic of abuse of children”.
Ms Cooper told the Commons: “As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide.”. Political debate over the grooming scandal has continued to rage in the wake of a slew of attacks online from tech billionaire X owner Elon Musk aimed at Sir Keir Starmer.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has repeatedly clashed with the Prime Minister over calls for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, insisted: “I don’t think that local inquiries are enough”. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is among Labour figures who had supported a move for a national inquiry, as well as Liverpool Walton MP Dan Carden and Rotherham MP Sarah Champion.
