Kemi Badenoch calls for 'long overdue' national inquiry into UK grooming scandal
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Kemi Badenoch has called for a national inquiry into the grooming scandal that took place across UK towns and cities, arguing one was "long overdue". The Tory leader said 2025 "must be the year that victims get justice" after it emerged that Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, had rejected calls from Oldham council for a public inquiry into child exploitation in the town.
In a post on X, the Tory leader wrote: "The time is long overdue for a full national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal. "Trials have taken place all over the country in recent years but no one in authority has joined the dots. 2025 must be the year that the victims start to get justice.".
Ms Badenoch was joined in her calls by shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns, who has written to Ms Phillips asking her to reverse the government's decision regarding Oldham. "We have asked for planned Conservative measures to be enacted, to reverse the Oldham refusal, and for a statutory inquiry into grooming and rape gangs," she wrote.
Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England - including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford - over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013. The following year a report by Prof Alexis Jay revealed the scale of exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013 - where around 1,400 girls were abused - and the failure of police and social services to intervene.
It was followed by the statutory Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), also chaired by Prof Jay, who found in her final report published in 2022 that children were still being sexually exploited by networks in all parts of England and Wales in the "most degrading and destructive ways".
