Grooming gangs inquiry must be 'de-politicised' and independent, says leading lawyer
The national grooming gangs inquiry should be “de-politicised” and placed in the hands of an independent commissioning body, according to the solicitor who set up the Telford inquiry into child sexual abuse.
Henry Bermingham, a partner at the law firm Weightmans, which has an office in Leeds, said that any inquiry into the grooming gang scandal that doesn’t have the support of survivors would not be regarded as legitimate. He said the problem with the current inquiry is that it has become politicised.
He added: “ If we get the CSE (child sexual exploitation) inquiry right, we can stamp out this terrible crime and that makes the inquiry worth every penny spent on it. CSE is possibly the most horrific form of mass child abuse we see. Eliminating it is well worth the investment.”
But he warned that the inquiry “has won the trust of some survivors but not others and so you've got a situation where bits and pieces of information are leaking out; this creates a situation that undermines trust”.
The inquiry has been thrown into disarray after the loss of the two candidates to chair the probe, as well as the departure of five women from the victims liaison panel.
Mr Bermingham said that “due to the politicisation of this issue”, the Government is part of the story.
"You don't really want the inquiry to be set by somebody who is part of that story...what I thought was probably the best way to approach this is to appoint a commissioning body..a large capable and independent external organisation.
"Something like the NSPCC, something like a large law firm not connected to any of the areas that the inquiry would be looking at. The aim of the exercise would be for the Government to say to this large and capable organisation, 'You're independent, set this up'.
"They can then meet with the survivors, set this up and set up the inquiry the survivors want, which is independent of the Government. In relinquishing control of the inquiry and putting it into an independent organisation, you arrive at a situation where you can re-build trust, and it takes the politics out of it.
"What it needs is a calm and focused, non-political, dispassionate inquiry, delivered in a way that is unconnected with political considerations. The issue is that a group of the survivors are not happy with the direction the inquiry is going in. The reported reasoning is the broadening of the inquiry.
"Survivors will engage with an inquiry if they feel it is sympathetic and independent and will listen to them. These survivors have been let down by lots of state agencies. Obtaining and maintaining their trust is difficult. The appointment of chair is particularly important.”
Mr Bermingham said judges are among the best suited to be able to absorb vast amounts of information and reach independent conclusions.
He added: “If it can't be a judge, the next best thing is a senior KC. If you make the inquiry too broad it can be less effective, especially with CSE because one of the things that is most surprising is the number of victims per grooming ring.
"They are often in the hundreds. Of those victims a lot of them are known to state agencies. So there's a lot of state paperwork available related to them; there will be records held by the police, health services or social services.
"So if you're investigating with a laser focus on CSE, you are undertaking an investigation which is going to produce lots of paperwork; it's a big exercise.
"If you then broaden your inquiry to be about exploitation by all sorts of different types of networks, you're going to have a focus on even more paperwork. That will dilute things.”
Mr Bermingham was the solicitor who set up the Telford inquiry into child sexual abuse. This inquiry, which was chaired by Tom Crowther KC, found that evidence of child sex crimes in Telford was ignored for generations leading to more than 1,000 girls being abused. The report, published in 2022, made 47 recommendations for improvement by the agencies involved.
Mr Bermingham added: "If you're dealing with a CSE ring involving a young person known to social services, they could have anything up to 15,000 pages of records with the local authority alone. You can then times that by 100 to cover all the survivors in the ring.
"Having an understanding of just how enormous this undertaking would be, even with a laser focus just on this issue, is not something I've come across in any part of the debate yet.
"Enormous logistics, I'm afraid, does mean enormous cost."
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The grooming gang scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country’s history.
“That is why this Government is committed to a full, statutory, national inquiry to uncover the truth. It is the very least that the victims and survivors of these hideous crimes deserve.
“The Home Secretary has been clear: there will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society.”
A spokesman said the Government continued to actively engage with victims and survivors, “whose insights are vital to shaping the national inquiry”. Their feedback is being carefully considered to ensure our approach remains transparent, compassionate, and grounded in integrity throughout the inquiry’s development, the spokesman said.
The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP said: “This inquiry is not, and will never be, watered down on my watch. Its scope will not change, and nor will its intent. It will be robust and rigorous. It will direct and oversee local investigations, with the power to compel witnesses and summon evidence.’
‘Secondly, this inquiry will focus on grooming gangs – and that will not change.’
‘Thirdly, it will explicitly examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders.’
We are committed to ensuring that the voices of victims and survivors can be meaningfully heard to inform policy making, including in our work to establish the national inquiry, the Government said.