Bradford grooming gang survivor fears abusers may be released early

Shadow Housing Secretary Sir James Cleverly was quizzing Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, as Sir Keir Starmer is in Turkey for the Nato summit.

Sir James asked if Mr Lammy, who is also the Justice Secretary, would “apologise to the victims of the rapists, sexual predators and paedophiles that he is planning to release early?”

It comes after an opposition day debate on the issue on Tuesday, which saw 11 Labour MPs - including Leeds East’s Richard Burgon, Bradford East’s Imran Hussain and Normanton and Hemsworth’s Jon Trickett - vote with the Tories to call for rapists and child sex offenders to be excluded from being awarded automatic early release.

Despite being passed by the House of Commons, the Tory motion is not binding.

Sir James then raised the case of Fiona Goddard, who bravely waived her anonymity to speak publicly about the ongoing trauma of being groomed and sexually abused by gangs of men while living in a care home in Bradford from 2008.

In 2019, nine people were found guilty of offences including rape and child prostitution. Ms Goddard, 32, said this was “enabled” by social services and the police.

Ms Goddard and her solicitors Switalskis have said that they have been informed by the Probation Service that some of her abusers could be eligible for early release.

Sir James told Mr Lammy and the Commons: “Let me remind him what this is about. Let me quote Fiona Goddard, a victim of grooming gangs who has been brave and open about how his policy will impact her.

“‘Finding out that they may be released early has completely set me back. I have barely left the house. I feel constantly anxious, frightened and unsafe. I can barely sleep.’

“That is the impact his policy is having on victims. He refuses to apologise, but why is he pursuing a policy that he must know is both wrong and dangerous?”

Mr Lammy offered no guarantees that serious offenders will not be among the 6,000 criminals to be released from prison early in September.

He replied: “He has not proposed what they would do if they were in office.”

The Deputy Prime Minister added: “We’ve invested £700 million in probation. We are rolling out the largest programme of tagging in our history. We are forcing offenders to stay boxed in certain areas rather than where victims are…

“We are implementing income reduction orders, and we are expanding chemical castration for sex offenders. None of it happened when they were in power.”

It comes a day after Ms Goddard was one of five grooming gang victims from Yorkshire who wrote to MPs asking them to exclude sexual offenders from early release.

They, alongside the mother of a late victim from Rochdale, wrote ahead of Tuesday’s opposition day debate.

The letter said: “We should not be left feeling that our suffering counted only long enough to secure a conviction and then stopped mattering.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This government is fixing the prison crisis it inherited – building 14,000 more prison places and reforming sentencing so we can always lock up dangerous criminals. Without this decisive action, prisons will run out of space entirely as early as November and we will be unable to lock up serious offenders at all.

“Public safety and supporting victims is our top priority. Offenders who a judge has deemed the most dangerous are automatically blocked from early release, and prisoners who behave badly while behind bars face being locked up for longer.

“Anyone who is released faces tough rules such as restrictions on their movements, tagging, being banned from attending public events, pubs and clubs, backed by our record £700m investment into probation and 1,300 extra probation officers.”