Grooming gangs inquiry in crisis as victims and potential chair pull out
The government’s national inquiry into grooming gangs appears to have descended into crisis, with multiple victims and a potential chair pulling out of the process.
Three survivors - including two from Yorkshire - have quit the probe’s victims and survivors liaison panel, levelling heavy criticism at the Home Office’s handling of the issue.
While Annie Hudson, a social worker who previously led the Government’s Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, withdrew from becoming the inquiry’s chairwoman.
Yesterday, victims were supposed to meet the candidates to lead the national inquiry, announced by Sir Keir Starmer in May after a damning report from Baroness Louise Casey.
The peer, who previously investigated child sexual abuse in Rotherham, recommended a statutory inquiry to “hold institutions to account for past failures”.
However, Fiona Goddard, a grooming gang survivor from Bradford who has bravely waived her anonymity, said victims felt “shut out” of the process.
In her resignation letter, shared with The Yorkshire Post, Ms Goddard said it had involved “secretive conduct” with instances of “condescending and controlling language” used towards survivors.
She also cited a “toxic, fearful environment” and a “high risk of people feeling silenced all over again”.
A fellow survivor from Rotherham told GB News yesterday that she was leaving the panel because she feared there was a lack of "genuine understanding of the grooming gangs scandal".
She claimed there was a "sense of control and stage-management" that had left many of her fellow victims "questioning whether our voices truly matter".
Ms Goddard also raised questions about the candidates to become the inquiry’s chairman, including former police officer Jim Gamble, ahead of Ms Hudson’s withdrawal.
She said these are the “very two services that contributed most to the cover up of the national mass rape and trafficking of children”.
“This is a disturbing conflict of interest, and I fear the lack of trust in services from years of failings and corruption will have a negative impact in survivor engagement with this inquiry,” she added.
Ms Goddard, who has bravely waived her right to anonymity, said she still suffers ongoing trauma after being groomed and sexually abused by gangs of men while living in a care home in the city from 2008. In 2019, nine people were found guilty of offences including rape and child prostitution.
The same whistleblower - John Piekos, a former Detective Chief Inspector in Greater Manchester Police - also alleged that a senior West Yorkshire Police (WYP) officer told him that he risked inflaming community tensions by continuing to raise child sexual exploitation.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast yesterday, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick suggested the inquiry should be chaired by a senior judge with experience of family and criminal law, possibly from another country, rather than anyone with connections to the police or social services.
However, Home Office minister Jess Phillips told the House Commons that Baroness Casey “did not want a traditional judicial-led inquiry”.
Responding to questions from MPs yesterday, Ms Phillips said: “She was explicit, and if anyone in this House can find me an institution that didn’t fail these girls over the years, including our courts who took the children away from grooming gang victims, who criminalised some of them. There is no institution in our country that hasn’t failed.
“We will continue today, I will meet with many of the victims and get their feedback, and I will continue to progress with that in mind.
“I will engage with all the victims, regardless of their opinions, and I will listen to those that have been put in the media, that are put in panels, I will always listen and I will speak to all of them.”