Government to make grooming gang inquiries decision after delayed Casey audit
The Government is waiting for Baroness Louise Casey to complete her “audit” into child sexual exploitation (CSE) before deciding whether to hold an inquiry into grooming gangs in Bradford.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Home Affairs Committee yesterday that the peer had asked for additional time to complete her investigation into “the scale and patterns of CSE and different gang abuse right across the country”.
In January, the Government announced the rapid audit of grooming gangs by Baroness Casey, as well as five local inquiries.
One of the locations was announced as Oldham, however the others have yet to be revealed.
Ms Cooper told MPs yesterday that after Baroness Casey has reported back, the Home Office will set out the next steps “both about how we would then expect local inquiries to be taken forward and also the funding support we will give”.
The Home Secretary was pressed by Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore, who has repeatedly called for a local inquiry into the Bradford district.
So far, the council has pushed back on this - saying that it is “unlikely to provide us with any new learning that would better protect children from being abused”.
Mr Moore and David Greenwood, of Switalskis Solicitors, recently presented a dossier to Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips, which shows the child sexual exploitation crisis across the Bradford district could dwarf the Rotherham scandal.
Ms Cooper thanked Mr Moore for “the information and evidence that you have provided”, before adding that “this is a truly vile crime … that has disturbing life-long consequences".
She said: “We are waiting for Baroness Casey’s report back, I do recognise and the Safeguarding Minister has recognised the particular case around Bradford.
“We are clear that local inquiries can play a very important role in this process.”
Last month, three members of a grooming gang from Keighley - Ibrar Hussain, 47, Imtiaz Ahmed, 62, and Fayaz Ahmed, 45 - all had their sentences increased for sexual abuse crimes from the 1990s.
Since 2016, police investigations in West Yorkshire have resulted in over 200 offenders sentenced to over 2,200 years, and there are currently 50 historic child sexual exploitation investigations ongoing.
While more than 70 defendants are currently charged and standing trial or listed to stand trial at Bradford and Leeds Crown Courts in 2025 and 2026.
Phillipa Hubbard, of the Bradford District Safeguarding Children Partnership, previously ruled out an inquiry.
“Like many local authorities up and down the country, we know that agencies in our district have made mistakes in the past,” she explained, referencing a review carried out in the area in 2021.
“But the view of our partnership remains that a public inquiry would cost a huge amount of money, use precious officer time, and is unlikely to provide us with any new learning that would better protect children from being abused,” she added.
The Home Secretary added that the “most important thing is to get perpetrators behind bars and to make sure they face justice for these horrendous crimes”.
She revealed that the national CSE taskforce was reviewing 287 historic cases.