Grooming gangs inquiry 'should look into Bradford', Jess Phillips says
Baroness Anne Longfield is leading the national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Jess Phillips has said she would like Bradford to be included in the grooming gangs inquiry, but that her opinion is “academic” as the probe is independent of government.
The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls made the comments as she was giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee of MPs yesterday.
Ms Phillips was pushed by Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore on the areas that will be included in the £65m statutory inquiry.
It is being led by Baroness Anne Longfield, with the locations of focus for the investigation due to be set out by the summer.
Mr Moore has long been campaigning for Bradford to be included in any inquiry into grooming gangs, with child sexual abuse solicitors Switalskis saying that victims from different parts of the country “report being trafficked” to the West Yorkshire city.
Since 2016, police investigations in the region have resulted in over 200 offenders sentenced to more than 2,200 years.
Baroness Louise Casey, who led a damning review which sparked Sir Keir Starmer launching the inquiry, mentioned Bradford as a place which should open itself up to scrutiny.
Mr Moore said: “I am curious as to why Bradford has not been announced so far?”
He referenced Bradford’s inclusion within the previous Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Baroness Casey’s comments of the city being a “key area of concern” and the police operation tackling child sexual exploition in the area, Operation Dalesway.
He asked: “Why the Government to date, 18 months after announcing Oldham, doesn’t feel confident enough to announce that the Bradford district should be included?”
Ms Phillips told MPs: “It is an independent inquiry. The reason for the Oldham decision was because the Home Office was quite a long way down the journey of commissioning an independent inquiry into Oldham.”
Ms Phillips said it would have been “cruel” to then remove Oldham after the work had started.
“It is now for the inquiry to decide and publish the criteria used to select the local areas of investigation.
“I personally, and I can’t say this enough, think they should look into Bradford, I think they should look into Birmingham, but what I think is completely and utterly academic. It is an independent inquiry.”
Baroness Longfield, who is based in Ilkley and has spent much of her career investigating childhood inequalities, will be aware of the high number of cases in Bradford and Keighley.
She was previously brought in to help the children’s services at the local authority over a different matter.
A raft of politicians have followed Mr Moore’s calls for Bradford to be included as part of the inquiry, including West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin and Shipley MP Anna Dixon.
Grooming gangs victim Fiona Goddard, who has bravely waived her right to anonymity, has also urged Baroness Longfield to make the city a central part of the statutory probe.
She was 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.
“Every single victim I’ve met up and down the UK have all been trafficked to Bradford, or have had men from Bradford come,” she said.
“Bradford is at the centre of nearly every single case.”