Poison runs through every aspect of the grooming gang horror. Every element stirs up a particular political bile, from those pathetically vulnerable girls and their vile exploiters, to those well-chosen cases weaponised by the Tories and Faragists with no record of concern for the general plight of children in care.
It’s odd that the Tories should wade in so strenuously when they were in power for the vast majority of this sorry saga, provoking a stream of inquiries, which they mostly ignored. Labour thought the seven years and£187mof Alexis Jay’s second inquiry quite enough. So did she, echoing Keir Starmer’s preference for “action not words”, and for avoiding yet more of the analysis paralysis of the Grenfell years, the infected blood scandal and ongoing Covid inquiries, which satisfy few.
A series of five local investigations was planned, starting in Oldham. Starmer sent Louise Casey to do an audit, and she has returned suggesting a novel format, with a national umbrella body to oversee local inquiries with statutory teeth to compel witnesses to come forward. “Gotcha! U-turn!” shout Reform, the Tories and their favourable front pages, fighting in the political playground regardless of the substance. U-turns, second thoughts, listening to critics and responding to new facts are usually a good thing in governments: we could do with a few more.
As for U-turns, let’s not forget Boris Johnson, who called spending money on investigating child sex abuse “spaffing money up the wall”. The Tories later made him prime minister.
Casey was given a free hand to “uncover the nature, scale and profile” of group child sexual exploitation, to root out evidence on offenders and their ethnicity. No surprise that she found plentiful cases where authorities had turned away, some for fear of being called racist.Last week’s trialof seven Rochdale men of Pakistani origin told the same story: of groomers raping and drugging very young girls, and showing “no remorse for their unforgivable actions”, while officialdom also treated these children as trash. Social workers dismissed witness girl B as “a prostitute”, aged 10.
Blame spreads far and wide. Those seeking a culture war weapon will find it turned back on them. Atimeline in Casey’s reportfollowing some 10 inquiries makes grim reading on foot-dragging police and authorities who scorned girls’ stories: why was so little followed up?
Labour has picked report recommendations to act upon: home secretary Yvette Cooper’s order to check prematurely closed cases has already re-opened more than 800. She is asking the National Crime Agency to trace missing perpetrators and toughen local police investigations. She is wiping out child victims’criminal records for prostitution, while her “Hillsborough law” gives public bodies a duty of candour, with the threat of criminal sanctions if they obstruct investigations. So-called consent by under-16s will not absolve men from rape. Children will get files linking fragmented information from the healthcare system, schools and social workers.
The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp,tells Sky that“hundreds of people in positions of authority over the years deliberately covered this up. I think they are guilty of that criminal offence and frankly should be going to prison.” But who was the minister for crime and policing in the last government? He was. Kemi Badenoch was minister for children. Starmer stands by his accusation that politicians with new zeal for an inquiry are “jumping on a far-right bandwagon”: that it’s only the race element that stirs them. Cases cross Tory and Labour councils, there have been failings all round. Every minute of Starmer’s time as director of public prosecutions has been turned over, but it onlyshows his recordas the rapid accelerator of prosecutions.
The bizarre intervention of Elon Musk ignited this pile-on, with his accusation that Starmer was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”,and calling Jess Phillips a “rape genocide apologist”. Musk was fired up by Labour voting down a Badenoch amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, calling for another inquiry: a move specifically designed to make Labour’s refusal look shifty. Playing the opportunistic Westminster game, hers was a wrecking amendment to kill the whole bill – never mind that it would have knocked out astring of protections for children in care.
Facts matter, but we need more of them. Casey finds that British-Pakistani men are much over-represented in some of the regional statistics that do exist for these crimes –but she also says: “The ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation is not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level.” Both Casey and Cooper regard the figures as badly incomplete; ethnicity data was only recorded in a third of cases inthe Hydrant programme, which collates police data on perpetrators and victims.
That’s inadequate, but here’s the latest from thedata that has been recorded: 83% of suspects are white, 7% Asian, 5% black. When on a radio phone-in I hear someone say this crime is “predominantly” Pakistani, they are only repeating the kind of misinformation written byRod Liddle in the Sunday Timesthis week: he calls grooming abuse “almost exclusively Muslim (and usually Pakistani) men preying almost exclusively on young white girls”.
Indeed, men of Pakistani origin in available statistics about the perpetrators, but Richard Fewkes, the director of Hydrant,says offenders broadly reflectthe ethnic mix of the UK population: “In very general terms, what we see across all group-based offending is that no particular ethnicity stands out based on population data.” He may amend that in time, but those on the frontline worry that false facts draw attention away from wheremost child group sex abuse happens: 57% in institutions, 26% by group sex abusers within families, and 48% by other children
Be clear what is happening here. Abuse of the most vulnerable people is a matter for us all, but race is what excites the culture warriors. They show little interest in the plight of children in care. In the Tory years, the number of children in care rose from 64,400 in 2010 to 83,630 in the latest figures. Cuts to social workers, health visitors and district nurses, the loss of Sure Start and the axing of child benefits have pushed families over the edge and children into the unkind arms of the state. Can it have been anything but irony when Tories branded their children in care programme “Stable Homes, Built on Love”? The outcomes for these children are dismal and their futures bleak, after multiple placements and rapid ejection at the age of 16, alone into isolated flats. Takejust one official figure: 44% of those registered as “children in need” are persistently absent from school. Where are they? In the clutches of bad men offering drugs and fake affection?
The spending review’s extra money for children in care and the children’s bill’s boost for kinship and foster carers will help, with strengthened support for care leavers, and a challenge to the astronomical profits made by private companies offering bad care. But will it be enough to lift the blight that has forever branded these children as no-hopers?
Too early to say. But in the meantime, beware those politicians who are newly exercised by the plight of abused children – but only if the abusers are, say, Pakistani. Beware also the synthetic pity of so many who have until now ignored the state’s appalling treatment of the most vulnerable children in its care. Too many are opportunists seeking grotesque advantage. Theirs are crocodile tears.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
In the UK, theNSPCCoffers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text theChildhelpabuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact theKids Helplineon 1800 55 1800, orBraveheartson 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contactBlue Knot Foundationon 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found atChild Helplines International