Baroness Casey’s ‘national audit’ of child sexual exploitation was published this afternoon, and it’s now clear why the government changed course so quickly over the weekend, and why they’ve immediately accepted all of Casey’s recommendations. She doesn’t hold back. She identifies the scale of the rape gangs, the specific ethnic groups who make up the majority of perpetrators, and makes it clear how much the state has failed victims over decades.
Of the 51 local child safeguarding reviews listed by Casey ‘where perpetrator ethnicity and/or nationality is identified’, just one describes the perpetrators as white, while nine mention Asian perpetrators of one kind or another. Another 35 of these reviews didn’t report ethnicity or nationality at all. Casey’s recommendation is that ethnicity and nationality data is captured as a matter of course.
It seems plausible that this reluctance to record the race of rape gangs was driven by concerns over ‘raising tensions’. Casey says she ‘heard from police forces that local authorities would discourage them from publicising the successful conviction of perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation due to fears of raising tensions’. The report describes deliberate and wilful blindness, with many organisations ‘instead of examining whether there is disproportionality in ethnicity… avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems’. In plain terms, public bodies across the country chose to prioritise multiculturalism over the rape of children.
Even more explosive is what Casey says about foreign nationals. It is clear that the immigration and asylum systems, and our non-existent borders, are directly causing the organised rape of children. Casey saw ‘evidence of around a dozen live, complex’ police investigations into rape gangs. She notes that ‘a significant proportion of these cases appear to involve suspects who are non-UK nationals and/or who are claiming asylum’. Just last week, 1,505 people arrived on small boats.
Casey proposes a national criminal investigation, reviewing accusations of rape which didn’t proceed, and a national inquiry. The criminal investigation has already begun. The Home Secretary said today in the Commons that over 800 cases have been identified as being worthy of a full review, and that she expects this number to exceed a thousand soon. The National Crime Agency will lead on these investigations. That is a good thing, given the historic appalling failures by local police forces.
We’ve come a very long way from early May
The national inquiry Casey proposes is one which will co-ordinate ‘a series of targeted local investigations’. We will need to see the precise terms of reference for these, as there is a real risk of a compromised local council continuing its cover-ups.
The inquiry is to have full statutory inquiry powers, be time limited, targeted and ‘proportionate to the numbers of victims’. It ‘should review cases of failures or obstruction by statutory services to identify… where local investigations should be instigated’. Further, there ‘would need to be a process to identify instances and allegations of statutory agencies’ failures’, and ‘each investigation will call witnesses to give evidence and will require records to be submitted. Local authorities, police forces and other relevant agencies should in the meantime be required not to destroy any relevant records.’
When the Home Secretary spoke to the Commons this afternoon, she made it clear how seriously she takes the report, and said that the government will accept all its recommendations immediately. She also made it clear that she accepts there is ‘clear evidence of overrepresentation amongst Asian and Pakistani-heritage men’, and that public bodies avoided ‘the topic all-together to avoid seeming racist or raising community tensions’.
We’ve come a very long way from early May, when Lucy Powell described concern about grooming gangs as a ‘dog-whistle’, but the war is far from won. While new criminal investigations are to be welcomed, we must also ensure that every guilty public official faces a reckoning. Today in the Commons the Home Secretary said there would be ‘no hiding from justice’ for those who had covered up or been complicit in these crimes. This must mean prosecutions and exemplary sentences for every guilty local councillor, council employee, social worker and police officer. The government should also introduce legislation allowing it to strip honours and seize pension funds and other assets from those guilty public servants. This money should be used to create a victims’ fund. We also need assurance that the inquiry will investigate fearlessly. To that end, the Home Secretary should appoint a judge from Canada, Australia or New Zealand, someone separate from the British elites who have hidden these crimes for so long.
As always, the devil is in the details. Today’s announcement is promising. Now we must wait for the precise terms of the inquiry.
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