Should Jess Phillips resign? That’s the demand made by four survivors of the ‘grooming gangs’ in a public letter to the Home Secretary. The letter came after days of chaos which have left the inquiry in disarray.
The collapse began on Monday morning when Fiona Goddard, a survivor from Bradford, quit the inquiry. Fiona was groomed and repeatedly raped by more than 50 men during the late 2000s. In 2019, nine men were found guilty of offences including her rape and child prostitution. In her resignation letter she described a ‘toxic, fearful environment’, ‘condescending and controlling language used towards survivors’ and her ‘serious concerns’ about members of the inquiry’s links to the government. Survivors have also indicated that they have lost confidence of the ‘victim liaison lead’.
The member of government responsible for the inquiry must be trusted implicitly by all survivors on the panel. Jess Phillips has clearly lost that trust
Fiona also argued against having either a social worker or police officer chair the inquiry, given the extent to which those two organisations failed and covered up the crimes of these child rape gangs . Most disturbingly, she said that the ‘terms of reference’ of the inquiry were being deliberately widened by civil servants involved.
This might have meant an inquiry which focused on all victims of childhood grooming, rather than these specific crimes committed primarily by kin-groups of Pakistani Mirpuri men against white and Sikh girls. I understand that victims and survivors were particularly concerned because those civil servants organising the inquiry had appointed survivors of other grooming-related crimes, and excluded willing participants who had survived the rape gangs.
Jess Phillips appeared to respond to these claims in a letter she sent to the Home Affairs Select Committee later on Monday. In that letter she described claims that ‘the government is seeking to dilute…by expanding the scope’ as ‘untrue’.
This resulted in predictable rage from survivors, who felt that Phillips was accusing them of lying. Fiona Goddard responded in another letter, in which she described a consultation which explicitly asked ‘Should the inquiry have an explicit focus on grooming gangs or group based [child sexual exploitation and abuse], or take a broader approach?’ She went on to add that she and other survivors had texted Phillips directly about this matter, meaning that the minister for safeguarding appears to have known about the attempts to dilute the inquiry.
Phillips’s position was made even more precarious when her boss, the Home Secretary, entered the fray. Mahmood could not have been more clear in her language, rejecting the term ‘grooming gangs’ in favour of ‘evil child rapists’. The Home Secretary also went on to explicitly state that the rapists were disproportionately ‘from Asian ethnic backgrounds’. She also made it clear that the ‘inquiry will focus’ on the gangs, and ‘will never be watered down on my watch’, and ‘will explicitly examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders’.
More survivors quit, taking the total to four. Then Jim Gamble announced his withdrawal from the process. He made his reason clear, saying ‘my decision rests fundamentally on the principle’ that the inquiry chair ‘must have the confidence of victims and survivors’.
Gamble is right. These children were betrayed by every adult who should have cared for them. They were disbelieved, some were even arrested while their abusers were left free and in one appalling case a social worker oversaw an Islamic ‘marriage’ between a victim and her abuser. They have little reason to trust the British state, and whoever leads this inquiry must have their absolute confidence.
The same is true for the safeguarding minister. As the member of government responsible for the inquiry, they must be trusted implicitly by all survivors on the panel. Jess Phillips has clearly lost that trust. As four survivors wrote in their letter yesterday, ‘her conduct over the last week has shown she is unfit’, and they are only prepared to return to the panel if Phillips, and the current ‘victim liaison lead’ go.
It doesn’t really matter how trust has been lost, or whether this is ‘fair’ on Phillips. The interests of the survivors and the effectiveness of this inquiry are far too important. Phillips should do the decent thing and quit. If the Home Secretary is looking for a replacement, then Alex Davies-Jones would be an excellent choice. She’s currently the junior minister for tackling violence against women and girls and demonstrated her mettle this week by introducing changes to parental rights which will protect children. Davies-Jones has a far better chance of being trusted by the survivors. For all their sakes we should hope that Jess Phillips does the right thing and steps aside.
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