Portrait of the week: War in the Middle East, drought in Yorkshire and a knighthood for Beckham
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, announced a full national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs (which he had previously opposed) on the recommendation of Baroness Casey of Blackstock, who had been asked to audit the matter. His announcement came after four men born in Pakistan and three Rochdale-born taxi drivers of Asian descent were convicted of offences against two teenage girls who were repeatedly raped and assaulted in Rochdale from 2001 to 2006. The Casey report said that Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire had ‘disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation’. At the G7 summit in Canada, Sir Keir
