Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has finally bowed to pressure and announced five local reviews alongside a ‘rapid national audit’ into grooming gangs. But the plan falls short of the national inquiry that many, including some Labour MPs, want. Cooper’s plan is insufficient.
Labour may well pay a hefty electoral price for it
Cooper’s statement in the Commons yesterday encouragingly included a pledge to enact recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which concluded with its flagship report published back in October 2022. These include the creation of a single core data set which covers the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse, including age, sex, and ethnicity. The government-backed three-month audit, which will be led by Dame Louise Casey, will look at “cultural and societal drivers” of child sex abuse – a positive development in the area of group-localised child sexual exploitation (GLCSE), where prosecutions have been dominated
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