We do not know exactly how many girls have been raped by so-called ‘grooming gangs’. We do not know the full extent of police and local authority involvement in covering up these rapes. We do not know where these rapes are still continuing. We do not, in reality, know anything beyond the facts of the individual cases and towns that have so far emerged and which have been properly investigated.
And it seems that if Jess Phillips has her way, nor will we ever.
In a Commons statement yesterday, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls announced that the government may no longer be proceeding even with the five pathetic, utterly inadequate local inquiries that the Home Secretary announced in January. Instead, a ‘more flexible’ approach will be taken, with the £5 million made available for these inquiries potentially spent on ‘more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases’.
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