Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

The grooming gang scandal needs to change our entire worldview

Rotherham, South Yorkshire (Photo: Getty)

The recent re-eruption of the grooming/child rape gang scandal has been disorienting, seeming to blow up from nowhere. It has re-emerged – as far as I can ascertain, it moved so fast – through posts on X that quoted horrific extracts from trial proceedings. Within hours the full horror of what happened (and may well still be happening) in towns and cities around Britain blasted into public consciousness and global headlines.

This is obviously one of the very worst things, maybe the very worst thing, to have occurred in Britain since the war

It’s been a strange few days – not least because none of this information is new. What feels different this time is that its importance has broken out and been acknowledged, by the public if not yet entirely by some politicians.

‘Shouldn’t that be a bigger story?’ has always been a fairly common thought when reading, listening to or watching the news.

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