What the papers say: The uncomfortable truths about the grooming gangs

Modern slavery is affecting every town and city in Britain, according to the National Crime Agency. Despite William Wilberforce saying two hundred years ago: ’Let us put an end at once’ to this practice, ‘slavery persists to this day, probably within a mile of the parliament in which he spoke’. ‘In car washes and in construction…in brothels and in cannabis factories, on farms and in nail bars. More startlingly, they are to be found in homes’, says the Times, The Modern Slavery Act, which passed in 2015, was a ‘tardy recognition of a growing problem’, While yesterday’s warning about the problem provides a stark warning: ‘If the NCA is shocked by the scale of slavery in Britain, we all should be’. For Britain’s law enforcement, the challenge is wide-ranging. But it is not only a matter for the police, points out the Times, calling it ‘a challenge of popular observation’ for us all.