Leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has called for a national inquiry into predominantly Pakistani Muslim rape gangs in the UK.
Badenoch has said, “The time is long overdue for a full national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal.”
In reference to the widespread nature of the issue which is reported to have been ongoing since the 1990s with up to 1,400 girls abused in Rotherham alone, she said, “Trials have taken place all over the country in recent years but no one in authority has joined the dots.”
She added that “2025 must be the year that the victims start to get justice,” however critics have said the Conservative Party had 14 years in government but did not call for an inquiry.
The grooming gangs scandal first came to prominence due to the reporting of journalist Andrew Norfolk with regard to abuse which took place over decades in South Yorkshire and Rotherham.
Since then abuse rings predominantly made up of British Pakistani Muslims have been uncovered in Telford, Rochdale, Newcastle, Oxford and Bristol with victims aged as young as 11 years.
In 2014, an investigation into the Rotherham rape gangs revealed that fathers had been arrested for attempting to rescue their young daughters from the abuse, and that 12 year-old girls were described as consenting to being raped by older south Asian men.
Although the abusers have long been referred to as “grooming gangs”, a survivor who uses the pseudonym ‘Ella Hill’ says that the way the gangs operate is similar to “terrorist networks”.
In 2018 ‘Ella’ told the UK Independent that she was racially abused while being beaten and raped.
“As a teenager, I was taken to various houses and flats above takeaways in the north of England, to be beaten, tortured and raped over 100 times. I was called a “white slag” and “white c***” as they beat me.
They made it clear that because I was a non-Muslim, and not a virgin, and because I didn’t dress “modestly”, that they believed I deserved to be “punished”. They said I had to “obey” or “be beaten.”
Ella says that during her abuse she was quoted verses from the Koran in what appeared to be an attempt of who she called her “main” abuser to justify his actions.
Many of the victims of the abuse were plied with drugs and alcohol before being passed around to be raped and beaten.
Recalling an interview with an abuse victim’s father, journalist Charlie Peters, who has done extensive reporting on the issue, said that “by far my most harrowing interview was with a father who was threatened by the police when he tried to rescue his daughter from a rape den. Pure helplessness and pain.”
“You can’t put into words the hurt in his voice and face,” he said, adding that the man’s daughter, “was abandoned by the authorities because they feared being called racist, but when he stood up, he faced time in jail.”
As Gript previously reported, a review released last January uncovered failures by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and British social services in investigating “compelling evidence” of the abuse of children in Rochdale between 2004 and 2012
The review compiled by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority – which looked at the cases of 111 children – found there was “a significant probability” that 74 of these children were being sexually exploited and that in 48 of those cases, there were serious failures to protect the child
Former GMP detective turned whistle blower, Maggie Oliver previously described the gangs’s activity as “systematic organised sexual abuse” noting that those involved were “almost exclusively Pakistani” in origin.
The report states that an “emerging threat of child sexual exploitation was not addressed between 2004 and 2007” and that in 2007 “due to escalating concerns” GMP and Rochdale Council were alerted to the presence of “an alleged organised crime group believed to be dealing in child sexual exploitation in Rochdale and using these children to facilitate the gang’s illicit dealing in Class A drugs.”
The report says the GMP and Rochdale Council “chose not to progress any investigation into these men” calling this decision “a serious failure”.
Former Labour MP for Keighley, Ann Cryer. said in some cases younger “handsome” Pakistani youths who posed as boyfriends lured victims into situations where they were sexually abused, in some cases, by multiple older men.
In 2003 grooming gang victim Victoria Agoglia died after reportedly being injected with heroin by a 50-year-old man. Victoria who was in state care had been repeatedly raped by members of the grooming gangs.
Although 15-year-old Victoria had told a social worker that she was being injected with drugs and raped, appropriate action was not taken in time to save her with the report stating that ‘lessons were not learned’ from her death.
You can read the full Gript article on the GMCA report here.