Grooming gangs probe will leave ‘no hiding place’ – Mahmood

Britain’s grooming gangs inquiry will leave “no hiding place” for those involved in the scandal, Shabana Mahmood said, after the probe faced further turmoil on Tuesday.

The Home Secretary also insisted the scope of the probe “will not change” amid claims its remit could be widened beyond group-based child sexual abuse.

Her intervention comes after a series of resignations from survivors who had been on the inquiry’s overseeing panel, citing concerns about the process so far, including a “toxic environment.”

Elizabeth, not her real name, quit from the victims and survivors liaison group just a day after the departures of Fiona Goddard and Ellie-Ann Reynolds.

A fourth survivor also reportedly resigned on Tuesday.

Ms Mahmood acknowledged frustrations about the pace of progress towards launching the inquiry, which was announced by Sir Keir Starmer in June and is yet to appoint a chair.

But she insisted the probe “is not, and will never be, watered down on my watch” and would focus on how “some of the most vulnerable people in this country” were abused “at the hands of predatory monsters.”

“In time, we came to know this as the ‘grooming gangs’ scandal, though I have never thought the name matched the scale of the evil. We must call them what they were: evil child rapists,” Ms Mahmood said in an op-ed for the Times and GB News.

“It is essential that the victims themselves are at the heart of this inquiry. It was for that reason that we set up a victims group to support the inquiry in its inception, and throughout its work.

“It was with a heavy heart, in recent days, I learnt that some members have decided to step away from the group.

“Should they wish to return, the door will always remain open to them. But even if they do not, I owe it to them — and the country — to answer some of the concerns that they have raised.”

Ms Mahmood said the probe would be “robust and rigorous,” with the power to compel witnesses, and examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders.

In her resignation letter on Monday, Ms Goddard said the process so far had involved “secretive conduct” with instances of “condescending and controlling language” used towards survivors.

She later accused safeguarding minister Jess Phillips of lying for disputing allegations that the inquiry was being watered down and called on her to stand down from her position.

“It is a blatant lie for Jess Phillips to suggest, as she has done… that it is untrue that there has been possibility or conversation around ‘expanding the (inquiry’s) scope beyond grooming gangs’,” Ms Goddard said.

She also expressed deep reservations about the candidates under consideration to chair the inquiry, one of whom was reportedly a former police chief and the other a social worker.

Annie Hudson, a former director of children’s services for Lambeth, has now withdrawn her candidacy following recent media coverage, according to reports on Tuesday.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Phillips said opinions varied among victims as to who would be best suited to the role as she faced questions from MPs about the process.

“I will engage with all the victims, regardless of their opinions, and I will listen to those that have been put in the media, that are put in panels, I will always listen and I will speak to all of them,” she said.

In a resignation posted on X on Tuesday, the third survivor to quit said “what is happening now feels like a cover-up of a cover-up”.

“It has created a toxic environment for survivors, filled with pressures that we should not have to deal with,” she said.

A fourth – Jessica, not her real name, from West Yorkshire – who is said to have quit the panel on Tuesday night, told GB News: “When I found out the two potential chairs were a former police officer and a former social worker, I was shocked and I didn’t know how they could be involved.

“They were both part of a profession that failed all of us.”

Ms Mahmood said the task of appointing a chair had been “made harder by the intense – albeit justified – pressure that will be placed on the person who fills it,” but that “we have to get this right and take the time to do so.”

“I hope and believe the wait will now not be much longer. And once the inquiry begins, the truth will follow,” she said.

“There will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society. Nor will those who ignored victims, and even covered up what occurred, be shielded from the truth.”