KEMI BADENOCH: The solely approach to expose those that turned a blind eye to the grooming gangs is by holding a full public inquiry

Britain has witnessed the mass grooming of thousands of the most vulnerable white working-class girls – children – by gangs of men, many of Pakistani heritage. This was rape on an industrial scale.

And shockingly, it was a scandal made possible by the collusion and cover-ups of officials, the police and politicians who were more concerned about community relations than about victims and their families.

The fact that perpetrators of this sexual violence appeared to have deliberately picked victims because they were white – and not from their own of the community or religious background – must not be ignored. 

Previous inquiries have failed to examine this. It’s for society and the state to address the issue, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

The testimonies of the victims are hard to read. Girls being forced into barbaric sexual acts. Raped by multiple men at the same time or one after the other. Punished by grotesque sexual violence when they resisted.

Children were identified as targets because of their backgrounds and experienced years of systematic abuse from adult men whose communities in some cases even helped protect them.

Thousands of girls’ lives have been damaged or destroyed. Worse still, this was perpetrated not in one rotten borough by a few rotten individuals, but across the nation.

It is just as disturbing to read accounts of collusion between officials and police – people entrusted with protecting the public – to keep the scandal under wraps, and in some cases even to allow the abuse to continue.

From court evidence we read a shocking example of social workers attending a ‘Nikah’, an Islamic wedding ceremony, between an abuser and his victim. 

We hear of a father arrested for trying to retrieve his daughter from rape dens. 

Of councils and a police chief collaborating to keep the extent of the child rape scandal out of the headlines for fear of inflaming community relations or being called racist. And of academics and charity workers drafting obfuscatory reports to conceal the true scale of the problem. This can never be allowed to happen again.

A number of heroes fought a lonely battle against not only a conspiracy of silence but active hostility that victims faced from officialdom. 

Police officers like Maggie Oliver, who fearlessly and persistently drew attention to the immense failings in Rochdale.

Journalists like Andrew Norfolk and Charlie Peters who helped give victims a voice. Politicians such as Alex Stafford who stood with campaigners, and Suella Braverman who took action in Government. 

And, of course, the victims themselves, whose immense courage made justice possible.

Some action was taken under the previous Conservative government, but not enough. 

There were local inquiries and, at the national level, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). 

Failing councils were taken over, like Rotherham in 2015. Grooming gang members were prosecuted. 

The Grooming Gang TaskForce, launched in April 2023, made over 500 arrests in its first year.

But we still need to know the extent to which institutions like the police, prosecutors, local government and social services are compromised by wrong-headed political correctness, and even self-interest. 

Only then can we have any hope of upholding our laws and culture, and preventing this scale of abuse ever again.

That is why I have called for a full national inquiry into the rape gangs scandal. It must have the powers needed to go further than local inquiries have done. 

And it must be given a remit beyond the the IICSA to examine in-depth the failings – among our communities, police and prosecutors, academia and charities, local and national government – that enabled these systematic and barbaric attacks to take place.

When I called for the Prime Minister to launch a full inquiry this week, some sought to criticise previous Tory governments. Well, the Conservative Party is under new leadership and we are doing things differently.

As a minister, I saw up close how our institutions have become paralysed from doing what is right for fear of getting something wrong.

I took on the ‘difficult’ issues, even when counselled against doing so by other ministers, MPs and the civil service.

From overturning convictions for postmasters during the Horizon scandal to standing up for young children pressured by extreme gender ideology into life-changing surgeries, I was not afraid to speak up when others cowered. And I’m not now.

I have seen up close the culture of fear and obfuscation inside Whitehall around tackling so-called ‘difficult’ issues. And it isn’t just our government bodies. 

The institutions supposed to safeguard these children obsessed about ‘inflaming community tensions’ or over being seen as ‘targeting’ a particular ethnic group.

We have failed to get to the bottom of how national-scale child sexual abuse happens, for fear of causing offence. 

This harms everyone, including members of whatever group is supposedly being protected from offence.

The inquiry I want to see should start by considering the likely racial or religious motivation of these crimes. 

It should identify all of the institutions and bodies that failed. It should also identify those individuals who facilitated or ignored these crimes so they can be removed from their roles.

No other inquiry has done this properly or joined the dots across the country. 

It should also not become yet another interminably long boondoggle that benefits lawyers, but report quickly and have clear and narrow terms of reference.

It is vital that those who have committed such heinous crimes face the most severe penalties. 

The Government must reintroduce measures Conservatives put forward last year to increase the jail time faced by grooming gang members, including life sentences. Any foreign nationals involved in the abuse must be deported – no ifs, no buts.

We must show no lenience to those who rape and exploit children, nor can we tolerate those who protect predators. I will always stand with the victims. 

It’s time for the Government to follow our lead and do the same.