Teenage mom was abused by older Asian males from the age of 11, stabbed and drowned in a canal by her ‘boyfriend’ in an ‘honour killing’ – now her household again requires inquiry into grooming gangs ‘cover-up’

The family of a murdered teenage girl who was Britain’s first white honour killing victim have condemned a grooming gangs ‘cover-up’ and backed calls for a new national inquiry into the scandal.

Young mother Laura Wilson, 17, was repeatedly stabbed and left to die in a canal by an abuser – after council workers failed to act on reports she was being exploited by older Asian men.

An inquiry held after her murder by Ashtiaq Ashgar, who could soon be eligible for parole, criticised officials at Rotherham Council after hearing how she was preyed upon by gangs in the town from the age of just 11.

Laura was killed just days after she revealed to families of some of her abusers how she had been in sexual relationships with them – including having a daughter by an older man who was described as a ‘mentor’ to her murderer.

British-born Ashgar came from a traditional Muslim family who were planning an arranged marriage for their son with someone from Pakistan and he made Laura keep their relationship a secret.

Now her elder sister Sarah Wilson, 33, has backed calls for a new national inquiry into sex abuse gangs, following on from concerns raised by X owner Elon Musk.

She spoke out after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced criticism for suggesting those raising the alarm were ‘amplifying’ the ‘far right’.

Sarah, another victim of grooming abuse herself, posted on X, formerly Twitter that anyone involved in cover-ups should be punished and stripped of pensions – while also declaring: ‘Our justice system stinks.’

Laura was stabbed more than 40 times by Asghar before he hurled her into the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation Canal in October 2010 and used his blade to hold her under the water. 

He was infuriated and on a ‘mission to kill’ after the young mother told his Muslim family of their relationship which began when she was 15 and he 16, Sheffield Crown Court heard.

Ashgar had exchanged a series of texts with married friend and mentor Ishaq Hussain, 22, who had also had an affair with Laura, and who the trial judge described as a man who regarded white girls as ‘sexual targets, not human beings’.

In one message, sent a day before he killed Miss Wilson, Asghar wrote: ‘I’m gonna send that kuffar (non-Muslim) bitch straight to Hell.’

In another he wrote, ‘I need to do a mission’, while also talking of buying a pistol and ‘making some beans on toast’ – a reference to spilling blood used in Four Lions, a satirical film about suicide bombers.

Asghar is serving life in prison after he pleaded guilty to murder and was jailed for life, while Mr Hussain was acquitted of murder by joint enterprise after a retrial.

It later emerged that Rotherham County Council’s social services were well aware Laura was at risk and had received information about certain adults suspected of targeting her from the age of 11. 

The local authority’s Safeguarding Children Board published in June 2012 a serious case review but key passages mentioning how officials knew she was at particular risk from ‘Asian men’ had been blocked out with black lines. 

The council went to court in an attempt to tried to suppress the hidden information after an uncensored copy of the report was leaked to the Times newspaper, before abandoning legal action.

The uncensored report confirmed that Laura, identified as Child S, had dealings with 15 agencies and identified ‘numerous missed opportunities’ to protect her – while also stating that she eventually became ‘almost invisible’ to care professionals.

Details hidden included the knowledge that at the age of 13 Laura and a friend had been given alcohol by men at a takeaway who then asked what she would give them in return.

She had also been referred to a child sexual exploitation project just three months after her 11th birthday.

Another censored passage reveals that Laura had been ‘mentioned’ during a 2009 police inquiry that eventually led to the conviction of five Pakistani men for sex offences against three underage girls.

While the published report mentioned the fact that a friend, who Laura knew when she was 10, was ‘thought to have become involved in sexual exploitation’, it concealed the succeeding passage which read, ‘with particular reference to Asian men’.

In 2007, when Laura was 13, she and her family appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show, in an episode about ‘out-of-control children’.

Workers at a child sexual exploitation project later sent a report to social services, but no action was taken to remove her from what became a spiral of sexual abuse.

By the time she was 16, she had embarked on an affair with Mr Hussain, who was then 20 and already married, and have birth to a daughter – though he refused to accept the child was his.

Four months later, and just days before she was murdered on October 12 2010, she ‘shamed’ Asghar and Mr Hussain by informing their families of her relationship with both men.

She told Asghar’s mother she loved her son and ‘wanted to have babies’ by him – but Mrs Asghar was said to be furious and attempted to hit Miss Wilson with a shoe, branding her ‘a dirty white b****’ who should ‘keep your legs closed’, the murder trial was told.

Ashtiaq then lured her by text message to the banks of the canal before attacking her on October 12.

Her mother Maggie later told a Crime & Investigation Network documentary how, when Laura did not return home that evening, she ‘just knew’ something terrible had happened.

Meanwhile, Ashgar was trying to cover his tracks by texting Laura’s friend asking if she had ‘seen’ her.

Two days later, Laura’s body was found in the canal, with more than 40 stab wounds – most of them to the head, with some being defence wounds.

On May 2011 at Ashgar’s trial, the court heard how after stabbing Laura, he threw her into the canal but she kept fighting for her life. 

A pathologist’s report found that the stab wounds to the head were actually done to keep her under the water.

The following month Ashtiaq changed his plea to guilty in the hope of a reduced sentence. In December that year the then-18-year-old was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 17 and a half years in jail.

Looking back later, Laura’s mother remembered: ‘He showed no remorse, just upset at the amount of time he got in jail.’

The latest phase of the grooming gangs scandal erupted when it emerged that the government had rejected a request from Oldham Council for a national inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation – saying the local authority should lead it instead.

Tesla tycoon Mr Musk pushed the issue up the agenda by wading in on his X social media site, suggesting the PM was ‘complicit’ in failure to tackle the abuse while director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013.

Mr Musk has also insisted Sir Keir should be in ‘prison’, and asked followers whether the US should ‘liberate’ Britain from ‘tyrannical government’.

Questioned at a press conference yesterday, the PM described child sexual exploitation as ‘utterly sickening’ – but defended his record as DPP, saying he tackled the issue ‘head on’.

The PM acknowledged that many victims felt ‘let down by perverse ideas about community relations or by the idea that institutions must be protected above all else and they have not been listened to and they have not been heard’.

However, he said there had been enough inquiries into a scandal that took place for decades across dozens of towns and cities.

Sir Keir added: ‘This doesn’t need more consultation. It doesn’t need more research. It just needs action.’

He also suggested that politicians demanding an overarching probe into the rape of thousands of white girls by gangs of predominantly Pakistani-origin men were ‘amplifying what the far right are saying’. 

Former police detective Maggie Oliver, who helped blow the whistle on grooming gangs in Rochdale after previous failures to prosecute, said she was ‘incandescent with rage’ at the PM’s comments.

She told GB News: ‘I am no far right activist. I am a woman who gave 16 years of my life to the police and protecting children was number one priority in my life.

‘All the victims that I know and that we support have had their lives destroyed – to write them off as far right extremists is insulting in the extreme.’

And Laura Wilson’s sister Sarah has added her voice to the backlash, posting on X that there was a need for new inquiries ‘all around England’.

She called for ‘stronger sentences for the perpetrators and if not a UK-born citizen to be deported back to where they were born’.

She said: ‘People in power who chose to ignore it and be part of it to be prosecuted and stripped of their pensions.’

Sarah, 33, also posted how she feared her sister’s killer ‘could be out next year depending on the Parole Board’, adding: ‘Imagine killing an innocent girl so brutally and only getting 17 and half years.

‘Being able to go live back in the town where he committed the murder and where we live. Our justice system stinks.

‘My little sister was murdered because she brought shame on her boyfriend’s family when we confronted them.

‘My sister was murdered because she was a non Muslim white girl.’ 

In a separate post, Sarah reiterated her hopes for a new inquiry, saying: ‘I remember the feeling when I knew the Alexis Jay report was finalised and published – a feeling of relief , anger and hurt.

‘But the biggest relief was that we was finally been believed about what we had been telling them was going on in Rotherham. 

‘Why can’t we give this hope to every city and town? Victims and survivors deserve to be heard, to be believed and to have the weight of the world lifted off their shoulders.

‘I was 11 when my grooming first started, I was around 16 years old when I was too old for them – I’m 34 this year and I still live with that mental torture every single day.

‘Our government and people in authority owe it to all the boys and girls around England that don’t have a voice.’

After the safeguarding report following Laura’s murder was published in June 2012, Rotherham Local Safeguarding Children Board chair Alan Hazell said: ‘We refute in the strongest possible terms any suggestion that information was redacted from the published report for any reason other than to protect the interests of Laura’s daughter, immediate family and other third parties.

‘This is a wide ranging study which shows a very complex situation surrounding Child S and her child which made it difficult for agencies to engage with her.

‘There is no suggestion that anyone could have saved Child S from what ultimately happened to her but clearly her care could have been improved. 

‘There were chances for those agencies to be more proactive in how they dealt with the case and all agencies involved accept that and apologise that the standards of service were not as high as they should have been.’

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced to Parliament on Monday that the law will be changed to make it mandatory for social workers, teachers, police and others working with children to report suspected sexual abuse.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is tabling a Commons amendment designed to force a vote on an inquiry, which could come as early as tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Prof Alexis Jay, who chaired a previous independent inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, said today that ‘people should just get on with’ implementing its recommendations rather than holding another one.