Less than two weeks after rejecting calls for a national inquiry into rape gangs, the UK government has announced a U-turn. It had rejected calls for a national inquiry, arguing first that this would duplicate the 2022 IICSA (Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse) report, and second that another report would divert attention from implementing the IICSA recommendations. Today, it acknowledges that the IICSA report did not adequately address the specific issue of abuse and torture of children by rape gangs, and it accepts that further investigation need not delay implementation of the IICSA recommendations.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a range of measures this afternoon, including “a rapid audit of the current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country”, to be followed by “victim-centred, locally led inquiries”, in Oldham and “up to four other pilot areas.”
So there will be no national inquiry, and it appears that local inquiries will only take place if local authorities call for them. The national failings, including the widespread trafficking that takes place between towns and cities, will go unchecked. Victims who are coerced into silence by perpetrators are unlikely to risk the consequences of reporting their abuse, let alone be able to call for an inquiry. And those local authorities who failed to protect vulnerable children and then covered it up will have little incentive to draw attention to it.
Crucially, these local inquiries will not have the power to compel witnesses to attend and give evidence under oath. Cooper was repeatedly challenged about this in parliament today, not least by Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham (the town at the centre of the rape gangs scandal). Cooper’s responses were unconvincing. It is not necessary to compel witnesses, she suggested. Instead, an ill-defined, and as yet unarticulated, ‘duty of candour’ is supposed to be sufficient.
Is this half-hearted U-turn a token effort that the government hopes will satisfy its critics? Or is it designed to cover up the multiple cover ups? Many of the survivors are far from convinced. They are unlikely to let it go.