The government has ditched a victims panel that was advising the national inquiry into the scourge of the Muslim child rape grooming gangs and the failure of local authorities to protect vulnerable girls from sexual abuse.
The Metro newspaper has reported that multiple former members of the victims panel confirmed that it was shut down after the government appointed Labour peer Baroness Longfield to chair the national inquiry.
Fiona Goddard, a survivor of a Pakistani Muslim grooming gang in Bradford who quit the victims panel in October, told the paper that its dissolution has made survivors feel “betrayed and disrespected all over again.”
“Survivors were told they had a voice and then it was taken away from them,” she said. “There needs to be survivor involvement in the inquiry but it needs to be respected and listened to.”
Another survivor who also quit the panel in October said, “I think the government established the panel to shut us all up… It should have been ongoing until the inquiry was complete.”
The Home Office has claimed that victims panel was always intended to be temporary and that Baroness Longfield plans to work with survivors when the inquiry commences.
The inquiry has been mired in controversy since its inception, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer proclaiming that those who advocated for such an investigation were jumping on the “bandwagon of the far-right“.
Starmer, whose Labour Party has long been alleged to be involved in covering up grooming abuse, even went so far as to whip his own backbenchers to vote against demands for a national inquiry, which unlike previous investigations would have statutory powers to compel witness testimony.
However, amid heavy pressure from figures such as Brexit boss Nigel Farage, X owner Elon Musk, and the release of the Casey report, Starmer was forced into one of his many embarrassing u-turns, and opened the inquiry in June.
Yet the relationship with victims has been fraught since, with multiple members of the survivor’s panel resigning in October, accusing the government of seeking to expand the scope of the investigation to include multiple forms of child sex abuse rather than remaining focussed on the issue of mostly Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, which specifically preyed upon mostly working-class white girls.
The victims who resigned from the panel also accused the government of attempting to put members of law enforcement and social workers in charge of the inquiry, which they said would be unacceptable given the role the two professions played in covering up the decades of sexual abuse, often over politically correct concerns and for fear of appearing racist.
While the government inquiry is expected to last at least three years, a separate two week rape gang inquiry launched by independent MP Rupert Lowe began to hear testimony this week after raising £600,000 from the public. Lowe said at the opening of the inquiry this week that its ultimate aim is to launch private prosecutions to provide justice to the victims.
Lowe said that the primary people responsible were the “savage Muslim men” who sexually abused the girls, but said that what makes the scandal even worse is the “thousands and thousands” of people who knew that it was happening but did nothing to stop it.
“Many remain in some of the highest positions of authority even today,” he noted.
“Investigations were delayed, victims were told they were making lifestyle choices, offenders were left free to continue abusing, while the system protected itself for fear of undermining this sick multicultural experiment that has been forced on Britain,” Lowe said.