Baroness Longfield: New chair of the grooming gangs inquiry introduced

Former youngsters’s commissioner Baroness Longfield will chair the inquiry into grooming gangs after months of delays.

Sir Keir Starmer introduced the inquiry in June this yr however the nationwide probe was thrown into disarray when 4 girls resigned from its sufferer liaison panel.

It has taken some months to discover a appropriate candidate to chair the inquiry amid the continuing tensions. In October, the ultimate two candidates to chair the inquiry dropped out of the method.

Now the residence secretary Shabana Mahmood has introduced that Baroness Anne Longfield will tackle the function.

The inquiry follows a suggestion made by Baroness Louise Casey in her fast audit trying on the scale of grooming gangs throughout the nation.

open picture in gallery

Baroness Longfield will probably be a part of a three-person panel that will even embrace Zoe Billingham, the chair of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS basis belief, and Eleanor Kelly, former chief government of the London borough of Southwark.

Ms Billingham additionally has “deep experience in safeguarding and policing”, Ms Mahmood instructed MPs. Ms Kelly supported the survivors of the London Bridge terrorist assaults and the victims of the Grenfell Tower fireplace in 2017, the house secretary mentioned.

The inquiry will conduct native investigations in areas the place suspected critical failings occurred. Ms Mahmood confirmed that considered one of these places will probably be Oldham within the Commons on Tuesday.

The inquiry will even have full authorized powers underneath the Inquiries Act to compel witnesses to provide proof, and require organisations at hand over paperwork and data.

Ministers have dedicated £65 million to the inquiry and mentioned it should not take longer than three years.

open picture in gallery

Speaking within the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Mahmood mentioned that Baroness Longfield will resign the Labour whip as a way to chair the nationwide inquiry.

She mentioned: “She has devoted her life to youngsters’s rights, together with working a charity supporting and defending younger individuals and dealing for prime ministers of various political events.”

Ms Mahmood mentioned it was necessary to name grooming gang “crimes what they had been – a number of sexual assaults dedicated by a number of males on a number of events”.

The residence secretary continued: “Children had been submitted to beatings and gang rapes, many contracted sexually transmitted infections, some had been pressured to have abortions, others had their youngsters taken from them.”

She mentioned “some in positions of energy turned a blind eye to the horror, even coated it up”, including: “What is required now could be a second of reckoning.

“We should solid contemporary gentle on this darkness.”

This is a breaking story. More to observe…