Baroness Louise Casey said that authorities in Greater Manchester were ‘lawyering up’ to fight over what data would be shared
16:57, 17 Jun 2025Updated 19:20, 17 Jun 2025
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham(Image: Vincent Cole – Manchester Evening News)
The independent experts who Andy Burnham appointed to his local grooming gangs inquiry resigned after authorities ‘lawyered up’, a Parliamentary committee has heard.
That’s according to the woman whose report into grooming gangs this week has led to a new national inquiry being launched.
Baroness Louise Casey said authorities in Greater Manchester initially refused to share data with Mr Burnham’s review.
And she told MPs on Tuesday (June 17) that ‘they were all lawyering up’ to fight over what information would be shared and by whom.
Greater Manchester Police has said that the nature of the information that was requested for the review ‘impinged on ongoing investigations’, which presented ‘some difficulties with disclosure’. Force said it has been – and continues to be – supportive of all inquiries.
It comes after the Prime Minister announced a new national inquiry, having rejected calls for a government-led inquiry earlier this year.
Keir Starmer confirmed over the weekend the government would accept Baroness Casey’s recommendation, alongside 12 others, with the Home Secretary setting out a series of measures in Parliament on Monday (June 16) including a nationwide police operation.
Baroness Louise Casey appearing before the Home Affairs Committee(Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire)
Speaking at the Home Affairs committee about the findings from her ‘rapid national audit’ the government commissioned in January, Baroness Casey explained why she has now ‘shifted’ her position and believes an inquiry with statutory powers is needed.
She told MPs that despite the government offering to fund local inquiries in Oldham and four other areas, ‘nobody [except Oldham] came forward’.
Baroness Casey then spoke about the independent assurance review launched by the Greater Manchester mayor in 2017.
Mr Burnham announced the review after The Betrayed Girls, a BBC documentary about grooming gangs in Rochdale, was broadcast.
Over the subsequent seven years, ‘nationally-recognised’ experts Malcolm Newsam CBE and Gary Ridgway, who the mayor appointed to lead his review, published three reports into historic abuse in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale and they were due to work on a fourth.
Malcolm Newsam and Gary Ridgway led the review(Image: Vincent Cole – Manchester Evening News)
Last July, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) announced the final report, which looks at current processes in place to tackle child sexual exploitation, would be led by national police inspectors with ‘statutory powers’.
Speaking at the select committee on Tuesday (June 15), Baroness Casey told MPs Mr Newsam and Mr Ridgway ‘resigned’. She told MPs she ‘couldn’t understand’ why Mr Burnham was asking for a national inquiry after commission his own local review.
She said: “If you look at the assurance reviews that he had done, he was so frustrated – and so would I have been, so were the people who did those reviews – that it took years. Nobody shared data, they were all lawyering up to fight over who would share what data.
“I put it in more mild terms in my report, but when it came to report three which I think was four or five years later, the guys resigned and everything was handed over to a statutory body in the national inspectorate and Ofsted. I thought to myself, okay guys, come on.
“Nobody’s volunteering to find the truth here and we owe these victims that. Secondly you see extremely important assurance reviews by the Greater Manchester mayor who’s one of the longstanding mayors, knew what he was doing. He couldn’t get to the bottom of it.”
Greater Manchester Police said there were ‘some difficulties’ in sharing data relating to ongoing investigations(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Greater Manchester Police said the nature of the information requested ‘impinged on ongoing investigations’, which presented ‘some difficulties with disclosure’, but insists it has been supportive.
The GMCA has now confirmed the Independent Review Team resigned last year when His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) was appointed to lead the final part of it, alongside Ofsted and the CQC.
The Manchester Evening News understands both GMP and the CPS shared concerns about sharing information relating to ongoing and live investigations and discussions over a complex data sharing agreement for the review went on for several months.
HMICFRS already has the power to see any information it needs at GMP which removed the need for a data sharing agreement.
The final part of the independent assurance review – a report into current processes – is due to be published within a few weeks.
Baroness Louise Casey(Image: AP)
Speaking in Parliament, Baroness Casey added: “I think Andy Burnham did a good thing in Greater Manchester to say, ‘I’m not happy with what’s going on here’. He listened to victims, he did talk police, he did talk to others and he instituted assurance reviews.
“Two good people did them. One of them who I know was a commissioner in Rotheram when we were there and they only got so far because essentially they couldn’t require people to give them information, they couldn’t require people to appear before them, they didn’t have any ability to do hearings.
“It just went on and on and on, and then they did this work and nobody… it took a long time before anybody said, as in the new chief constable who said, ‘yeah, we didn’t get this right and we’re sorry to victims’.
“That’s why we put it in there to say even where we have actually the police crime commissioner which is what the mayor is, where you have a police crime commissioner or a mayor that says, ‘I want this to happen’, and he spends money getting it happen, it didn’t get him what he wanted which was accountability on behalf of the victims and the system.”
“Looking at that, interviewing various people, we came to the view that without statutory powers, Inquiry Act type powers, you’re not going to get anywhere.”
The full details of the new national inquiry into grooming gangs are still to be determined. However, speaking at the Home Affairs committee, Baroness Casey said that she wants it to be a ‘different type of inquiry’ with ‘very strong footprints locally’.
Asked by a Bradford MP which areas she would expect the inquiry to investigate, she said: “If you are any of the areas that are visible and identifiable, just be ready and be open to the fact that you may be the subject of one of the national inquiries and I would be surprised if some of the areas that I mention, probably including Bradford, would not be subject to being part of the national inquiry.”