{"id":184578,"date":"2025-06-14T20:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T20:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184578\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T20:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T20:04:10","slug":"uk-to-hold-national-inquiry-into-organized-child-sex-abuse-after-pressure-from-musk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/184578\/","title":{"rendered":"UK to hold national inquiry into organized child sex abuse after pressure from Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON — The British government announced Saturday it will hold a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse, something it has long been pressured to do by opposition politicians \u2014 and Elon Musk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a> said he would accept a recommendation from an independent reviewer for a judge-led inquiry with the power to summon witnesses.<\/p>\n

Starmer said he would \u201clook again\u201d and hold a probe into what the press have dubbed \u201cgrooming gangs\u201d of men who prey on often young and vulnerable women.<\/p>\n

In some of the most high-profile cases to come to trial, the perpetrators were men of Pakistani heritage, and the issue has been taken up by right-of-center politicians including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and stoked by Musk, who took to his X platform<\/a> to condemn Starmer over the issue.<\/p>\n

Musk criticized Starmer for not backing a national inquiry into the matter following a request from the local authority in the northern English town of Oldham, where police found girls under 18 were sexually exploited by groups of men in the 2000s and 2010s. Musk also alleged that Starmer failed to bring perpetrators to justice when he was England\u2019s chief prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, a charge that the prime minister vigorously denied.<\/p>\n

Because the cases in Oldham and similar ones in several other towns involved predominantly white girls abused by men largely from Pakistani backgrounds, the issue has been used to link child sexual abuse to immigration, and to accuse politicians of covering up the crimes out of a fear of appearing racist.<\/p>\n

A 2022 report into what happened in the northwest England town of Oldham between 2011 and 2014 found that children were failed by local agencies, but that there was no cover-up despite \u201clegitimate concerns\u201d that the far-right would capitalize on \u201cthe high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January the government said it would support several local inquiries into child exploitation in cities where gangs of men were prosecuted. It had previously said there was no need for further investigations following a string of previous inquiries, both local and national.<\/p>\n

A seven-year inquiry was held under the previous Conservative government, but many of the 20 recommendations it made in 2022 \u2014 including compensation for abuse victims \u2014 have yet to be implemented.<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s government also asked Louise Casey, an expert on victim’s rights and social welfare, to review previous findings. Her review has been submitted to the government but has not yet been published.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never said we should not look again at any issue,\u201d Starmer said as he flew to Canada for a Group of Seven summit. \u201cI have wanted to be assured that on the question of any inquiry. That\u2019s why I asked Louise Casey who I hugely respect to do an audit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer position when she started the audit was that there was not a real need for a national inquiry over and above what was going on. She has looked at the material she has looked at and she has come to the view that there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she has seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The main opposition Conservative Party offered a swift response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose in authority deliberately covered up the systematic rape of thousands of girls as young as 10 because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani origin. They thought race relations were more important than protecting young girls,” Conservative law and order spokesman Chris Philp said. \u201cThe truth must now come out and people in positions of authority responsible for the cover up held to account.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON — The British government announced Saturday it will hold a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[75684,3907,748,27009,188,393,4179,4884,7136,1144,285,712,47397,16,15,1764,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-184578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-75684","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-child-abuse","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-great-britain","17":"tag-legal-proceedings","18":"tag-northern-ireland","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-scotland","21":"tag-sexual-abuse","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales","25":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114683515593879201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}