UK Launches Statutory Grooming Gang Inquiry

The UK government has launched a statutory national inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation, following Baroness Louise Casey’s critical report on grooming gangs and years of institutional failures. The inquiry, now backed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, will have powers to compel witness testimony and aims to investigate why authorities often failed to protect victims, sometimes due to fears of being labelled racist. It will scrutinize both local and national government failures, including inadequate data collection on perpetrators’ ethnicity and the criminalization of victims. Survivors and Casey have called for unity and action, criticizing the politicization of the issue, while figures such as Kemi Badenoch have used the launch to attack Labour's past hesitance. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to back the inquiry marks a major policy reversal under public and political pressure. Many survivors hope the inquiry will finally deliver accountability and lasting change.