The publication of Baroness Casey’s grooming gang’s audit has forced Sir Keir Starmer into a U-turn, with the Prime Minister pledging a national inquiry into the scandal months after dismissing calls for an investigation as a “far-Right bandwagon”. Having “read every single word” of Casey’s report, Sir Keir now believes that an inquiry is due. Yet much of what it covers was already known, from institutional failures and cowardice to patterns of behaviour. The difference is that now these statements are coming from an official source, it’s harder to write them off as dog whistles or deliberate attempts to stir up conflict. Below are some of the key messages from the report. The establishment attempted to dismiss the issue of ethnicity out of hand The question of ethnicity has been “shied away from” across the country, Casey’s report concludes, with the ethnicity of two-thirds of perpetrators not recorded. Yet in the areas where data is available, there is enough evidence of disproportionate representation of Asian men to “at least warrant further examination.” The official response to this has been “obfuscation” with “the system” claiming an “overwhelming problem with White perpetrators when that can’t be proved”. A perfect example is found in the 2020 Home Office report, which has been “quoted and requoted in official reports, the media and elsewhere as proof that claims made about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ are sensationalised or untrue, although this audit found it hard to understand how the Home Office paper reached that conclusion, which does not seem to be evidenced in research or data.” Then again, the Home Office is hardly the only organisation to have behaved in this way. As the review states, “despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young White girls, the system has consistently failed to fully acknowledge this or collect accurate data so it can be examined effectively. Instead, flawed data is used repeatedly to dismiss claims about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ as sensationalised, biased or untrue.” Officials were terrified that telling the truth would lead to ‘community tensions’ The reason for this appears to be simple cowardice. Casey’s report found that official reports on child abuse displayed “palpable discomfort” at the mention of ethnicity, either avoiding references entirely or referring to it in “euphemisms such as ‘the local community’”. The institutions of the state, instead of examining the issue of ethnicity and culture, chose to avoid the topic “for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems”. In one case, a local authority identified “a significant number of cases of group-based child sexual exploitation carried out predominantly by members of the Pakistani community” and prepared a plan directly targeting this group; it was subsequently replaced by a “broad commitment” to tackling child sexual exploitation “in its varied manifestations across the District’s communities”. Police forces, meanwhile, stated that local authorities would “discourage” them from publicising convictions “due to fear of raising tensions”. Data is still not being properly collated, with the majority of perpetrators being recorded without their ethnicity. With the data of such poor quality, Casey labels the practice of presenting it without including the unknowns as “misleading”. Guilty councils don’t want the issue reopened The idea that local authorities can be trusted to run their own inquiries is simply without merit. As Casey’s review has found, councils where offending has come to light are still sometimes unwilling to make a full accounting of what happened, what they knew, and what they did to stop it. Casey’s review notes that some local areas are showing “reluctance” to “conduct reviews or establish an inquiry”, with officials claiming that “practice had improved or that issues had been ‘covered elsewhere’”. It is perhaps for this reason that Casey recommends a “national police operation and national inquiry” coordinating local investigations, noting that “local authorities, police forces and other relevant agencies should in the meantime be required not to destroy any relevant records”. Care homes became targets for abusers In over two thirds of the serious case reviews examined by Casey’s team, “children were experiencing sexual exploitation while they were in care, and it often started in care — so after they were placed in the ‘care’ of the state to presumably keep them safe”. Residential care homes had effectively become targets for abusers. Police officers who met with Casey’s team stated that they were “tracking down children with a history of residential and other care settings on the basis that it was likely they had experienced or witnessed child sexual exploitation. So on this basis, being in care is a ‘risk factor’ for exploitation not a protective factor”. Taxi licencing put children at risk As Casey found, several reviews have noted the role of weak taxi licensing as “a facilitator of child sexual exploitation”, offering “a potential way for perpetrators to meet their victims, as well as a means of trafficking victims to different locations and introducing them to other perpetrators”. Reports in Rotherham, Telford, Oldham, and Newcastle have also highlighted this issue. Grooming tactics shielded abusers from prosecution Cases where adults had abused children were dropped “because the child involved — typically aged 13 to 15 — had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the adult”. Other perpetrators faced lesser charges because authorities believed the child had “consented” to being raped. As Casey notes, “given we know that ‘the boyfriend model’ — encouraging a child to believe they are in a loving, caring relationship as a means of coercing them into sex — is one of the most common methods to groom children, it’s counter-intuitive that our legal system rewards perpetrators who effectively use this model by allowing them to avoid prosecution for one of the most serious offences: rape”. The state is still letting the victims down In a personal note, Baroness Casey discusses the struggles the victims of these gangs still face. Women have received criminal convictions for their behaviour as groomed children; have been told abusers would be arrested then watched them walk free; have waited years for cases to progress with no contact from the police; have had abusers break anonymity orders “with impunity”; been denied trauma counselling “in case it compromised their evidence”. State inaction put children at risk, allowed abuse to continue, has left abusers on the street, and denied children — now women — justice. It’s time to put this right.