Kemi Badenoch a quite shocking encounter with gang victims

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has met survivors of grooming gangs in Oldham and Rotherham and described the meeting as “quite shocking”.

Speaking to GB News, she said it was “extraordinary” to hear victims describe “going to the authorities multiple times….

Badenoch is demanding a national inquiry into grooming gangs but is facing criticism after meeting no victims so far.

On Monday, the Labor MP for Rotherham, Sarah Champion, joined growing calls for a full investigation, saying “nothing less… will restore confidence in our safeguarding systems”.

Speaking to GB News on Monday evening, Badenoch said she would “do everything, and the Conservative Party will do everything, to ensure that you [survivors] get justice.”

Pressed about why the previous Conservative government had not launched an investigation into “grooming gangs”, she said: “I think we thought the investigation we had started would be sufficient.”

“I thought, ‘oh, there’s an investigation happening, let’s see where it comes out,’ and what we’ve seen is we’ve had multiple non-national investigations. They’re not enough. Let’s do more,” she says. said.

Badenoch said she believed a new national inquiry should look at what she called a “systematic pattern of behavior” among certain communities in the country.

They are “people who are very, very poor, kind of a peasant background – very, very rural, almost cut off from even the countries of origin that they might have lived in,” she said. “They’re not necessarily first generation,” she added.

She said something must be done about a “culture of silence” in the state.

Between 1997 and 2013, several parts of the country – including Oldham and Rotherham – were ravaged by gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani origin, who raped and trafficked children as young as 11.

A independent report published by Prof. Alexis Jay in 2014, an estimated 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham.

She would later lead the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which lasted seven years and made 20 recommendations.

Professor Jay has previously said victims want to see action on her recommendations, and rejected calls for a new inquiry.

There have also been a series of local reviews into child sexual abuse in Manchester, Rochdale and Oldham, published between 2020 and 2024, which found authorities had failed to protect children from sexual exploitation by gangs of mainly Asian men .

And in recent weeks the Conservatives and Reform UK have called for a new national inquiry into ‘grooming’ gangs.

Earlier this month MPs voted against a Tory move to force a new national investigation.

When asked whether the reason a national inquiry had not been launched was because politicians could be involved in a cover-up, and whether the Labor Party was opposed to an inquiry, Badenoch said this was “certainly something we need to look into to look” .

“I don’t understand why, when there is so much support, even from their own MPs, more and more people are moving to the Labor side and we cannot have a culture of fear,” she said.

“I’m not afraid, the Conservative Party is under new leadership. What we have done previously to address the problem is clearly not enough. We need to do much more, and Labor must get on board. And if they don’t, I think they’ll have very serious questions from voters when the time comes.”

Rochdale’s Labor MP on Monday joined calls for a new full inquirysaying child sexual abuse is “endemic” in Britain and should be “a national priority”.

Champion, who has campaigned on child protection for more than a decade, said: “I have long believed that we need to fully understand the nature of this crime and the failures in government agencies’ response if we are to truly protect children.”

She also called for the IICSA report’s recommendations to be implemented “fully, with a timetable and resources earmarked.”

Two other Labor figures from the affected places – Rochdale MP Paul Waugh and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – have also called for limited new investigations.

But Downing Street has said his priority is to implement the recommendations of the IICSA report, published in 2022.

Last week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that one of the report’s key proposals – mandatory reporting – would be added to the Crime and Policing Bill.

Number 10 said on Monday there would be “a range of views” on the issue of a new inquiry, and that the government would be “led and led by the victims and survivors”.