Child grooming risk probe launched in South Ribble

It comes after a political clash over whether South Ribble Borough Council should call on the government to set up a fresh national inquiry into grooming gangs.

Conservative opposition group member Mathew Forshaw had asked the authority to formally request the move, which ministers ruled out earlier this year on the basis that the recommendations of a previous nationwide child abuse probe had yet to be implemented.

In response, South Ribble’s ruling Labour group has charged a council committee with looking into the matter at a local level before recommending whether the authority should make the call being demanded by Cllr Forshaw.

He told a meeting of the full council that it was difficult to obtain statistics regarding grooming and CSE in the borough, making it "practically impossible to find out if this has been - or is still - happening in South Ribble”.

Bringing a notice of motion on the subject, Cllr Forshaw said a national investigation should include “a comprehensive review of any grooming gang activity” in Lancashire.

Referring to events uncovered in other parts of the country, he added: “Young, underage girls [were] often groomed, drugged, plied with alcohol, raped - often repeatedly - by numerous men; some made pregnant, some losing their babies due to their extremely young age and others having to go through traumatic abortions as young as 12 and 13.

“We need a national inquiry to obtain the facts [and] hold [to account] both the perpetrators and the people in authority who may have…covered this up - but, more importantly, to get justice for the victims.

“The word ‘Asian’ was purposely and misleadingly used to blur the lines from the real perpetrators. A national debate has not happened [for] the fear of being called racist.”

Cabinet member for finance Matthew Tomlinson said he believed the council should only concern itself with national issues if it can “show there’s a direct impact on the people of South Ribble”.

To that end, he suggested Cllr Forshaw’s motion be referred to South Ribble’s community and external scrutiny committee for it to consider how best to “evaluate the risk” of child grooming in the district.

Cllr Tomlinson said the cross-party group should then “explore how this council can be confident it is playing its part in ensuring that all possible protections are being offered by the wide range of organisations that work with children across our borough”.

He added that “having formed a view” on the matter, the committee should report its findings to the full council, including any recommendations for further reducing the risk to South Ribble's children - and indicate whether the authority ought to push for a national inquiry.

The referral was backed by a majority - and Cllr Tomlinson rejected claims from the Tory side of the chamber that he had “negated” the essence of the original motion, because, he said, it left open the possibility of calling for the broader inquiry the opposition wanted.

However, Cllr Forshaw said putting the issue in the hands of a council committee that does not have the power “to compel authorities to attend to give evidence is not the answer”.

Lancashire Police is not aware of evidence of orchestrated abuse at any sort of scale taking place within South Ribble, the Local Democracy Reporting Service understands.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAYS

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), lasted seven years and its final report was published in 2022. A separate report specifically into child sexual exploitation by organised networks and grooming gangs was issued the same year.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons in January that “shamefully little progress” had been made since.

She said the government would, before Easter, lay out “a clear timetable for taking forward the 20 recommendations from the final IICSA report" and also “implement all the remaining recommendations” from the report on grooming gangs.

Ms. Cooper added: “I am extending the remit of the independent Child Sexual Abuse Review Panel so it covers not just historic cases before 2013, but all cases since, so that any victim of abuse will have the right to seek an independent review without having to go back to the local institutions who decided not to proceed with their case.

“I am writing…to the National Police Chiefs Council to ask all chief constables to look again at historic gang exploitation cases where ‘no further action’ was taken and work with the police Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce to pursue new lines of inquiry and re-open investigations where appropriate - and these new measures will be backed by £2 million of additional funding for the taskforce and the panel.”