Report finds 'extensive failures' in tackling sexual exploitation of children by gangs

1 February 2022, 12:06 | Updated: 2 February 2022, 07:49

'Victims are being let down on an industrial scale'

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has identified "extensive failures" by local authorities and police forces to tackle the sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs.

Children are being sexually exploited in all parts of England and Wales "in the most degrading and destructive ways," the inquiry said in a report today.

They include the case of a 14-year-old girl who described being abducted several times for sex, including by a group of 23 men who held her at gunpoint whilst forcing her to perform a sex act.

She was placed back in care and began self-harming. She described feeling failed by the police and children’s social care services. 

Another girl in care said care home staff knew she and other girls were being sexually exploited and given alcohol and drugs by adult men, and nothing was done.

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The inquiry looked at six case study areas in England and Wales in relation to 33 children who had been victims. They were: St Helens, Tower Hamlets, Swansea, Durham, Bristol and Warwickshire.

In two areas, Swansea and Tower Hamlets, local authorities claimed there was "no data" to suggest there was gang related sexual abuse in their area, when the inquiry found plenty of evidence. 

Meanwhile, none of the areas considered by the inquiry kept data on the ethnicity of victims and alleged perpetrators, making it impossible for anyone to know whether any links or trends exist.

There were also several instances of child grooming victims being charged with criminal offences, when their offending was in the words of the inquiry "inextricably linked" with their exploitation.

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The inquiry states that questions need to be asked about whether it is really in the public interest to be prosecuting children in such situations. 

It also describes a number of instances of "victim blaming" by the authorities, including in Durham where a child was described as "placing herself in danger" and "taking risks by sexualised behaviour", or in Warwickshire where police described a child as being "promiscuous". 

A number of cases in which perpetrators of abuse had not been prosecuted were identified in the report, which describes an "institutional hesitancy" to intervene to protect vulnerable children. 

In one case in Tower Hamlets, a boy of 13 was frequently going missing from care and attending parties in hotels, where he would be sexually abused.

The Met Police decided it was not a sexual exploitation case based on a single telephone call with social workers. They did not speak to the child or his family. They did not take any action against the hotel.

Similar police failures to investigate possible sexual exploitation were found in all six areas the inquiry looked at.

It has made a number of recommendations to address the issues it identified, including that the Government should change the law to make child sexual exploitation an aggravating factor in sentencing. 

The inquiry also recommends that police forces and local authorities should improve data collection, including on the sex, ethnicity and disability of both victims and perpetrators. 

It proposes an immediate ban on placement of vulnerable children into semi-independent and independent accommodation. 

Chair to the inquiry Professor Alexis Jay said: "The sexual exploitation of children by networks is not a rare phenomenon confined to a small number of areas with high-profile criminal cases. It is a crime which involves the sexual abuse of children in the most degrading and destructive ways, by multiple perpetrators. 

"We found extensive failures by local authorities and police forces in the ways in which they tackled this sexual abuse. There appeared to be a flawed assumption that child sexual exploitation was on the wane, however it has become even more of a hidden problem and increasingly underestimated when only linked to other forms of criminal behaviour such as county lines."