Nigel Farage and Reform UK have ramped up calls for a Parliamentary probe into the grooming gangs scandal as Labour have “dithered and delayed” over a national inquiry.
The five Reform MPs have written to the Tory chairwoman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Dame Karen Bradley, “calling on you to bring the power back to Parliament”.
Mr Farage has suggested a joint initiative by both MPs and Lords could lead to the launch of a special commission into the decades-long scandal.
It comes after survivor Ellie-Ann Reynolds blasted Labour’s attempt at a national inquiry into the scandal saying it was “rigged from the start”.
She slammed the Home Office for “gaslighting and manipulating” survivors.
And Labour’s attempts to hold a national inquiry descended into farce after victims quit a key liaison panel, whilst both candidates to chair the probe withdrew from the process.
Sources have admitted it will take months to find a new chair, with critics insisting it must be a judge.
Reform’s five MPs declared in a letter to Dame Karen: “Last week, we sat with Ellie-Ann Reynolds, a victim-survivor of grooming gangs who had sat on the inquiry panel before resigning, said that the government inquiry was “less about the truth and more about a cover-up”.
“This is unfair to all victims of grooming and grooming gangs. People need to be held accountable and to be questioned by a panel of MPs and Peers from all Parties, and what better venue for that than in Parliament?
“The government have dithered and delayed on this inquiry of paramount national importance, we do not have time to waste, so please join us in doing the right thing and establish such a Commission which will allow MPs and Peers to summon and then question, under oath key figures involved in the cover-up, from senior Police officers, former MPS, former and serving local Councillors, social workers, and most importantly the victim-survivors who need to be heard and we as parliamentarians have a duty to ensure that they are silenced no longer.”
A massive review of cases involving alleged rape gangs has found ‘human error’ led to some police investigations being dropped.
Thousands of cases are set to be reviewed as part of Operation Beaconport, a national project to unearth failures to tackle grooming gangs.
So far 1,273 files from 23 police forces have been referred to the National Crime Agency-led review, of which 236 are being examined as a priority because they involve allegations of rape.
NCA deputy director Nigel Leary said initial reviews suggest there were mistakes in some of the investigations.
But Rotherham survivor Sammy Woodhouse blasted the claim.
She declared: “It was not human error that hundreds of thousands of children in the UK were groomed, abused, raped, tortured, trafficked, and murdered — while people in power were complicit, blamed and ignored the victims, criminalised them, intimidated them, drugged them, and even removed their children to give them to the men who raped them and then fined or arrested their parents for trying to stop it.
“They’re complicit and should be criminally charged.”
Mr Leary told journalists: “Initial reviews have identified that in some cases where there has been a decision to take no further action (NFA), there were available lines of inquiry that could have been pursued.
“We’ve seen in those cases what appears to be potentially human error.
“We’ve seen in some cases that those investigations haven’t followed what we would characterise as proper investigative practice, actually that would have contributed to the NFA decision.
“That includes, for example, lines of inquiry being identified but not being followed, victim accounts not being taken in a way that we would recognise as best practice, and suspects not being pursued or interviewed in the ways that we would anticipate.”
Operation Beaconport is reviewing cases between January 1 2010 and March 31 2025, with thousands expected to come under scrutiny.
Mr Leary said: “This is going to be a phenomenally large undertaking.
“It will be the most comprehensive investigation of its type in UK history.
“We estimate that over the life cycle of the operation, it will involve thousands of officers from across policing.”
Officials are recording the ethnicity of suspects and victims as part of the review, and have found gaps in the existing data that they are trying to fill.
As they examine cases they aim to flag any dangerous suspects, and any that are at risk of fleeing the country.
Investigators have pledged to be “honest and transparent” with victims from the start, to avoid giving them unrealistic expectations.
Mr Leary said: “Not all matters we review, even where they’re reinvestigated, even where victim or survivor says ‘I want that to be reinvestigated’, will produce a criminal justice outcome.
“They won’t for a variety of reasons.
“I think we can conduct those inquiries and those investigations in a way that is trauma informed, that’s open and honest and transparent, that’s realistic, where we have good communication.
“My hope is that what we do is we build confidence in the process, even though the outcome in some cases will not, of course, be that which we might wish.”
Last month the Metropolitan Police announced that they are reviewing 9,000 cases of child sexual exploitation.
It is expected that some of these will be referred to Operation Beaconport, which is looking at cases involving two or more suspects, more than one victim, contact offences, where the suspects are still alive, and that has not already been independently reviewed.
Responding to the NCA update, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “This Government initiated this national policing operation to track down the evil child rapists that perpetrated these crimes, and put them behind bars where they belong.
“There will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society.”
