A monstrous betrayal of Pakistani rape gang victims has happened today.
GB News understands that the survivors panel at the heart of the rape gang inquiry is going to be scrapped from January, with a new panel set up once the inquiry starts.
This is a disgusting betrayal. Sir Keir Starmer made a vow to survivors and stressed that he wanted survivors to be at the heart of the inquiry when he announced the national inquiry in June 2025.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood also insisted that the process is designed to ensure victims’ voices shape the inquiry.
Just months ago several survivors resigned from the panel, accusing Jess Phillips of calling them liars.
And today we find out the Labour Government is scrapping the victims’ panel.
Elizabeth Harper, who was abused in Rotherham from the age of 14, told the Metro: “How can you say it is survivor-led when you are going to scrap the panel. All the way through the process it has not been focused on survivors at all.”
And then what else happens today?
Patrick Christys hits out at the Government for scrapping the survivors’ panel at the heart of the grooming gangs inquiry
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GB NEWS
The Government announces Baroness Anne Longfield is the new chair of this grooming gangs inquiry.
Who is she? Ah… She’s a Labour Peer!
Bear in mind that this inquiry is really supposed to unearth the link between the Pakistani Muslim community and the industrial scale rape of predominantly working class white girls, she seems like an odd choice.
She’s previously called for a ‘national mission to identify and remove racial bias in the systems that are currently failing many black, brown and minority ethnic children.’
Last month she called for education leaders to commit to ’embedding a culture of anti-racism into the heart of their schools. She used to be the Chair of the Children’s Commission.
In 2013, two years before Baroness Longfield took over, the Children’s Commission published a report into child grooming that was absolutely panned for down playing the Pakistani aspect of it.
Then, when Baroness Longfield took over, one of her first acts was to allow the previous Deputy Chair, who failed to speak out about abuse by Pakistani gangs and criticised the media for being too fixated on Pakistani perpetrators, to take a cushy redundancy package and then be rehired as a consultant.
This decision was then reversed because it breached government rules and at the time, the Children’s Commissioner argued she was only re-hired for a limited number of day and it was necessary because of the importance and sensitivity of the work she was employed to carry out.
So she’s now in charge of this inquiry. Well I’m sorry, but the links between Islam and the grooming gangs is precisely something this inquiry is supposed to be looking at.
A new, academic report by Christian Concern, did claim there was a link, with some victims even reporting having verses of the Quran quoted to them while they were raped and abused.
The report identified links between fundamentalist Islamic interpretations of male dominance over women and how it’s acceptable to treat non-believers and the way in which the white, Christian girls were abused.
I’m sorry but to me this looks a lot like yet another stitch-up. No survivors panel until the inquiry starts, a Labour peer with a pretty woke track record in charge, and a Home Secretary who is already doing everything she can to say there’s no link between the rape gangs and Islam.
