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Britain's Starmer announces national inquiry into 'grooming gangs'
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
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Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Keir Starmer agrees to a national inquiry into UK grooming gangs after Louise Casey's report. The scandal involves abuse of young girls by gangs.
(Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday he would accept a recommendation for a national inquiry into grooming gangs who sexually abused thousands of girls, having previously resisted calls for a statutory review.
The scandal, which revealed how gangs of mostly Pakistani men had groomed, trafficked and raped young white girls more than a decade ago, returned to the political agenda this year after U.S. billionaire Elon Musk criticised the British government.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper in January asked Louise Casey, a former senior official, to undertake a "rapid audit" of the scale and nature of gang-based exploitation in Britain.
Casey's report is expected to say that vulnerable white British girls were "institutionally ignored" by police and local authorities fearing being accused of racism, Sky News reported on Saturday.
"(Casey's) position when she started the audit was that there was not a real need for a national inquiry, over and above what was going on," Starmer told reporters en route to the G7 summit in Canada on Saturday.
"She has come to the view that there should be a national inquiry on the basis of what she has seen. I have read every single word of her report and I am going to accept her recommendation," he added.
The Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had to be led by the nose to make what she said was the correct decision.
"I've been repeatedly calling for a full national inquiry since January," she said.
"Many survivors of the grooming gangs will be relieved that this is finally happening. But they need a resolution soon, not in 10 years' time."
(Reporting by Suzanne Plunkett and Paul Sandle; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Joe Bavier)
Keir Starmer announced that he would accept a recommendation for a national inquiry into grooming gangs who sexually abused thousands of girls.
Louise Casey's audit focused on the scale and nature of gang-based exploitation in Britain, particularly highlighting how vulnerable white British girls were 'institutionally ignored' by authorities.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch stated that Starmer had to be led to make the correct decision and emphasized that she had been calling for a full national inquiry since January.
Many survivors expressed relief that the inquiry is finally happening, but they emphasized the need for a resolution soon, rather than waiting for years.
Starmer mentioned that he had read every single word of Casey's report and agreed with her recommendation for a national inquiry based on her findings.
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