Just day after Starmer's U-turn on grooming gangs Home Office announces NCA national probe - why didn't they launch this years ago?

JUST a day after the Labour Government's major U-turn on launching a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, it has today announced a countrywide operation to investigate the offenders.

The National Crime Agency (NCA), which is not a police force, will "target predators" who have sexually exploited children as part of a gang, the Home Office has just announced.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "More survivors of vile grooming gangs will get justice through a nationwide policing operation to track down perpetrators of this horrific abuse.

"In a major new move, the Home Office can confirm the National Crime Agency, the UK’s most senior investigating agency, will carry out a nationwide operation to target predators who have sexually exploited children as part of a gang and put them behind bars.

"It comes after the government confirmed that the local authorities and institutions who failed to act to protect young people will be held to account for their actions through a National Inquiry to get to the truth of institutional failings, following a rapid review by Baroness Casey."

The Labour Government has insisted since January that there was no need for a national inquiry with statutory powers, despite growing calls for one.

However, after a quick-fire review by Baroness Casey, which it commissioned, recommended holding one amid suggestions authorities had not acted against often Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs amid fears of being labelled racist, it performed the U-turn.

The spokesperson added: "This new full-powers statutory inquiry will build on the work carried out by Alexis Jay and her Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but look specifically at how young girls were failed so badly by different agencies on a local level."

Set up under the Inquiries Act, the inquiry will be able to direct and oversee this work, deciding where local investigations are needed and having the powers needed to compel witnesses to get to the truth. This will strengthen the commitment made by the government at the start of the year to carry out locally-led inquiries.

Child sex abuse grooming gangs have operated in towns across the UK for decades, most notably in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham and Telford, and often made up of offenders of Pakistani heritage.

Other nationalities, including British, have also been involved. Only a fraction of offenders have been prosecuted.

The NCA, often dubbed Britain's FBI, has already carried out Operation Stovewood into historic grooming gang cases in Rotherham, after the scandal of victim-blaming among police and social services, with a number of recent prosecutions.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The vulnerable young girls who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of groups of adult men have now grown into brave women who are rightly demanding justice for what they went through when they were just children.

“Not enough people listened to them then. That was wrong and unforgivable. We are changing that now.

“More than 800 grooming gang cases have already been identified by police after I asked them to look again at cases which had closed too early. Now we are asking the National Crime Agency to lead a major nationwide operation to track down more perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

The NCA will work in partnership with police forces around the country and specialist officers from the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce, Operation Hydrant – which supports police forces to address all complex and high profile cases of child sexual abuse – and the Tackling Organised Exploitation Programme.

Their job will be to give victims of these horrific crimes, whose cases were not progressed through the criminal justice system, long-awaited justice and prevent more children from being hurt by these vile criminals.

This will build on action already taken by the government to see offenders locked up. Police have already reopened over 800 historic cases of group-based child sexual abuse since the Home Secretary asked them in January to look again at cases that were closed too early and victims denied justice.

As well as imprisoning more perpetrators and protecting more victims, the national operation will help to improve how local police forces investigate these crimes, and help to put an end to the culture of denial in local services and authorities about the prevalence of this crime.

The National Inquiry will have the power to compel local deep dive investigations into historic cases of grooming gang crimes to make sure that complaints and allegations of mishandling, wrongdoing and cover-ups by police, agencies and other professionals and elected officials are brought to light and those responsible held accountable.

Reporting to a single chair, the panel will also have the power to compel witnesses to attend hearings in a bid to get truth for victims.

Essex News and Investigations Opinion

"On the one hand this is good news. The NCA has prosecuted a number of twisted offenders under Operation Stovewood, for historic offences, that they would otherwise have got away with due to the Rotherham scandal.

However, the question is clear. If the capacity is there for this, why was it not done years ago? It didn't need a national inquiry, or even the review by Baroness Casey, to tell the Government this was a good idea.

It is painfully transparent that the Government has only announced this today to try to save face from its embarrassing U-turn it was forced into making.

If, it hadn't been forced into this position, this operation would never have seen the light of day.

On the plus side, let's hope it now leads to more convictions of people who would otherwise have evaded justice and also gets to the bottom of the grooming gang allegations on Humberside highlighted by Essex News and Investigations since 2021."