Mayor ‘not opposed’ to new national grooming inquiry

Photo: GMCA

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham has said that he ‘would not be opposed’ to a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.

The mayor launched a review into systematic child sexual abuse In Greater Manchester shortly after taking office in 2017. It has produced ‘blistering’ reports on the authorities’ response in Oldham, Manchester, and Rochdale.

However, no council or police officer has faced criminal proceedings as a result of those reviews, prompting the mayor to say he is open for a new national inquiry.

“The review I instigated was not a public inquiry,” Mr Burnham told BBC Radio Manchester on Thursday (9 January). “People were not required to give evidence. 

“There’s a difference at a local level and a statutory public inquiry. There will always be limitations with what you can do with a local review. The review team could not compel someone to speak to them.

“That’s why I am not opposed to that sort of [national] review.

“I do think there’s a case for limited national inquiry which draws on local reviews to draw out some of these issues which compels people to speak. It may draw out charges.”

The last Conservative government received the final report from the latest inquiry into grooming, called the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, in 2022. Ministers then did not implement its 20 recommendations before they left office.

Author Prof Alexis Jay described the sexual abuse of children as an ‘epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake’. It examined abuse by organised groups following multiple convictions of sexual offences against children across the UK between 2010-2014, including in Rotherham, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Rochdale, and Bristol.

Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter