A highly anticipated, £65 million independent investigation into grooming gangs could be severely hampered by the loss of crucial historical evidence, according to Members of Parliament who point to Home Office negligence.
The statutory inquiry, set to be chaired by former children's commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield, will delve into the harrowing group-based sexual exploitation of young girls in towns such as Oldham. However, MPs sitting on the Home Affairs Select Committee have raised the alarm that local councils were never formally ordered to retain vital records linked to the abuse.
Conservative MP Robbie Moore described the oversight as "staggering." He warned that the government's failure to secure these documents risks undermining public confidence in the investigation and denying justice to survivors.
Labour MP Chris Murray echoed these frustrations, labeling the bureaucratic failure "inexplicable." Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Murray noted that instructing councils to preserve files should have been an automatic administrative step. He suggested that the inability to manage such a basic function indicates that the Home Office's senior leadership is "not fit for purpose."
When previously reviewing the scandal, Baroness Casey's National Audit explicitly recommended that all relevant agencies and local authorities be ordered to preserve their records pending a full national probe. The revelation that formal preservation letters were seemingly never dispatched has sparked fears that key paperwork may have already been destroyed.
The upcoming inquiry has been billed as a "moment of reckoning" by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. With sweeping statutory powers, investigators can legally compel witnesses to testify and surrender evidence. The probe will scrutinize the specific backgrounds of the perpetrators—including their ethnicity and religious beliefs—while also investigating allegations that local authorities deliberately ignored the abuse to protect "community cohesion."
Despite the missing preservation letters, Labour MP Murray pointed out a potential silver lining: when Labour took power in July 2024, Yvette Cooper mandated that police forces review all unprosecuted and closed cases, which may have inadvertently safeguarded some crucial data.
In response to the backlash, a spokesperson for the Home Office maintained that the department has collaborated across government to ensure necessary records are kept. They also issued a stark warning that anyone failing to produce required documents to the inquiry without a "reasonable excuse" could face imprisonment.
