British Home Office minister Jess Phillips used MPs’ imminent Easter recess to drop the nationally supervised five ‘local’ public inquiries into predominantly Pakistani-heritage ‘grooming’ (i.e. rape and torture) gangs that have operated for decades English towns and cities.
Former head of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, told his Times Radio listeners it was
utterly, utterly shameful. Utterly shameful.
The five local investigations were already under fire because they were set up as an unsatisfactory substitute for a national inquiry. Now they will become optional for their host local authorities, with Westminster funding such activity from a £5m (€5.8m) discretionary budget.
While recent British history is littered with judicial inquiries set up as a substitute for politics, apparent government indifference to the problem of so-called grooming gangs continues to fuel public anger.
