Elon Musk has been accused of putting out ‘misjudged and misinformed’ comments about the scandal of child grooming gangs preying on hundreds of young girls in England
The scandal of child grooming gangs has rocketed to the top of the news agenda after Elon Musk stepped up his attacks on Keir Starmer’s Government.
The tech billionaire seized on an article by GB News, which reported that Minister Jess Phillips had rejected calls for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham. The X owner posted or reposted comments about child grooming in the UK more than 40 times in 24 hours, including a call for Ms Phillips to be jailed.
He also blamed Keir Starmer for failing to prosecute the perpetrators when he was Director of Public Prosecutions and claimed there had been no Government inquiry into the scandal. But many of his claims – which have spread widely on his social media platform – aren’t true. Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the attacks were “misjudged and certainly misinformed”.
Here we separate the facts from the fiction.
What is the grooming gangs scandal?
The systematic sexual abuse of young girls was uncovered over a decade ago in a number of towns in England, with hundreds of victims failed repeatedly by police and child protection authorities.
An independent report found in 2014 that more than 1,400 children in Rotherham, south Yorkshire were exposed to sexual abuse and violence between 1997 and 2013 by gangs of predominantly by British Pakistani men.
Up to 1,000 girls were abused over 40 years in Telford, Shropshire, by men of south Asian heritage, an inquiry found, after a lengthy investigation by the Sunday Mirror. Chairman Tom Crowther QC said concerns had been ignored for decades due to “nervousness about race”.
Another high profile report found children were left at the mercy of grooming gangs in Rochdale between 2004 to 2013, carried out by predominantly Asian men.
But a Home Office study in 2020 found data on the ethnicity of perpetrators was significantly limited and research found “group-based CSE (child sexual exploitation) offenders are most commonly White.”
The report added: “Some studies suggest an over-representation of Black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.”
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Is he right about Keir Starmer’s record?
Keir Starmer, who was Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008-13, was accused by Mr Musk for failing to prosecute gangs who groomed and abused young girls.
In fact, Mr Starmer ordered a comprehensive overhaul of the Crown Prosecution Service’s response to grooming in 2012 in an attempt to drive up convictions. He said at the time that a generation of girls had been betrayed by a flawed justice system and argued that prosecutors “shouldn’t shy away from” understanding issues of ethnicity.
Nazir Afzal, the former chief crown prosecutor for northwest England who led prosecutions against the Rochdale grooming gang, defended the PM, who he said was supportive of his efforts to take on rape gangs.
He said: “After Starmer’s involvement, the police were told that the policy was to believe the victim and then investigate. This was a 180-degree turn, a sea change in the way we approach these types of cases. And the impact was immediate.”
Tory former attorney general Dominic Grieves said there was no evidence that the CPS under Mr Starmer wrongly refused consent to prosecute. He added: “On the contrary Starmer was pro-active in focussing on this type of crime as [Nazir Afzal] has correctly highlighted. There may well have been failures to address this issue elsewhere through reporting and investigation but that is not the role of the CPS. Baseless innuendo does not contribute to serious debate.”
Has there been a public inquiry?
Mr Musk said there had been no UK Government inquiry into the scandal, adding: “Shame, shame, shame.”
This is not true. Professor Alexis Jay led a seven-year independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales, which reported in 2022. It described the sexual abuse of children as an “epidemic that leaves tens of thousands of victims in its poisonous wake”.
It looked into 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. There have also been numerous investigations into grooming gangs in these places.
There has not been a national public inquiry dedicated solely to grooming gangs. The IICSA probe, which was set up in the wake of child sexual abuse scandals involving Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris, looked at organised child sexual exploitation as well as abuse in settings like religious organisations, boarding schools and online.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded a full national inquiry, saying no one in authority has “joined up the dots”. But the Tories were accused of hypocrisy for failing to commission such an inquiry during their 14 years in power.
What did Jess Phillips do?
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips has been a target of Mr Musk’s anger after she denied requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham. The X boss said on his social media platform that she “deserves to be in prison”.
Ms Phillips told Oldham Council in October that while she recognised the “strength of feeling” she believed it was for “Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene”.
The Tories gave similar responses to councillors in Telford and Oldham when in Government.
Cabinet Minister Wes Streeting said the Government was committed to implementing the recommendations from Proj Jay’s report in full. In November, Prof Jay said she felt “frustrated” that none of the 20 recommendations had been implemented from her inquiry – more than two years after its conclusion.
