On Wednesday 22nd of January, the Prosperity Institute hosted Open Justice UK for an event on the grooming gangs scandal. Last year, renewed attention was focused on these horrific crimes—in which gangs of largely British-Pakistani Muslim men groomed, abused, and trafficked underage white girls—when extracts from the sentencing remarks were posted on social media.
That led to the founding of the group Open Justice UK, who fundraised to buy and release the transcripts of sentencing remarks and trials involving the grooming gangs. Grooming gang survivors were often unable to access these documents, even though they were involved in the trial. Acquiring these turned out to be a struggle of its own, with some judges refusing requests for access. That has drawn attention to the lack of transparency about these crimes.
Now Open Justice UK are about to release a multi-part interview series, between Bradford survivor Fiona Goddard and journalist Julie Bindel. To commemorate this, the Prosperity Institute brought together a panel, consisting of Conservative MP Katie Lam, Labour peer Lord Glasman, Reform UK candidate for Mayor of London Cllr Laila Cunningham, and Fiona Goddard. The discussion was chaired by Guy Dampier, the Senior Researcher on Nationhood at the Prosperity Institute.
The event discussed the need to ensure justice by properly punishing the abusers, how to help survivors—who are often denied access to or given only paltry amounts of compensation—and failings with the terms of reference for the National Inquiry into the subject which was announced last year by the Government.
This is very much an ongoing fight, and the release of the transcripts—including that of Fiona Goddard—has highlighted the scale of the problem, with the grooming gangs operating as organised criminal groups, who can traffic victims across the country. With the National Inquiry reliant on local inquiries, the scale of the issue may prove to be beyond its remit, raising questions about what the authorities really need to do in order to tackle the issue.