Rape Gang Inquiry Questions Land at Labour Party’s Door – Guido Fawkes

Rape Gang Inquiry Questions Land at Labour Party’s Door

mdi-fullscreen

As the government refuses to answer questions on what its Casey-recommended inquiry will look like and crucially whether it will interview sitting parliamentarians or Whitehall officials questions are already being raised. A Labour minister is in the spotlight…

Current housing minister Jim McMahon led Oldham council between 2011 and 2016. During this period the local child sexual exploitation’s 2012 media strategy – known as Messenger – did not mention the ethnicity of victims or perpetrators. A 2022 report into councils’ conduct with regard to rape gangs said the council “articulated a concern that there could be assumptions in the media and the public at large that child sexual exploitation was carried out by men from ethnic minorities against white girls, which could create community tensions.” Exactly what Casey was talking about in her audit…

Labour is defending McMahon, with a spokesman saying “Jim was explicit and vocal about [ethnicity], saying as leader of Oldham council, long before many others would, that to do so would not be helping the victims, nor the Asian community at large. To suggest this was in any way downplayed defies the evidence.” The Tories say it is “damning”…

Co-conspirators may remember current Labour MP for Telford Shaun Davies was leader of Telford and Wrekin council and wrote to the government in 2016 rejecting a call for an inquiry into rape gangs in the town. He said: “We do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary.” When one was eventually started up three years later it became the best-known and respected Crowther inquiry…

Jess Phillips of course rejected an inquiry request from Oldham Council once she became a minister. Any statutory inquiry must include in its scope sitting parliamentarians and Whitehall officials alike. Some current Labour figures will be sweating…