Kemi Badenoch urges action on grooming gang inquiry, echoing key calls from BBK

Kemi Badenoch has demanded the Government urgently launches a national inquiry into child grooming gangs to discover how predators have been able to operate with impunity for so many years.

The Conservative leader set out a raft of terms, including that the statutory inquiry must be led by a judge and subject to a two-year time limit so it “can’t drag on for years and years”. Judicial leadership is essential, she said, “so it’s impartial and the survivors can have confidence”.

Her remarks echo concerns long voiced by survivors and their representatives, including my colleague, Alan Collins who personally set out his thoughts in a letter to Ms Badenoch last month. 

Alan has represented victims of grooming gangs and has seen firsthand how systemic failures across policing, social care and education allowed abuse to continue unchecked.

Recently, he outlined to Ms Badenoch the urgent need for an inquiry that survivors can trust, one capable of exposing these failures and ensuring meaningful accountability. He emphasised confidence in any inquiry depends on appointing a chair with genuine independence and authority, ideally a judge from a Commonwealth jurisdiction with experience of cases involving sexual exploitation and organised crime.

Survivors want a process that is credible and capable of following the evidence wherever it leads.

Ms Badenoch’s press conference today calling for a judge-led inquiry adds important political weight to what survivors have been saying for years. What matters now is whether the Government listens.

Survivors have waited too long and confidence in the State’s willingness to confront these issues is fragile. Successive governments have failed to take proper action on this and a new chair – a figure survivors can trust – must be appointed without further delay.

In his letter, Alan urged Ms Badenoch to press the Government for immediate clarity and to raise the matter in Parliament to ensure this issue cannot be sidelined once again.

The Government must now confirm the inquiry’s structure, appoint an appropriate chair and set out a clear timetable. Survivors cannot wait any longer.