Grooming gang scandal: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to announce new local investigations into grooming gangs

Last year, Oldham Council has asked the government for help with an investigation into child sexual abuse.

The request was rejected in October by Protection Minister Jess Phillips, who argued that locally-led investigations were more effective in implementing change.

GB News reported these events on January 1, leading the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accuse the government of “cover-up”.

Badenoch has since put pressure on the government, using last week’s social housing to repeatedly push Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to act on the UK’s decades-long “rapist gang scandal”.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has also been vocal, frequently attacking the government on his social media platform X. In one post, he said Jess Phillips “deserves to be in jail.”

British reform leader Nigel Farage launched an unofficial investigation into grooming gangs and called conservative interest in the subject “insincere.”

And it’s not just the government’s opponents – Labor MPs Paul Waugh, Sarah Champion and Dan Carden have all called for further investigation.

Last week, victims of grooming gangs in Oldham told the BBC that ministers should have spoken to survivors before deciding not to hold a government-led inquiry.