A national grooming gang inquiry ordered by Keir Starmer is facing further disruption after one of two candidates who had been shortlisted to lead it withdrew from the process.<\/p>\n
Annie Hudson, a former director of children\u2019s services for Lambeth, told survivors on Tuesday that she no longer wanted to be considered after intense media coverage.<\/p>\n
Her decision comes after three abuse survivors resigned<\/a> from their roles on the victims and survivors liaison panel, accusing the Home Office and ministers of sidelining them and manipulating the agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cElizabeth\u201d, which is not her real name, stepped down on Tuesday, joining Fiona Goddard<\/a> and Ellie Reynolds, who quit the panel on Monday in protest.<\/p>\n Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has denied claims of a cover-up and insisted her government was \u201ccommitted to exposing the failures\u201d to tackle \u201cthese appalling crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n Appointed as chair of the child safeguarding practice review panel in December 2020, Hudson\u2019s decision leaves Jim Gamble, a former head of the Royal Ulster Constabulary special branch in Belfast, as the only known candidate.<\/p>\n Home Office sources said there were other candidates still being considered, with final interviews being conducted this week.<\/p>\n On Monday, Goddard and Reynolds had criticised the choice of a former social worker and police chief for the role of chair, claiming it was inappropriate to have senior figures from two professions previously involved in cover-ups of grooming scandals.<\/p>\n In her resignation letter, Goddard, who was abused by gang members while living in a Bradford children\u2019s home, wrote: \u201cHaving a police officer or social worker leading the inquiry would once again be letting services mark their own homework.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shortlisting of these potential chairs shows the government\u2019s complete lack of understanding of the level of corruption and failings involved in this scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n The third survivor, Elizabeth, quit on Tuesday, saying she was leaving the panel because she believed the process had been \u201cscripted and predetermined\u201d, \u201crather than emerging from honest, open dialogue with survivors\u201d.<\/p>\n A survivor of the Rotherham scandal, she said on X that she was \u201cdeeply concerned that there still isn\u2019t a genuine understanding of the grooming gangs scandal, nor the lasting trauma it has caused\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWhat is happening now feels like a cover-up of a cover-up. It has created a toxic environment for survivors, filled with pressures that we should not have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n All three survivors have accused officials of trying to water down the inquiry by widening the scope beyond grooming gangs into broader issues of child sexual abuse and exploitation.<\/p>\n Reynolds said the \u201cfinal turning point\u201d in her decision to quit was a move to widen the inquiry \u201cin ways that downplay the racial and religious motivations behind our abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Phillips told MPs the appointment of the chair was at a \u201ccritical stage\u201d but said Louise Casey, in recommending a national inquiry, said she did not want a judicial-led process.<\/p>\n \u201cShe [Casey] was explicit, and if anyone in this house can find me an institution that didn\u2019t fail these girls over the years, including our courts who took the children away from grooming gang victims, who criminalised some of them \u2013 there is no institution in our country that hasn\u2019t failed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue today, I will meet with many of the victims and get their feedback, and I will continue to progress with that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Downing Street also responded to accusations that the inquiry\u2019s remit was being widened to downplay the racial and religious motivations behind abuse, saying the prime minister was aware that victims have been let down by the prioritisation of community relations.<\/p>\n Responding to the survivors\u2019 resignations, Phillips told MPs she regretted the departure of Goddard and Reynolds and insisted she would continue to speak to them about the inquiry.<\/p>\n She also said \u201cnot all victims are of the same opinion \u2013 they are not one homogeneous group of people, who all think the same thing, who all want the same exposure, who all want their identities known.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will engage with all the victims, regardless of their opinions, and I will listen to those that have been put in the media, that are put in panels, I will always listen and I will speak to all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n The inquiry panel of victims from which Reynolds and Goddard resigned was not managed by the government but by NWG, a grooming gang charity, Phillips said.<\/p>\n The shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, said the inquiry into grooming gangs was \u201cdescending into chaos\u201d, while Phillips said allegations the inquiry was being diluted or intentionally delayed were \u201cfalse\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A national grooming gang inquiry ordered by Keir Starmer is facing further disruption after one of two candidates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-216124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}