{"id":307098,"date":"2025-12-09T14:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/307098\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:51:08","slug":"former-childrens-commissioner-baroness-anne-longfield-to-lead-grooming-gangs-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/307098\/","title":{"rendered":"Former children&#8217;s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield to lead grooming gangs inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Baroness Longfield will be joined by panellists Zoe Billingham CBE, a former inspector at HM Constabulary, and Eleanor Kelly CBE, former chief executive of Southwark Council, to lead the inquiry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mahmood said Longfield and the two panellists had been recommended by Baroness Casey following &#8220;recent engagement with victims&#8221; and would meet survivors later this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On her appointment, Baroness Longfield said the inquiry &#8220;owes it to the victims, survivors and the wider public to identify the truth, address past failings and ensure that children and young people today are protected in a way that others were not&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The inquiry will comprise a series of targeted local investigations into the group-based child sexual exploitation of girls by grooming gangs, overseen by a national panel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mahmood said one of these would be in Oldham, Greater Manchester, with the other locations to be decided.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">No area will be able to &#8220;resist&#8221; a local investigation during the inquiry, she added, which would last three years with a budget of \u00a365m under draft terms of reference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The inquiry will also &#8220;specifically&#8221; consider the backgrounds of offenders, including their ethnicity and religion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said progress on the inquiry was welcome but survivors have been waiting too long for an inquiry they can trust.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They have been ignored, dismissed and made to feel invisible. They are the ultimate judges of whether this inquiry is credible,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Baroness Longfield will be joined by panellists Zoe Billingham CBE, a former inspector at HM Constabulary, and Eleanor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-307098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307098","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=307098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}