Two grooming gang survivors quit national inquiry panel

Fiona Goddard said she was failed “multiple times” by social services and police

Two abuse survivors have quit their roles in the government’s inquiry into grooming gangs.

Fiona Goddard and Ellie-Ann Reynolds resigned from the inquiry’s victims and survivor’s liaison panel on Monday in protest at how the government had handled the process.

In her resignation letter, Ms Reynolds said she felt the inquiry had become “less about the truth and more about a cover-up”, while both women raised concerns about the two shortlisted chairs having backgrounds in policing and social services.

Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips denied claims of a cover-up and insisted her government was “committed to exposing the failures” to “these appalling crimes”.

In a letter to MPs on Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee, published on Monday evening, Phillips said: “We are committed to ensuring that the survivor perspective remains at the heart of the process.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced in June there would be a national inquiry into grooming gangs covering England and Wales, with Ms Goddard and Ms Reynolds joining the panel overseeing the process.

However, a chairperson for the inquiry has yet to be appointed, with the two shortlisted candidates reported to be a former police chief and a social worker.

Ms Goddard said this was a “disturbing conflict of interest” because these services had “contributed most to the cover-up of the national mass rape and trafficking of children”.

Ms Reynolds also wrote that having “establishment insiders representing the very systems that failed us” as potential chairs was a conflict of interest.

Phillips said victims and survivors would be meeting potential chairs this week.

“It has been alleged that the time it is taking and the process being followed to appoint a chair is an indication of the government seeking to ‘cover up’, or failing to prioritise, the issue,” she said. “This could not be further from the truth.”

Phillips explained she was seeking to avoid a repeat of what happened with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), when three chairs were appointed but then withdrew, before the final chair was appointed and the inquiry could start two years later.

She said the government was following the “standard process” for appointing a chair in inquiries “and it is by no means exceptional for an inquiry to be announced a few months before a chair is appointed”.

She added that she was determined to find a chair “who we are confident will earn the trust of those who have been let down so often by figures in positions of authority” and that reports that judges have been unwilling to take on the role are “categorically untrue”.
There were also complaints from Ms Goddard and Ms Reynolds that officials were trying to water down the inquiry by widening the scope beyond grooming gangs into broader issues of child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Ms Goddard, who was abused by gangs while living in a Bradford children’s home, said there had been “repeated” attempts by officials to expand the investigation beyond grooming gangs.

Ms Reynolds wrote: “The final turning point for me was the push to change the remit, to widen it in ways that downplay the racial and religious motivations behind our abuse.

“For many of us, these were not incidental factors; they were central to why we were targeted and why institutions failed to act. To erase that truth us to rewrite history.”

Phillips said reports the government was seeking to dilute the focus of the inquiry, either with a regional approach or by expanding the remit beyond grooming gangs, were “untrue” and the scope of the inquiry would be “laser-focused”.

The Conservatives have called for the inquiry to be chaired by a senior judge to guarantee impartiality and restore faith in the process.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the resignations “cast a real shadow over the government’s efforts to create this national grooming gang inquiry”.

He told BBC Breakfast: “They have got to action now, and grip this because it is one of the worst scandals in our nation’s modern history and the victims are being badly let down.”

Jenrick was also pressed on comments made by Prof Alexis Jay – who led a seven-year inquiry into child sexual abuse – and accused the previous Tory government of lacking engagement over the implementation of her 20 recommendations.

“I think politicians of all stripes did not do enough on this issue,” he said. “Everyone should have done more.”