Ministers are facing growing calls for a national inquiry into gang-rape activities in cities across the UK after Elon Musk reopened a decades-old scandal.
However, an authoritative 2022 study laid out a plan to address the issue.
“We are fed up with inquiries, consultations and discussions,” the report’s author, Professor Alexis Jay, said on Tuesday. “We’ve identified what actions are needed and people should get on with it.”
What should be done?
Jay’s report into child sexual abuse made 20 detailed recommendations, calling on the then Conservative government to announce what steps it had taken within six months.
This includes introducing a legal requirement for individuals in some professions to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the relevant authorities.
The inquiry also called for the establishment of a national compensation scheme to provide compensation to victims and the establishment of a child protection authority with powers to inspect all child-related institutions.
Many of the proposed changes didn’t happen, either because they weren’t implemented or because last year’s general election stopped the laws going through Parliament.
What happened already?
The key recommendation was stricter age verification on internet sites, as well as mandatory prior online verification of sexual images of children.
While the previous government passed the Online Safety Bill 2023, which expected social media platforms to enforce age limits and age verification, it did not include pre-screening of sexual images of children and young people. The law became the Online Safety Act, which comes into full effect this year.
The main recommendation of Jay’s review was that people who work with children face criminal sanctions if they fail to report reports of sexual abuse. On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper promised it would be part of the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill.
She also said the government would pass laws that would make grooming an aggravating factor in the conviction of child sex offenders.
Downing Street insisted that plans were already underway to introduce those changes into law before Musk raised the issue last week.
“We are working to go through all the recommendations,” it said. “These recommendations were given in 2022 and the previous government did not act on them, this government has already started to act on the recommendations.”
What didn’t happen?
However, many recommendations have yet to be made. These include lifting the three-year limit for child sexual abuse victims to file a personal injury claim; national financial compensation program for victims; and changes to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.
After Jay’s review was published, the previous Conservative government promised to consult on the measures, but never brought them into law.
The report also calls for therapeutic support for victims, which has not been implemented.
Expanded programs that prohibit certain people from working with children and their expansion abroad have also not been enacted.
The appointment of a special children’s minister has also been recommended, although both the Tory and current Labor governments have said the responsibility already lies with the education minister.
What happens next?
On Wednesday, the opposition Conservative Party will seek to increase pressure on the government by trying to force a vote in the House of Commons on whether to hold a new inquiry into the grooms scandal.
The Tories have tabled a “reasoned amendment” to the Child Welfare and Schools Act calling for a full national inquiry.
They claimed Jay’s report only examined six specific cities – when groom gangs have operated in more than 40 cities in the past – and accused the government of “blocking a full national inquiry”.
But Minister for Victims Alex Davies-Jones said Jay had already produced a thorough report with evidence from more than 700 victims.
She added: “If, once they [Jay] the recommendations have been implemented, there is still work to be done, of course we will do that work.”
What about prosecutions and convictions?
In 2014, the UK launched Operation Stovewood, described as “the largest single law enforcement investigation into the sexual exploitation and abuse of children outside the UK”.
Some 39 people were convicted, according to the National Crime Agency, and sentenced to a total of nearly 500 years in prison.
Ten trials were listed for this year and 2026, and there were more than 40 ongoing investigations, according to the NCA. More than 220 people were arrested or voluntarily went to the police station.
Two brothers are due to be sentenced in Sheffield next week after being convicted last month of raping the girls 18 years ago, supplying the young victims with drugs and alcohol before luring them to places where they attacked them.
In October, three brothers were found guilty of sexually abusing children in Barrow and Leeds between 1996 and 2010. The girls abused by the two brothers were just six or seven years old when the abuse began and lasted for several years, the Crown said. Prosecutor’s office.
Last year’s convictions include that of a former limo driver who the CPS said “systematically groomed and molested” young girls in the Rotherham area between 2005 and 2015. The man was jailed for 24 years after being found guilty of several sexual offenses over eight girls, who were then between 12 and 17 years old.
