Elon Musk has reopened a national scandal surrounding gangs of men who groomed, assaulted and raped girls across England.
In dozens of messages posted on his X platform over the past week, he has ranged from including extracts from court transcripts to calling Sir Keir Starmer “an accomplice in the rape of Britain”.
They represent the latest intervention by the tech billionaire, who will work in the new administration of Donald Trump, into the affairs of the United Kingdom.
What was the scandal?
Musk claimed on X that “hundreds of thousands” of “little British girls” were targeted for gang-rape and murder.
It’s unclear what Musk is basing his claim on. in 2014 Jay report of abuse in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham, led by Professor Alexis Jay, conservatively estimated that 1,400 children were targeted between 1997 and 2013. Some of them were as young as 11 years old. A similar story has been repeated in towns and cities around the world. Earth.
Although the first prosecutions for street grooming began in 2010, the number of known victims runs into the thousands.
Was there an official cover-up?
Evidence of gangs operating in different towns and cities has emerged slowly – often from court cases and then investigations – and the pattern is often similar.
Local police forces and social services have been repeatedly criticized for failing victims, failing to prioritize such crimes, refusing to believe or blaming children.
Vulnerable children were thought to be self-inflicted after being showered with gifts and attention by perpetrators.
As a result, many cases are either not investigated or not forwarded to the National Prosecutor’s Office.
IN Rochdaletwo whistleblowers – former detective Maggie Oliver and former social worker Sara Rowbotham – have repeatedly warned that agencies turned a blind eye to what was happening despite raising the alarm.
In cases involving gangs of British-Pakistani men, agencies have also been criticized for failing to act because of concerns they would appear racist, including in Rotherham.
An independent investigation into grooming in Oldham, Greater Manchester, published in 2022, he specifically addressed allegations of an orchestrated “cover-up.”
Although he found the allegation to be unfounded, he identified multiple lapses in protection by local agencies.
What was Starmer’s role?
Starmer led the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2013, when the scandal first broke.
Musk wrote on X this week that “Starmer must go and must face charges of complicity in the worst mass crime in British history”.
Allegations that Starmer bears some responsibility for failings to bring the groom gang to justice stem specifically from the 2009 case when the decision was made not to prosecute the alleged perpetrators in Rochdale. The lawyers believed that the victim would not be reliable or credible.
Starmer had been director of public prosecutions for nine months when the decision was made. There is no evidence to suggest that he was aware of the details of the case at the time.
In 2011, Nazir Afzal, then the new chief prosecutor for North West England, overturned the 2009 decision and the nine men were eventually convicted.
Afzal said afterwards: “The only way we could have brought this case forward was to admit that we failed these victims when they first complained in 2008.”
He added: “Keir was 100 per cent behind the decision to publicly admit that we were wrong in the past.”
He later added: “With Keir gone in 2013, the CPS has gone from terrible at handling sexual abuse cases to having the highest conviction rate in our history. This would not have been possible without the support, resources and protection Keir provided me, at a time when it would have been easier to give up.”
In 2013, Starmer revised CPS procedures and guidelines on how prosecutors should handle grooming cases in an effort to ensure young victims are not dismissed in the future because of stereotypes believed to undermine their credibility.
Should there be a government-led national inquiry?
Since the first cases of grooming street gangs began to be tried 15 years ago, there have been a number of independent local inquiries into how they were able to operate under the noses of the authorities, including in Rochdale, Manchester, Rotherham and Telford.
It emerged last week that Jess Phillips, the UK’s protection and violence against women and girls minister, had rejected a request by Oldham council for a national inquiry into groom gangs in the town. She said the council should instead commission a local inquiry, as happened in Rotherham and Telford.
Nationally, Independent investigation into child sexual abuselaunched in 2015, involved an in-depth examination of how local agencies responded to such criminal networks.
So far, none of the recommendations have been implemented.
Health Minister Wes Streeting said on Sunday the government was not conducting a national inquiry “because there has already been a national inquiry”, adding that “the victims today, tomorrow, next week deserve the full implementation of . . . recommendations”.
Police inspectorate reports were also critical of how certain forces handled the issue.
“It challenges the idea that national inquiries are always better,” said Ella Cockbain, associate professor of criminology at University College London, pointing to the fact that a government-commissioned national inquiry costing more than £180m has already been carried out.
Why is Tommy Robinson in prison?
Along with the announcements about the wedding scandal, Musk repeatedly mentioned the situation of Tommy Robinson, a right-wing activist in prison whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
“Why is Tommy Robinson in prison for the truth?” Musk wrote on X on Thursday, adding that he “should be freed and those who covered up this travesty should take his place in that cell.”
The comment suggested he thought Robinson was jailed for his public statements about groom gangs.
Robinson, who has other criminal convictions, was actually jailed late last year after pleading guilty to contempt of court for making defamatory and false allegations against a Syrian refugee in a documentary.
In an interview over the weekend, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he would explain to Musk that Robinson was in jail for lying in court, not for exposing criminal gangs.
In response, Musk wrote on X on Sunday morning: “I know he’s in jail for contempt of court. . . but there is NO justification for such a long prison sentence or solitary confinement!”
