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Author’s Note: This article contains disturbing content including, but not limited to child sexual abuse, victim blaming, murder, and sexual torture. Reader discretion is advised.
Both the lack of accountability for the child grooming gangs scandal and the continued stifling of the citizenry’s freedom to expression indicates a systemic problem of vilifying the innocent, enabling the guilty, and abandoning the most vulnerable.
The grooming gangs scandal refers to the widespread grooming, sexual abuse, and torture of children as young as 11 and the subsequent failure of law enforcement, social workers, and policymakers to take action to protect the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable. At least 1,500 of these incidents occurred in Rotherham, 1,000 in Telford, 500 in Rochdale, plus other cities, including but not limited to Leeds and Newcastle. Though this scandal refers to incidents spanning from 1997-2014, a 2022 report indicated that such gangs still plague society. Adult men would utilize the Romeo Pimp tactic, where they would approach preteen and teenage girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and act as a loving boyfriend, showering them with gifts. Eventually, they would commit statutory rape. Soon, they would render them dependent on drugs and alcohol before demanding they prove their love and loyalty by allowing other men to sexually assault them.
The police had actionable intelligence that this was occurring, but did not investigate out of fear of causing racial polarization due to the fact that the victims were predominately white, and the perpetrators were of South and Central Asian descent. Alan Edwards, the Chief Inspector at the time stated, “Everyone’s been too scared to address the ethnicity factor.” These girls, some still elementary-school aged were subjected to unspeakable horrors including anal gang rape. One 14 year old was forced into a traditional Islamic marriage where her social worker was in attendance. One 16 year old victim died when her abuser set fire to her mother’s house. This victim gave birth to her abuser’s baby when she was 14, and was again pregnant when she died. When victims or their parents attempted to bring these atrocities to the attention to law enforcement, some police officers referred to the underage victims as “tarts” and referred to their repeated sexual abuse as a “lifestyle choice”. Police also arrested fathers for attempting to locate their missing daughters, and girls were arrested for drunk and disorderly, rather than taken to social services and their abuser arrested. Others were arrested for prostitution. This was not just a failure at the hands of police officers and social workers. A former Labour MP from Rochdale claimed he was warned by senior members of his party to not “discuss the ethnicity of the perpetrators for fear of losing votes.” Finally, a nationwide investigation began in the early 2010s. However, the investigation only covered the years of 2011-2014. Survivors called for another inquiry, but Safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, refused. Elon Musk has taken to his social media platform, X, to lambast the failure to rectify the situation. Just this week, a proposal for a new inquiry was proposed by the Tory government. Unfortunately, it was shot down. To this day, not a single police officer, social worker, or policymaker has received harsher discipline than a written reprimand.
On the other side of the coin, the UK Government has taken zealous measures to halt speech that they render dangerous. Unlike their former colony, the United Kingdom places limitations on the expression of citizens. According to the 1986 Public Order Act, citizens are banned from speech intended to harass another individual or cause them alarm or distress. This vague ruling leaves much to interpretation. During the Summer 2024 Race Riots, this act was leveraged to stifle social media posts. One woman’s post insinuated that the assailant who murdered several small children at a Taylor Swift was an immigrant on an M16 watchlist. She was subsequently arrested. The police commissioner threatened to come after and arrest those who are posting hate speech outside of the United Kingdom. Most recently, a viral Instagram post showed the police arresting an elderly man because his social media post “caused someone anxiety”. It is unclear what he posted.
It appears that the fear of causing offense has overshadowed the duty to protect. The right and just solution is to hold policymakers, social workers, and law enforcement officers implicated in the grooming scandals accountable, while overhauling mass policy reform to protect both children and the right to expression. Though both issues are being politicized, this is not a topic of left/right ideology, but one of morality, common sense, and decency. Though not every country has America’s first amendment, arresting people for using mean words while letting those who allowed perpetrators to freely rape children roam free is a symptom of a society that has truly lost its way.
