Failure to report child sex abuse to become criminal offence amid grooming gangs row

Professionals who work with children will face criminal sanctions if they fail to report claims of sexual abuse, the home secretary has announced.

Yvette Cooper promised to implement the key recommendation from Professor Alexis Jay’s child sexual abuse inquiry after Sir Keir Starmer faced down calls from Elon Musk, the Tories and Reform UK for a new investigation into paedophile grooming gangs.

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Ms Cooper said the mandatory reporting measure will be put in the Crime and Policing Bill due to come before parliament this spring, with professional and criminal sanctions for those who fail to comply.

She attacked the Tories for failing to introduce the law while they were in government, saying she first called for it in 2014 after it emerged around 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham between 1997-2013.

“This is something I first called for in response to the reports and failings in Rotherham 10 years ago,” Ms Cooper told MPs.

“It’s something that the prime minister first called for 12 years ago, based on his experience as director of public prosecutions, and the case was clear then. But we’ve lost a decade and we need to get on with it now.”

Ms Cooper said this was one of three “key recommendations” the government would implement from the Jay report, alongside making grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences and creating a new performance framework for policing “so these crimes are taken far more seriously”.

She also announced a new “victims and survivors” panel to help with work around child sexual exploitation and abuse.

The panel will come alongside a “significant package of measures” to be outlined next week, including strengthening the law on AI-facilitated child sexual abuse images, Ms Cooper said.

Prof Jay’s Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was set up in 2015 by the then Conservative government and carried out 15 investigations, including into grooming gangs and abuse in schools and the church.

The IICSA’s final report was published in 2022 and set out 20 recommendations it said were necessary to reduce child suffering, but charity The Survivors Trust say that two years later, none have been fully implemented.

Musk’s attacks on Starmer

The issue has come back into the spotlight following a slew of social media posts from Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, who has accused Sir Keir Starmer of being “complicit in the rape of Britain” during his time as director of public prosecutions (DPP) between 2008 and 2013 in relation to grooming gangs.

The billionaire owner of X has also suggested Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for the Home Office to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, Greater Manchester.

Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England – including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford – over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.

In a letter to Oldham Council dated last October but which emerged this week, Ms Phillips said that while she recognised the “strength of feeling” over the matter, she believed it was for “Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene”.

The row prompted by Mr Musk’s comments has also seen Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch call for a “full national inquiry” into rape gangs and defend shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick after he tweeted that “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women” had led to the grooming scandal.

Earlier today, Sir Keir accused the Tories of “amplifying what the far-right is saying” and “jumping on the bandwagon” to gain attention, saying the party had failed to implement the recommendations of Prof Jay’s report during their final years in office.

He also hit out at “those that are spreading lies and misinformation” in response to attacks on Ms Phillips, saying they are “not interested in victims only themselves”.

Reform UK are also calling for a national inquiry, while the Tories are seeking to put the issue to a vote later this week.

During the Commons debate, shadow policing minister Chris Philp said the IICSA’s investigation was mainly directed at other child sexual abuse and exploitation issues and “we need to get to the truth” on grooming gangs specifically.

Ms Cooper said it was the Conservatives who set the terms of reference of the IICSA inquiry and provided “substantial funding for it”.

“He [Mr Philp] could have raised concerns about its terms of reference, about the scope of it, about the extent of its reports at any point, including at any point since it was reported, and he didn’t do so until last week,” she said.

The debate in the Commons also heard from the Labour MP for Rochdale, Paul Waugh, who said some people were treating child rape as a “political game” rather than as an “appalling crime”, and said they were “exploiting” what happened in his town.