Labour has come under fire after refusing to hold a public inquiry into historic sexual abuse by grooming gangs in Oldham.

We have to be prepared to pay for it.

I've just found a brilliant u tube interview 4 days ago with Andrew Marr and Ian Hislop which discusses Musk, his recent intervention and choice of topic, the lifting of safety controls on x and other platforms, and the difficulties for people to get real news.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=diHcpZvBjT0

I’m in favour of mandatory reporting of suspected abuse. That changes the culture but it doesn’t magic up police/social workers to investigate.
We need to invest in our children as well as support their parents. Sure Start type family centres will help, as will the money and training being invested in putting mental health practitioners in schools.
We need multi agency teams involved in the investigations and ongoing support. Working Together, Blair’s first ‘orange book’ set out basic expectations. Looking at some recent examples of poor practice in a number of agencies we need to go back to basics

Thanks Wyllow3, I thought that too.

Maremia

Wyllow3, do you think the new bill, where professionals have to report suspected abuse, and will be sanctioned in some way if they don't, do you see this being an effective step in the right direction?

I would hope so but I think what would make the greatest difference would be to increase resources for professionals tackling the crimes.

I agree Mollygo I think let's get on with it.

(My long post was just pushing to find out/query/point out issues as to why people are still demanding "more" inquiries)

Wyllow3, do you think the new bill, where professionals have to report suspected abuse, and will be sanctioned in some way if they don't, do you see this being an effective step in the right direction?

What more is required?
Action!
Further investigations would enable positive actions to be deferred even longer.

I'm still unclear what the demands for a new National Inquiry hope to achieve.

Is it to go through all the cases in every single area in order to try and find specific names of people to prosecute (as opposed to already uncovered systemic failings especially before it was taken really properly and seriously).

I dont disagree in theory that people who really fell short,

ie acting deliberately as opposed to inadequately, should be held to account legally, but surely the process would involve hundreds perhaps thousands of interviews of people working to who did work on all the agencies at different times.
Certainly take away these people from current case work, and certainly take years and possibly another billion pounds as did the 2022 inquiry.

This is the original 2019 Oldham report, and the one where failings from before 2015 are very clearly identified in great detail - systemic failures plus limited named individuals

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-61863603

What more is required?

They were following the rules. It is the rules which need changing, not prosecuting people for not reporting abuse. Most people do; it stops further up the chain of command. That is why Oldham called for a public enquiry; they cannot subpoena people to attend.

Children's homes have attracted pedophiles and drug dealers for decades. Margaret Hodge pretended she never knew about Islington in 1970s .If she had gone to prison the message would have gone out that it was not on and it would have stopped. Have the people who worked in the kids home been punished?

I have started that thread.

MOnica - you’re correct, boys at risk are not currently getting the media attention given to the ‘girls’ in the grooming/torture/rape gangs.

We seem to have moved as a society from blaming these girls as complicit in their abuse. The smaller number of boys who were abused in the same way are rarely mentioned.

We seem still to blame boys in the same age group who are groomed in similar ways, towards a career as a gangster. As with the organised child sexual exploitation gangs, the organised crime gangs who groomed primary school aged boys to deliver drugs/money on bicycles were well established before those in authority saw the problem.

As with the girls under discussion in these threads, the children were usually from homes that left them vulnerable. They were encouraged to misbehave or refuse school with the inevitable exclusion or pupil referral unit heading their way.

Maybe this deserves its own thread though the common link is the deliberate exploitation of vulnerable children

My social work troubles kicked off when my 13 year old boy was lied to by paedophile teacher and forced to strip off in front of doctor and 2 social workers. He was told he missed an injection! Line manager at first meeting said we will deal with the 2 social workers by letter leading to a pack of lies. Children have to be stripped off to see if they have other injuries but there was only the doctor present. Told him to check CC TV and lying sod said they were not working that day

I don’t think the publicity and demand for action about grooming girls in Rochdale or anywhere else means there are two levels of concern.
They are two separate issues.
This thread is about the grooming of girls.

The question raised by M0nica
Why are we not kicking a fuss about these boys . . . is warranted in so far as no one on GN has, to my knowledge started a thread about that.
So does the lack of threads mean GN’s don’t care about the boys?

So much publicity is being given to these dreadful cases, but none to the equally dreadful massacre of boy children and young men, stabbed to death in gang rivalries.

This week a 14 year old boy was knifed on a London bus. There is already a Drill song online about his death. He had just returned home after 8 years in care, during which he had been drawn ibto garng culture and was already important in his gang hierarchy. Boys like this are stabbed and killed almost daily.

Why are we not kicking a fuss about these boys the way we are concerned about these girls. Why are the police not blitzing and breaking up these gangs, why no one standing up and demanding to know how a young boy could be recruited and involved with gangs, even while he is in Local Authority care.

It seems to me that we have two levels of concern. One for girls and none for boys.

What kind of meeting was this Whingey? It has no resemblance to any social work meeting I’ve ever known

Always altered the facts to suit themselves. Vicar asked to come to a social work meeting I said I don't think you can bring anyone else and he said they won't mind. Asked if there were paedophiles at the school and the woman taking notes threw her pen across the table and said oh we can't write that down. Minutes sent out forgot there was a vicar there in the first place

Thanks - yiswim

Agreement on Andy B 👏

He’s a great mayor indeed. I admit to having reservations at first but delighted to be proved wrong.

(If You See What I Mean = IYSWIM). 😁

Iyswim ? Sorry new one on me

I’m sorry Andy didn’t win the leadership when bleep Corbyn did. I’ve often wished the moderates didn’t decide either Yvette or Andy and not split the vote. Anyway we benefitted in Manchester and he’s grown into being Mayor well

I don’t know what the Opposition was thinking, sticking that amendment in!
Roundly defeated of course.
Sounds good what Andy Burnham suggests.

Nothing ‘gleeful’ from me Iam. It was a breaking news quote from The Telegraph. Actually I didn’t think of it being a ‘split’ split IYSWIM. I read the article and took it to mean Andy Burnham had diverged from Starmer’s stance is all.

Fgt - you posted somewhat gleeefully that Burnham had split from Starmer. Nothing I’ve read confirms any such thing. This subject should and will involve reflection

I live in Greater Manchester. I never mentioned anything about a split in the Labour camp. Just saying. 😊

Casdon

This is what happened according to the Manchester Everning News, which seems to be the earliest report of what Andy Burnham actually said.
www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/andy-burnham-not-opposed-new-30742317
It was a considered speech, there is no ‘split’. It gets more like reading Hello Magazine every day on some media sites.

It does rather, *Casdon. No "split" or sides but senior figure makes valid suggestion.

"Asked about Burnham’s intervention, a spokesman for Starmer said: ”[The PM’s] been clear that it’s only reasonable for people to have a range of views, but that his focus and the government’s focus is on action now and not more inquiries or delay" (Yahoo news)

Galaxy

In line with my usual accurate predictions, I predict that within weeks there will be a national inquiry.

I agree.