The survivors panel at the heart of the grooming gangs inquiry will be ditched by the government, Metro can reveal.
The victims and survivors panel will be wound down in January, the Home Office has confirmed, just a year after it was set up to ‘ensure that victims’ voices remain at the very heart’ of the inquiry.
The decision was criticized as ‘disgusting’ by grooming gangs survivors, who said it proved the inquiry would not be victim-led.
The revelation comes on the same day the Home Secretary announced former children’s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield as the new chair the national inquiry into the scandal.
Elizabeth Harper, who was abused in Rotherham from the age of 14, said plans to get rid of the panel were ‘disgusting’.
Sign up to Metro’s politics newsletter, Alright Gov?
Craig Munro breaks down Westminster chaos into easy to follow insight, walking you through what the latest policies mean to you. Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.
She added: ‘How can you say it is survivor-led when you are going to scrap the panel. All the way through the process it has not been focused on survivors at all.’
Another survivor, who was abused in Nottingham from the age of 15, said scrapping the panel would ‘stop proof coming out’ about the abuse young girls faced.
She told Metro: ‘It is wrong. It’s the victims and survivors who are at the heart of this.
‘They are the only experts about what has happened.’
Confirming their decision, the Home Office told Metro: ‘Victim and survivor engagement remains central to this inquiry and the Terms of Reference reflect that.
‘The survivor panel which supported the Home Office during the set-up phase was always intended to be time-limited. It will wind-down in January.
‘We’ve worked closely with victims and survivors throughout development, and that will continue.
‘As we move into the next phase, victims and survivors will have opportunities to engage directly with the inquiry and through the separate, long-term Child Sexual Abuse Victim and Survivor Panel that the Home Office is establishing.’
(Picture: Lucy North/PA Wire)
The survivors panel was thrown into chaos in October when Ms Harper and three others quit the group over how the inquiry had been handled.
Two leading candidates to chair the investigation also pulled out.
On Tuesday afternoon, Shabana Mahmood announced that Baroness Longfield will be chairing the three-person panel inquiry, and said it will ‘shine a bright light on this dark moment in our history.’
The Home Secretary also stressed this will take place ‘alongside the victims of these awful crimes who have waited for too long to see justice done.’
However Ms Harper said victims are ‘still being ignored’ after the announcement.
She called the appointment of Baroness Longfield – a Labour peer – ‘conflicted’ due to the party’s legacy of running councils implicated in the scandal.
She told Metro: ‘While Longfield has done some undoubtedly some amazing work in her time, I feel that connection with Labour is very conflicted due to how many towns and cities have been affected under Labour councils.
‘This is a problem that has been ignored for decades. We are still being ignored.’
Baroness Longfield is due to resign the Labour whip in the House of Lords so she can take up the role.
The investigation is due to look into the role of councils, as well as the police, social services and other agencies, in covering up of the grooming scandal.
Ms Harper renewed her calls for a judge-led inquiry and said she would not rejoin the victims and survivors panel.
She added: ‘This is exactly what I feared. This appointment has not been survivor-led. They have done it behind their backs.’
The other anonymous survivor who spoke to Metro also called for a judge-led inquiry, warning that in its current form the investigation ‘will be of any use or help any victims’.
Baroness Longfield will lead the inquiry alongside panellists Zoe Billingham CBE, a former inspector at HM Constabulary, and Eleanor Kelly CBE, former chief executive of Southwark Council.
On her appointment, Baroness Longfield said the inquiry ‘owes it to the victims, survivors and the wider public to identify the truth, address past failings and ensure that children and young people today are protected in a way that others were not’.
The £65 million process will take three years and focus exclusively on grooming gangs.
It will be comprised of targeted local investigations into group-based child sexual exploitation of girls, with one of the locations being Oldham in Greater Manchester.
The inquiry will also ask how ethnicity, religion and cultural factors impacted both the response from authorities and the perpetrators themselves.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
