Louise Casey has been hauled in to “support the work” of the grooming gangs inquiry, Sir Keir Starmer has told the Commons, after the probe was plunged into chaos when four survivors quit this week.
The prime minister said Baroness Casey “will now support the work of the inquiry and it will get to the truth”.
Sir Keir told MPs that “injustice will have no place to hide”, adding that the “door will always be open” to those survivors who quit the probe’s survivors’ panel, should they wish to return.
Responding to Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “The inquiry is not and will never be watered down. Its scope will not change.
“It will examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders, and we will find the right person to chair the inquiry.
“I can tell the House today, Mr Speaker, that Dame Louise Casey will now support the work of the inquiry, and it will get to the truth. Injustice will have no place to hide.”
Baroness Casey, a crossbench peer, is often called upon to address complex social issues and has been appointed in the past to lead significant reviews.
A former victims’ commissioner, she previously led a “national audit” of group-based child sexual exploitation that found “many examples” of organisations shying away from discussion of “ethnicity or cultural factors” in such offences “for fear of appearing racist”.
It is anticipated that her role in the grooming gang inquiry will be supporting its setup before the inquiry chair is appointed. However Number 10 would not get into details when questioned on when she was approached to take on this supporting role.
Sir Keir’s announcement came as he was responding to questions from the Tory leader, who said that the victims had resigned because “they’ve lost all confidence in the government’s inquiry”.
She also asked the prime minister if it was right to call the government’s approach a “cover-up” and said that Labour “voted against the national inquiry three times, so the victims don’t believe them”.
Earlier on Wednesday, cabinet minister Emma Reynolds had apologised to victims, saying that she was “sorry if they felt let down by the process”.
Two survivors - Fiona Goddard and Ellie-Ann Reynolds - resigned on Monday, and two unnamed women followed them on Wednesday.
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