The Met Police is investigating cases of children in London being criminally and sexually exploited, the damning Casey review into Britain’s grooming gangs scandal has revealed.
It also highlighted how some local authorities in the capital appeared to be unaware of the scale of child sexual exploitation in their area.
Much of the focus of the Casey review was on towns in the North of England.
But it also stressed: “A number of live operations, including some of those reported to us by the Metropolitan Police Service, report an overlap between child sexual exploitation and child criminal exploitation.”
The review also told of a “significant mismatch” between councils’ children services and police reports of children at risk or victims of sexual exploitation.
“The Metropolitan Police Service have recorded 2.77 contact child sexual abuse cases per 1,000 children, whereas London local authorities only have 1.3 child in need (CINs) assessments for child sexual exploitation and 1.79 for child sexual abuse per 1,000 children,” it said.
As the review was being published, Yvette Cooper told how “deep-rooted institutional failures” left victims vulnerable to grooming gangs.
Speaking in the House of Commons today, the Home Secretary unveiled details of a new national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal, which spans towns including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham, Telford, and Oxford.
Baroness Casey's audit, which has looked into data on the gangs and their victims, including ethnicity, found a disproportionate representation of Asian men in child sexual offences, and a failure to share vital information between agencies.
Her findings were “damning”, the Home Secretary said. Baroness Casey found “deep-rooted failures” to protect children from rape, exploitation, and violence, with continued fragmentation in the authorities' response.
She called for urgent action to address 15 years of reports, reviews, and investigations into child sexual exploitation and abuse.
The Home Secretary today pledged to strengthen laws against child sexual exploitation.
She confirmed the government will act on Baroness Casey's recommendations - including the mandatory sharing of information and unique reference numbers for children - and provide additional training for mental health staff in schools.
Yvette Cooper said: “ Baroness Casey sets out 12 recommendations for change. We will take action on all of them immediately, because we cannot afford more wasted years. So we will introduce new laws to protect children and support victims so they stop being blamed for the appalling crimes committed against them.
“New major police operations to pursue perpetrators and put them behind bars. New National Inquiry to direct local investigations and hold institutions to account for past failures.
“New ethnicity data and research so we face up to the facts on exploitation and abuse, new action across children's services and other agencies to identify children at risk and further action to support child victims and tackle the new forms of exploitation and abuse online.
“Taken together, this will mark the biggest program of work ever pursued to root out the scourge of grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation, those vile perpetrators who have grown used to the authorities looking the other way must have no place to hide.”
