What grooming gang chair announcement means for Oldham as town to be at centre of investigation

Following months of delays and disagreements, the national inquiry into grooming gangs is moving forward.

The Home Secretary yesterday (Tuesday) announced that former children’s commissioner Baroness Anne Longfield as the Chair of the inquiry and clarified some of the terms of reference of the investigation. 

But what does it mean for Oldham? 

The borough has long been a part of the debate around how to handle historic sexual exploitation. The government initially rejected a request from the council to launch a full statutory inquiry, instead promising to help fund a new local inquiry earlier this year. 

Following a government U-turn in June, the town hall said it was left ‘in the dark’ about where it stood within the newly announced national inquiry, and what to do with the local inquiry it had already started commissioning for. 

The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands the town will be one the first areas to be investigated as part of the national inquiry into grooming gangs. 

The local inquiry will be dropped, but Oldham will be ‘prioritised’ in the larger report, with the new Chair Baroness Longfield expected to visit the borough early in the New Year to speak to survivors and local partners. 

The national inquiry will have more statutory powers to compel witnesses to testify and authorities like the police to hand over relevant documents, compared to a local investigation.

Councillor Arooj Shah, leader of Oldham council, said: “It is vital that survivors in Oldham finally have the chance to share their testimony in a way that is recognised, respected and heard. I have spoken directly with survivors, and they have been clear that they want answers about their own experiences and want their voices to shape national recommendations that will protect other children from harm.

“This inquiry must play a full role in helping to bring perpetrators to justice and in delivering accountability for the individuals and organisations that failed young people in the past. Oldham Council will fully support and cooperate with this work.” 

It is understood the local authority will work closely with the inquiry to support information finding, but will no longer have any direct involvement in the commissioning process. 

Baroness Longfield has already indicated that the inquiry “will not shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths wherever we find them”. And Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says the inquiry will ‘go where the evidence takes them’, which will include engaging with the  incomplete data that suggests a possible overrepresentation of Pakistani perpetrators. 

Other MPs noted that the terms of reference needed to remain necessarily broad. 

Addressing the Commons today, Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton MP Jim McMahon added: “It is important that [the inquiry] leaves no stone unturned. We’ve heard a lot about race and that being an important characteristic of the form of abuse that we’re talking about here. But can we not lose sight of class? 

“The perpetrators were by and large Pakistani men – but the social workers were not, the police officers were not. And they had a view of these girls that absolutely determined how they were treated.” 

Mahmood agreed, noting that reports into social work and policing failures had revealed ‘shocking’ attitudes of those authorities towards young girls, who were regarded as ‘white trash responsible for their actions instead of victims of cohesion and exploitation’. 

The news of Oldham’s role in the national inquiry has been welcomed by many local councillors. Independent Failsworth Councillor Brian Holbin, who first brought the issue of CSE into the council chambers, stated it was ‘about time the government listened to survivors’. 

“The important thing now is that survivors are heard and get the justice they’ve long called for,” he added. 

The terms of reference promise to keep survivors at the ‘heart of the inquiry’, with the survivor’s panel due to consult on the draft terms of reference in the coming months. 

But not everyone feels their voices are being heard. Sam Walker-Roberts, one of the survivors on the government panel who bravely waived her right to anonymity, believes the terms of reference have been ‘narrowed too much’, concentrating specifically on ‘grooming gangs’ instead of wider incidences of ‘group based offending’. 

“It means half my story isn’t relevant to this report,” she told the LDRS. “It has silenced hundreds of survivors across the country who are still waiting for justice. It feels like the government has given into peer pressure, because a certain narrative [about Pakistani grooming gangs] has been peddled in public.”