Overview
- Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told the London Assembly the current caseload includes tens of complex group-based cases that align with the public understanding of grooming gangs.
- The audit covers 9,000 closed child sexual exploitation files from January 2010 to March 2025 under Operation Beaconport’s national framework.
- Investigators have reviewed about 2,200 files so far, with initial triage removing some from scope and roughly 1,200 assessed as group-based cases at this stage.
- Rowley said perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 historic files could merit reinvestigation over several years, a process that will cost many millions and needs more specialist officers.
- Rowley reported suspect ethnicity is varied rather than dominated by one profile, and the London Assembly urged faster progress on the national inquiry alongside extra resources for the Met as Sadiq Khan faced renewed calls to apologise for earlier comments.