Overview

• The inquiry will have legal authority to compel evidence as it investigates alleged cover-ups by local councils and police forces.
• The government agreed to all 12 of Baroness Casey’s recommendations, including redefining under-16 penetrative sex as rape and mandating ethnicity reporting for all suspects.
• Casey’s review found that two-thirds of grooming gang cases lack ethnicity data and that men of Pakistani heritage were over-represented among prosecuted offenders.
• At least 50 towns and cities, including Bradford, Rotherham, Oldham and Birmingham, are known to have been affected by grooming gang abuse.
• Zara Mohammed of the Muslim Council of Britain warned that the focus on ethnicity risks scapegoating British Pakistani communities.