Baroness Louise Casey, author of a landmark report on grooming gangs, has accused the Labour government of taking a 'lazy' approach to helping victims who were criminalised as children. She says the new legislation to pardon 'child prostitution' offences is insufficient and fails to address the full extent of wrongful convictions.
Victims Still Punished Decades After Abuse
Thousands of women who were groomed and sexually abused as children continue to face consequences from criminal records that label them as offenders. Many cannot get jobs, travel abroad, or volunteer at their children's schools due to convictions from their teenage years.
Joanne, a survivor who was groomed from age 15, received over 40 prostitution convictions. She told the BBC: 'Everybody told me that I was this problem - that I was guilty and I had committed a crime.' Now in her 50s, she recognises she was being raped.
Casey Calls for Comprehensive Review
Baroness Casey, who led the national investigation into grooming gangs, urged the government last year to quash all wrongful convictions of victims. The government introduced legislation to disregard 'child prostitution' offences, but Casey branded this the 'lazy option'.
She said: 'I feel that they've gone for the easy option and, if I'm being more brutal, [the] lazy option of not setting up a disregard scheme with enough thought, enough care and enough action.'
Home Office Response
A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We encourage all those affected by these convictions to get in touch with the Criminal Cases Review Commission.' The government says it will take forward Casey's recommendation to review convictions linked to child sexual abuse.
However, Joanne applied to the CCRC but was rejected, despite acknowledging her convictions were linked to trafficking and coercion. The commission said the convictions were lawful at the time.
Survivors Demand Individual Reviews
Fiona Goddard, targeted by a grooming gang in Bradford, was arrested up to 50 times between ages 13 and 18. She said the government's decision to only remove prostitution convictions 'feels like they're trying to wipe away the evidence of their mistakes'.
Jamie Leigh Jones, abused from age 12 in Oldham, was arrested over 100 times and even sent to a secure unit for four months. She said: 'When you're a child, and you're filled with alcohol and drugs, and these awful things are happening to you, and no-one's listening to you, it's like a call for help.'
Baroness Casey acknowledged 'huge progress in many areas' but said on quashing convictions: 'They haven't gone far enough, quickly enough.' She added: 'Just doing an expunging of child prostitution offences is not good enough, it's not quick enough, it's not clever enough.'
