A survivor of a notorious rape gang has slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer's £65 million national inquiry into the scandal, accusing its officials of staggering incompetence, 'gaslighting,' and giving authorities under investigation a 'heads-up' to destroy crucial evidence.
Girl One, who suffered horrific abuse from age 12 at the hands of a depraved paedophile ring, says the inquiry is destined to fail. She claims those involved are 'banking on survivors being thick.'
The now 34-year-old agreed to a Zoom meeting with a victim engagement officer representing the inquiry, alongside her solicitor and a small number of other survivors. She was left astonished when the engagement officer told her she would shortly be taking maternity leave and expected to be off for 18 months.
She said: 'I can tell you right now this inquiry has failed before it has even started. It's an absolute joke.'
Heads-Up for Authorities
According to the survivor, who broke her 20-year silence last month to tell her story to the Express, officials casually admitted they had written letters to local authorities and police forces, requesting them not to destroy evidence. She said: 'What they've actually done is given them a heads-up. Now they can go away and destroy anything they might want to get rid of.'
She argues that a court order should have been secured to legally compel bodies to retain documents, given survivors' struggles to access their own records.
Many victims have submitted Subject Access Requests to police forces, only to face delays, excuses, or claims that files were destroyed under a supposed '10-year rule,' despite guidelines suggesting serious crime records should be kept longer.
Girl One endured a decade-long legal battle to obtain her care records from social services. She said: 'I had to take them to court. Why were they so terrified? What were they so frightened of handing over?'
A Snail's Pace and Questionable Staffing
Announced at the start of the year, the inquiry is now six months into its three-year timeframe, yet victims are told the investigative team is still not fully assembled because it is 'very difficult to find the right people.'
Girl One was trafficked across Britain to be sexually abused by hundreds of men of predominantly Pakistani descent. She was shocked when the Victim Engagement Officer assigned to build rapport revealed she was pregnant and scheduled to go on maternity leave in 'a few weeks,' absent for 18 months—half the inquiry's lifespan.
She added: 'I was supposed to confide in somebody, build a rapport, and then they're just going to leave for 18 months? How does that work for continuity or trust?'
When she questioned the timeline and budget, the official's defensive reaction allegedly led her to suggest the survivor might need counselling and recommended EMDR therapy. Girl One said: 'I told her that sounds very 'gaslighty.' I've been here before when people have used my mental health to wiggle out of things.'
The interaction culminated with the inquiry team sending an embargoed document with a 'patronising, happy-clappy feedback form written for children.'
Call for Criminal Investigation
Girl One and many other survivors believe a criminal investigation is essential alongside the inquiry to expose wrongdoing by police, social workers, and politicians. But she was told any criminal charges would have to come from the National Crime Agency's Operation Beaconport, which investigates thousands of wrongly closed cases but has no specific remit to examine failures of official bodies.
She said: 'I think they're banking on us all being thick, uneducated, and not having a brain cell to rub together. They think we'll all go, 'Oh, thanks, you're doing something now.' But it's not like that. We are educated, intelligent women and we all want the same thing. We just want the people who failed us to be held accountable. The whole thing is just a joke.'
A Home Office spokesperson said: 'Sexual and criminal abuse by gangs are among the most horrific crimes imaginable. We have established the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs to get the answers that victims and survivors deserve. Any allegations or evidence of criminality will be referred to police as part of a national operation to crackdown on group-based child sexual exploitation.'
