The government has announced that Anne Longfield, former Children’s Commissioner for England, will chair a long-awaited national inquiry into grooming gangs. The inquiry will examine failures across England and Wales, focusing specifically on group-based child sexual exploitation and how institutions allowed abuse to continue for decades.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the inquiry as a “moment of reckoning” for the country, acknowledging the scale of harm suffered by children and the need for accountability.
A survivor-centred inquiry
Anne Longfield has said she will never lose sight of the people behind the statistics:
“Behind every heinous crime is a person, a child, a teenager, a family. I will never lose sight of this.”
She has committed to following the evidence wherever it leads, including examining uncomfortable truths about how abuse was allowed to persist and why victims were repeatedly failed.
The inquiry will focus solely on grooming gangs, rather than child sexual exploitation more broadly. It will explore how ethnicity, religion and cultural factors may have influenced both the offending itself and the response of authorities.
What the inquiry will examine
The inquiry will investigate events from January 2000 onwards, with the aim of identifying:
- Systemic and institutional failings
- Decisions or inaction by public bodies
- Missed opportunities to protect children
- Why perpetrators were not stopped sooner
Anne Longfield will be supported by two panellists:
- Zoë Billingham, former senior inspector at HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services
- Eleanor Kelly, former chief executive of Tower Hamlets and Southwark councils
Any new evidence of criminal behaviour uncovered during the inquiry will be passed directly to Operation Beaconport, a National Crime Agency investigation running alongside the inquiry.
Reopening investigations and clearing past injustices
The government has confirmed it is moving forward with reopening previously closed police investigations, where appropriate. Importantly, it has also committed to overturning convictions and cautions that were wrongly imposed on exploited children for offences historically described as “child prostitution”.
For many survivors, these convictions compounded the harm they experienced and represented a further failure by the system to recognise them as victims rather than offenders.
The national inquiry follows widespread criticism of how grooming gang abuse was handled locally, including in areas such as Oldham. A proposed local inquiry in Oldham will now be absorbed into the national inquiry, alongside other local investigations that will be identified within the first three months.
The inquiry’s final terms of reference will be agreed with the Home Secretary and published in March 2026.
A necessary step towards accountability
Gary Walker, Head of Abuse at Enable Law, said:
“For many survivors, grooming gangs were able to operate in plain sight because warning signs were ignored and responsibilities were passed from one organisation to another. This inquiry is long overdue. It is essential that survivors are finally listened to, that institutions are held to account for past failures, and that meaningful change follows so children are better protected in the future.”
At Enable Law, we work with survivors of child sexual exploitation and abuse who were failed by the very institutions meant to protect them. Many of the people we support lived for years with the consequences of abuse that was known about but not acted upon.
This inquiry is a vital step toward:
- Acknowledging the scale of harm
- Understanding why warning signs were ignored
- Holding institutions to account
- Preventing future abuse
How we can help
If you are a survivor of grooming, sexual exploitation or abuse – whether it happened recently or many years ago – you may be entitled to support, answers and justice.
Enable Law offers free, confidential advice and compassionate legal support. We can help you understand your options and access compensation, accountability and therapeutic support.
You can contact us on 0800 044 8488 or fill in the form and a member of our team will call you back at a time that suits you.
