Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

Professor Alexis Jay headed a SEVEN year inquiry into the grooming and raping gangs, culminating in a report, published in 2022 containing 20 odd recommendations. The whole process is said to have cost ?200M.

Form 2022 to 2024, the Conservative government did NOWT to implement a single of the report's recommendations.

Six months into a Labour government, what do we have? On Sunday Wes Streeting said on LauraK that the cabinet was looking to implement recommendations and was actively working on it. the next day, the Home Secretary announces in the House that failing to report this type of offence will become a criminal offence and should hit the Statute Books this year. Positive action that even you should appreciate.

In my humble opinion, Cons and Reform should now STFU on this and back the government in their efforts to implement the Jay Recommendations. Once implemented, those measures should be monitored and amended when and where necessary.

Yesterday, Professor Jay said Cons/Reform should stop politicising it. A further inquiry (MA - which will take God alone knows how long and how much more money) isn't necessary. What is necessary is her recommendations getting implemented. I, for one, fully agree with her.

Another humble opinion of mine is that Prof Jay knows a damned sight more about this than TTR or anybody else on here, including me.

Well said MA. I was just about to write much the same but thankfully you beat me to it.

Tricky, climb down off your bandwagon. Labour have been in power for little more than half a year. The Tories had 14 years to address the problem and the likes of Jess Phillips know more about domestic/child abuse and have done more to help the victims than probably anyone else in Parliament. I don’t agree with everything she says but there is, thanks to Musk’s irresponsible messaging and ignorant sh1t stirring from the likes of you, an increasing possibility of her becoming the next Jo Cox.

[Geoff Parkstone]

The Tories have had 14 years to address a problem reported on in 2022? Now I agree labour need more time to sort these things out but let's be realistic here

[Andy_Faber]

There's a useful timeline of the abuse 'issue' here if you're interested, https://news.sky.com/story/grooming-...tions-13285021 , just ignore the initial shock that it looks like Tony Hadley was head of the CPS and read on, its fairly straight and unbiased

[ramAnag]

The Tories have had 14 years to address a problem reported on in 2022? Now I agree labour need more time to sort these things out but let's be realistic here

If you could put that spoon down for a moment and cease the snide asides you’d recognise that questions about ‘grooming gangs’ were first raised at the beginning of the century. Other forms of both organised and more isolated, often family based, child abuse have unfortunately been around for a lot longer
If and when you have anything relevant to say I’ll take notice. Until then…probably not.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Good

[ramAnag]

Buried amongst the rancour: rA you actually have a potential insight. Disregarding for a mo the perps and victims, did you observe behaviours amongst those who COULD have done something to avoid abuse but didn't, did you suspect, did you have a feeling, did you act at micro or macro level? And what do you think were their motivations for lack of action? I've been there wrt 'in the office' abuse and its bloody difficult to act effectively and without pressing the self destruct button. By all means say 'don't want to respond', I'm genuinely interested

Okay, a few observations.

In my experience incidents of abuse/inappropriate behaviour between teachers and pupils appears to have reduced very significantly over the years. I have never ever witnessed or had suspicions about *****phile type behaviour on the part of teachers however I have been aware of plenty of rumours of relationships between teachers and sixth formers in other schools. Seemed much more acceptable forty or fifty years ago than now.

As regards more serious abuse. My experience involves attendance at a great many case conferences over the years. For the uninitiated these are multi agency meetings called when there are genuine fears concerning children being at risk in terms of safety and/or abuse. These are not for the faint-hearted. The suspected guilty party - usually parents/other relatives - will invariably have legal representation who know all the tricks of the trade as far as defending the often indefensible is concerned and you have to choose your words very carefully.

Equally there are sometimes fairly militant social workers who can make things awkward. To cut a long story short, one reported me as being racist on the basis that a mixed race girl didn’t want to spend time with her absent black father, because he hit her mother, or her grandfather, because he abused her. The girl had confided in me rather than the social worker which hadn’t gone down well, but the social worker felt that the girl’s awareness of her roots was more important than her feelings of safety. I disagreed. Oddly others at the meeting who had remained conspicuously silent throughout rushed to say, glad you said that, someone needed to at the end. This was an isolated incident and untypical of social workers who have a hugely difficult job.

As someone who ultimately had the unpleasant task of initially reporting abuse it is not uncommon to subsequently be confronted by angry threatening (invariably male) parents when something like this arises and it can be enormously time consuming. I once spent four hours as a four**** year old boy’s chosen adult at a police station in Derby while he gave evidence about alleged abuse perpetrated by his uncle. The evidence was both shocking and compelling but the case went nowhere because the police didn’t consider him a sufficiently reliable witness. Enormously frustrating on many levels.

So, frustration, fear, reluctance to tell tales are all possible reasons.

On the one, very major, occasions when I was involved in instigating action (for misappropriation of resources NOT anything ***ual) against a very senior colleague I was aware that the local authority made things very difficult and was very much aware that because the whole teaching staff acted together there was safety in numbers. We won, but going it alone would, I suspect, have been very ill advised.

Final point. I have been involved in addressing many cases of child abuse and have to say that the vast majority of the cases I have been involved in have involved white children and white parents. To a large extent that probably reflects the description of the young people most of my teaching career was spent with, but it is my observation based on my experience. Towards the end of my career I was increasingly aware of a problem between certain 14-16 year old girls and Pakistani men - often taxi drivers. I would not and will never defend such men however the girls seemed to find it funny and a reliable source of income. Again to cut a long story short, often their parents couldn’t have cared less and may have sometimes been complicit. It’s a can of worms and more complicated than many think, imo. Hope that helps.

[Andy_Faber]

Okay, a few observations.

In my experience incidents of abuse/inappropriate behaviour between teachers and pupils appears to have reduced very significantly over the years. I have never ever witnessed or had suspicions about *****phile type behaviour on the part of teachers however I have been aware of plenty of rumours of relationships between teachers and sixth formers in other schools. Seemed much more acceptable forty or fifty years ago than now.

As regards more serious abuse. My experience involves attendance at a great many case conferences over the years. For the uninitiated these are multi agency meetings called when there are genuine fears concerning children being at risk in terms of safety and/or abuse. These are not for the faint-hearted. The suspected guilty party - usually parents/other relatives - will invariably have legal representation who know all the tricks of the trade as far as defending the often indefensible is concerned and you have to choose your words very carefully.

Equally there are sometimes fairly militant social workers who can make things awkward. To cut a long story short, one reported me as being racist on the basis that a mixed race girl didn?t want to spend time with her absent black father, because he hit her mother, or her grandfather, because he abused her. The girl had confided in me rather than the social worker which hadn?t gone down well, but the social worker felt that the girl?s awareness of her roots was more important than her feelings of safety. I disagreed. Oddly others at the meeting who had remained conspicuously silent throughout rushed to say, glad you said that, someone needed to at the end. This was an isolated incident and untypical of social workers who have a hugely difficult job.

As someone who ultimately had the unpleasant task of initially reporting abuse it is not uncommon to subsequently be confronted by angry threatening (invariably male) parents when something like this arises and it can be enormously time consuming. I once spent four hours as a four**** year old boy?s chosen adult at a police station in Derby while he gave evidence about alleged abuse perpetrated by his uncle. The evidence was both shocking and compelling but the case went nowhere because the police didn?t consider him a sufficiently reliable witness. Enormously frustrating on many levels.

So, frustration, fear, reluctance to tell tales are all possible reasons.

On the one, very major, occasions when I was involved in instigating action (for misappropriation of resources NOT anything ***ual) against a very senior colleague I was aware that the local authority made things very difficult and was very much aware that because the whole teaching staff acted together there was safety in numbers. We won, but going it alone would, I suspect, have been very ill advised.

Final point. I have been involved in addressing many cases of child abuse and have to say that the vast majority of the cases I have been involved in have involved white children and white parents. To a large extent that probably reflects the description of the young people most of my teaching career was spent with, but it is my observation based on my experience. Towards the end of my career I was increasingly aware of a problem between certain 14-16 year old girls and Pakistani men - often taxi drivers. I would not and will never defend such men however the girls seemed to find it funny and a reliable source of income. Again to cut a long story short, often their parents couldn?t have cared less and may have sometimes been complicit. It?s a can of worms and more complicated than many think, imo. Hope that helps.

Very open and interesting.

[Trickytreesreds]

No RA, I won't STFU, as this is bigger than the current Labour government and the previous one.
It started a long time ago and the memo from Brown is doing the rounds at the moment, evem though it goes back further than that.

HTF can any one tell the police to not follow this up, as it is a life style choice from a child escapes me.
These girls were targetted, raped, abused, tortured, impregnated and trafficked.
Demographics say that white abuses lead the way. But that is only by the nations ethnic ratios.
But grooming gangs are predomintly Pakistani/Banglideshi. Targetting white/hindu girls.

This is a disgrace that it wasn't jumped on by politicians for the sake of votes. Thats the issue.

Seeing as it occurred in mainly Labour areas, points the blame at them internally.

That is what an INQUIRY is all about. WHO FAILED TO REVEAL/ FOLLOW UP / DEAL WITH THE ISSUE.

Labour has just insulted the public opinion by blocking one, as many an opinion poll will tell you.
Another nail in Starmers coffin. I gave him a year. Its looking odds on.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Echo that sentiment, far more insightful that making political hay from it

[ramAnag]

No RA, I won't STFU

It wasn’t me who used that phrase and the person who did wasn’t specifically referring to you, rather the more professional, political bandwagon riders.