The grooming gangs scandal is one of the darkest episodes in modern British history. What has rightly outraged the public is not just the scale of the abuse by predatory gangs of often Pakistani Muslim men in towns across England, but also the systematic cover-up by the very institutions whose duty it is to protect all children.

In a sickening inversion of morality, greater priority was given to upholding the ideology of diversity than to safeguarding child victims of abuse.

When the conspiracy of silence was finally broken by campaigners like myself and a notable few journalists shining the spotlight on the web of exploitation, collusion and deception, the shaken establishment promised to get to the truth, amid pledges that the survivors would finally be heeded.

But I have been fighting this battle for 13 long years and the wheels of justice have become bogged down in a quagmire of obstruction, bureaucracy, lies and obfuscation.

Shamefully, more than a decade after the Tory Government first declared that there would be a thorough investigation into the grooming gangs saga, survivors and the public are still waiting for meaningful action.

This mood of paralysis extends to the proposed inquiry which Keir Starmer was forced to announce earlier this year. It has, to date, not held a single meeting more than four months on.

The air of crisis was reinforced by a flood of departures this week, led by Annie Hudson, the former director of Children’s Services in Lambeth, who has said after all the negative coverage, she no longer wants to be considered for the post of inquiry chairman.

+3
View gallery

Annie Hudson, the former director of Children’s Services in Lambeth, said after all the negative coverage, she no longer wants to be considered for the post of inquiry chairman

Growing disillusion also saw three abuse survivors I know – Fiona Goddard, Ellie-Ann Reynolds and a woman named only as ‘Elizabeth’ – resign from the panel created to help shape the inquiry.

Ellie-Ann said it had become ‘more about a cover-up,’ while Fiona said panel members were subjected to ‘condescending and controlling language’.

They had other grievances. One was that the scope of the inquiry was being cynically widened to dilute the focus on grooming gangs, especially their ethnicity. The other was that several proposed candidates for the post of chairman came from the police and social services – organisations which bore much of the responsibility for the original scandal.

I fully agree with their stance. Survivors’ voices, and voices like mine, that of Harriet Wistrich of the Centre for Women’s Justice and of parents against child exploitation are being silenced. A total whitewash, in all honestly.

I am not surprised. Having worked as a detective for 16 years in the Greater Manchester Police, I always had grave doubts that these promises of honesty and transparency would be fulfilled.

In my work dealing with the activities of an abuse ring in Rochdale, and sexual exploitation in Manchester, followed by six years dealing with cases with my charity the Maggie Oliver Foundation, I have repeatedly witnessed first-hand how the impulse to conceal runs deep in the police, social services, the Crown Prosecution Service, judiciary and government.

+3
View gallery

Survivor Fiona Goddard has resigned from the panel created to help shape the inquiry. She said panel members were subjected to ‘condescending and controlling language’

Indeed, I left the force in October 2012 because I could no longer stomach being complicit in the wilful neglect of children who were being raped and brutalised, and embarked on a mission to achieve justice for the children in Rochdale and throughout the UK.

At every stage, politicians and policymakers have sought to downplay both the barbarism and the ethnicity of the child rapists.

It was an attitude captured in the statement of Denis Macshane, former Labour MP for Rotherham, who admitted that he had not looked too deeply into the incidence of abuse because, as a Left-winger, he ‘didn’t want to rock the multicultural boat’. So, in effect, local children were sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and progressive dogma.

In addition, they were often blamed – portrayed as ‘prostitutes’ or promiscuous teenagers who had made a ‘lifestyle choice’.

That judgment prevailed at every turn. In February 2015, following explosive controversies over Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, as well as revelations about the Anglican Church, private schools, and local authority care homes, Theresa May, as home secretary, set up the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse under Professor Alexis Jay.

The grooming gang abomination was meant to be one of the key strands of the inquiry, but all-too predictably, it shied away from the ethnic question. Just as disgracefully, 18 of Professor Jay’s 20 recommendations – such as the creation of a Child Protection Authority – have not been acted upon.

+3
View gallery

Another survivor, Ellie-Ann Reynolds, said the inquiry had become ‘more about a cover-up’

Anger at these delays, combined with both dismay over the obfuscation of government and evidence of the continued predatory actions of the gangs, put intense pressure on the Government to take a new approach.

So the top civil servant Baroness Casey – who has a reputation for unorthodoxy and effectiveness – was appointed to conduct a comprehensive review of the grooming nightmare. Her sense of mission and willingness to listen resulted in a frank audit which attacked ‘statutory agencies’ that ‘have persisted in denying problems through indifference, hostility and the threat of legal actions’.

It forced the Government to shift and in June Ministers promised the Independent Commission on Group-based Child Exploitation. But why a commission and not a proper statutory inquiry? Why talk of ‘group-based exploitation,’ unless the aim of this long-winded verbiage is to minimise the racial identity of the gangsters?

A Government and civic order that was really motivated by compassion would not want to hide the truth. But the present secretive, corrupt strategy is designed to mislead and conceal. Yet again!