Copyright huffingtonpost
Grooming gangs survivors have demanded that safeguarding minister Jess Phillips resign before they will take part in the inquiry into the scandal. The four women, who quit their roles in the probe this week, say Phillips is “unfit” to continue in her role and must leave government. In a letter to home secretary Shabana Mahmood, published on X, they accused the minister of “betrayal” after she dismissed their criticisms of how the grooming gangs inquiry is being run. Their concerns centre around fears that the scope of the inquiry may be broadened out to investigate wider sexual abuse and not just grooming gangs. Their letter said: “We raised legitimate concerns about the inquiry’s direction based on our direct experiences in the process that you called ‘justified’ and in response your safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, called our accounts ‘untrue’. “Evidence has since proven we were telling the truth. Being publicly contradicted and dismissed by a government minister when you are a survivor telling the truth takes you right back to that feeling of not being believed all over again. “It is a betrayal that has destroyed what little trust remained.” Phillips’ resignation is top of a list of five things the women say must happen before they will consider rejoining the inquiry’s victims and survivors panel. They say: “Her conduct over the last week has shown she is unfit to oversee a process that requires survivors to trust the government. Her departure would signal you are serious about accountability and changing direction.” Home Office sources told the BBC that Mahmood still has confidence in Phillips. The women also say survivors must be “genuinely consulted” about who chairs the inquiry, and that victims must be free to speak openly “without fear of reprisal”. The inquiry must also remain “laser-focused” on grooming gangs, they say, and that the inquiry’s current victim liaison lead must be replaced with an independent mental health professional. “We have been failed by every institution meant to protect us,” the letter says. “We were failed as children, failed by police who didn’t believe us, failed by social services who blames us, and failed by a system that protected our abusers. “We will nto participate in an inquiry that repeats those same patterns of dismissal, secrecy and institutional self-protection.”
