\n<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer\u2019s government has announced a near tenfold increase in funding for detectives hunting grooming gangs but has been warned by police that the amount will \u201clikely fall short\u201d of what is needed.<\/p>\n
Operation Beaconport, which was set up last year to review closed group-based sexual exploitation inquiries in England and Wales, will receive nearly \u00a338m, a Home Office statement said \u2013 up from \u00a34m given last year.<\/p>\n
The money will \u201clikely fall short\u201d of the amount needed to cover work to tackle group-based child exploitation, police sources have warned.<\/p>\n
The scale and complexity of the reviews involved are expected to require a significant number of officers over an extended period, the source said. The increased cash is not expected to cover the funding forces would need to meet the anticipated cost of a dedicated team, they added.<\/p>\n
In a separate development, the chair of the statutory inquiry into grooming gangs told MPs she would not be \u201csqueamish\u201d about tackling issues around the ethnicity and culture of the rapists involved.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Anne Longfield: \u2018We recognise that there\u2019s no single type of survivor or perpetrator here.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Gary Calton\/The Observer<\/p>\n Asked about previous inquiries which found a disproportionate number of perpetrators were from Pakistani and Asian heritage communities, Anne Longfield told the home affairs select committee: \u201cWe\u2019re setting out to understand and demonstrate what caused it, what allowed it to happen and what allowed it to continue to happen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not squeamish \u2026 we recognise that there\u2019s no single type of survivor or perpetrator here, but we also know that answers can be sought there and delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n Lady Longfield\u2019s inquiry has a maximum duration of three years and has a budget of \u00a365m, which she told MPs was \u201cdoable\u201d. \u201cWe think it is possible with the budget,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Zo\u00eb Billingham, a panellist on the new inquiry, told MPs that police forces accused of failing grooming gang survivors should be open to third-party scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not expect forces to be investigating themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The inquiry published its terms of reference earlier this year and is beginning its full investigation into the group-based sexual exploitation of children in England and Wales.<\/p>\n It will have the legal powers to compel witnesses, including politicians, to give evidence and hand over documents.<\/p>\n The prime minister is facing political pressure to tackle grooming gangs, which has become a key campaigning issue for Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK in Labour\u2019s heartlands.<\/p>\n The extra money also follows the damning resignation last week of the Home Office minister Jess Phillips, who criticised Starmer for a lack of urgency and boldness in tackling online abuse.<\/p>\n Responding to the announcement on Tuesday, Phillips said: \u201cIt is about time that both grooming gangs and all forms of child sexual abuse were seen as a priority that it is and this extra funding will go a long way to righting the historical wrongs \u2026 Now all our efforts must turn to preventing the harm from happening in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n Ministers came under pressure over grooming gangs in January 2025 after the owner of X, Elon Musk, highlighted the government\u2019s decision to refuse Oldham council\u2019s request for a second national inquiry.<\/p>\n Starmer announced in June that there would be a specific grooming gangs inquiry, but then struggled to set it up. The Guardian disclosed in October that the new inquiry had stalled amid wrangles over the remit and difficulties in finding a chair.<\/p>\n Police forces will also be given \u00a39m to buy AI technology to detect online abusers more rapidly as part of \u00a3100m of funds to tackle child sexual abuse.<\/p>\n Police officers will also have access to a suite of \u201cAI-enabled intelligence tools\u201d under Home Office plans, helping them to analyse large datasets, translate foreign-language material, and identify patterns and relationships between suspects.<\/p>\n The technology will allow forces to bring predators to justice \u201cregardless of size or local resources\u201d, the government said.<\/p>\n Another \u00a311.7m will pay for the Undercover Online Network, which targets predators in the dark web. The network tracks and identifies offenders, intervenes early and drives arrests and prosecutions. Its work helped safeguard 1,748 children between April 2024 and 2025, with 1,797 arrests also made.<\/p>\n The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said: \u201cThe grooming gangs scandal is one of the darkest moments in our country\u2019s history, where the most vulnerable people were abused and exploited at the hands of evil child rapists.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be no hiding place for the predatory monsters who committed unimaginable crimes of child sexual abuse [CSA] and exploitation. We will track down these vile rapists and put them behind bars.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Crime Agency\u2019s Jav Oomer said: \u201cWe welcome the continued Home Office funding to support the NCA\u2019s vital work in tackling the highest harm offenders, whether they operate in our communities or online, and will use the full force of our capabilities to protect children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to see the increasing complexity and severity of CSA offending, with offenders becoming more technologically sophisticated, but also producing more severe and more sadistic material.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Keir Starmer\u2019s government has announced a near tenfold increase in funding for detectives hunting grooming gangs but has been warned by police that the amount will \u201clikely fall short\u201d of what is needed. Operation Beaconport, which was set up last year to review closed group-based sexual exploitation inquiries in England and Wales, will receive nearly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[311,115,1600,3371,6189,349,9668,1551,3746,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-49565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-extra","10":"tag-fall","11":"tag-funds","12":"tag-gangs","13":"tag-grooming","14":"tag-hunt","15":"tag-police","16":"tag-short","17":"tag-wales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}