For decades, some of England’s most ordinary towns – Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, Telford and many more – have carried an extraordinary shame: organised rape gangs targeting mainly English girls while the authorities looked the other way. This week, in a London hearing room paid for not by Whitehall but by the public, an independent “Rape Gang Inquiry” has begun putting those failures on the record.
Launched by independent MP Rupert Lowe, the inquiry was crowdfunded by more than 20,000 donors, making it the largest political crowdfunder in British history and very much a story of English taxpayers deciding to do the job the state would not. Its remit is explicitly rooted in patterns seen across English local authorities: gangs of largely Pakistani‑heritage men targeting vulnerable, mostly white English girls, many in care, with councils, police forces and social services in places like South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire repeatedly failing to intervene.
In his opening remarks, Lowe spoke of “justice for a country that was repeatedly misled about what was happening in its towns and cities” – and that country, in case after case, has meant England. From Rotherham’s 1,400 exploited girls to the Rochdale prosecutions and the Casey audit of grooming gangs in northern English force areas, the picture is of an English state that preferred reputation management and community‑cohesion spin to facing up to what was happening to its own children.
What makes this inquiry unique is that it treats those stories not as isolated “scandals” but as a connected national betrayal of English girls, spread across at least 85 council areas, many of them small, overlooked boroughs that rarely make the news unless something goes catastrophically wrong. The panel will hear from survivors, parents and whistleblowers from different parts of England and has promised not only to publish its findings but to pursue private prosecutions where the English justice system previously shrugged and moved on.
While Westminster’s official statutory inquiry grinds into gear, this people‑funded process is already taking evidence in public – and doing so largely under the radar of the very media that missed, minimised or mishandled so many of these stories the first time round. If you want ongoing coverage that treats this as part of England’s story rather than just another passing Westminster row, follow England Then And Now across our channels for up‑to‑date reports, key testimony highlights and analysis from the inquiry as it unfolds day by day.
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