Eight closed grooming gang cases to be reopened in bid to bring justice to sick abusers

Eight previously-closed grooming gang cases are set to be reopened and examined once again.

Operation Beaconport is set to reexamine cases from between January 2010 and March 2025 which involve two or more suspects of sexual abuse, more than one victim, and where no further action had already been taken.

It is also only considering cases where suspects are still alive and have not already been reviewed.

In November, 1,273 investigations from 23 police forces had already been referred to the National Crime Agency team.

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Of those investigations, 236 were prioritised because they involved allegations of rape.

Reviewers believe potential lines of inquiry in some cases had been missed because of human error.

The announcement falls on the one-year-anniversary of Baroness Casey's audit, which brought to light how grooming gang victims had been ignored.

Chief Constable Becky Riggs, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for child protection and abuse Investigation, said: "We know that for many victims and survivors, the harm they experienced was compounded by not being listened to or believed. That has had a lasting impact on trust and confidence.

"One year on from Baroness Casey’s audit, our focus remains firmly on improving how we respond, ensuring victims and survivors are at the centre of every decision we make."

Operation Beaconport was first announced last November in order to review cases across England and Wales that the Crown Prosecution Service took no further action on.

Initially receiving £4million, in May it was granted a cash injection of £38million to "reopen and investigate cases and put more offenders behind bars", the Home Office said.

At the time, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the grooming gangs scandal as "one of the darkest moments in our country's history".

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And NCA Director General Graeme Biggar said: "Operation Beaconport is the most comprehensive and complex investigation into child sexual exploitation and abuse in UK history.

"After months of careful joint work with policing to lay the foundations, we have sent the first cases back to forces to be reopened. This is the first step toward seeking justice for victims and survivors.

"An investigation of this magnitude will take time. Operation Beaconport is working with determination to get it right for victims and survivors."

Ahead of her audit's anniversary, Baroness Casey revealed the Government had not done enough for victims of grooming gangs, many of whom had been convicted as "child prostitutes".

The Government has since introduced legislation to pardon the crime, but the peer told the BBC it was the "lazy option".

"Just doing an expunging of child prostitution offences is not good enough, it's not quick enough, it's not clever enough and the system can do an awful lot better, an awful lot more quickly," Baroness Casey added.

Speaking to GB News last week, safeguarding lead for CSE victims, Claire Adams, called on Sir Keir Starmer to have the "political will" to admit things had gone wrong in the current and previous governments.

"What we need to do now is for everyone to be heavily invested so that we can get the convictions for the previous victims, the ones that are still ongoing," she added.

"What we need to see is more we need to see more from the Government, more political will, and more people to understand that children across this country are being groomed, trafficked, tortured and raped every single day."

Victims of grooming gangs, including Fiona Goddard, say they have been arrested for public order offences, common assault or criminal damage, many of them caused by being "emotionally dysregulated" after being raped.

She also told the BBC she had missed court dates as a result of being confined to "some rape house, locked away in the bedroom".

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