PM insists grooming inquiry won't be watered down as fourth survivor quits

The grooming gang probe, according to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, will not be watered down
and will investigate racial and religious motives. When asked about the fourth survivor quitting at Prime Minister's Questions, he was asked about his fourth survator, Kemi Badenoch, as a result of survivors' fears that the investigation is being diluted and that their voices are being silenced. In standing down from the survivors' panel, Jess, which is not her real name, joins Fiona Goddard, Ellie Reynolds, and Elizabeth, which are also not her actual name, as she is not identified Samantha Walker-Roberts, the fifth survivor of the investigation, has told the BBC that she will remain on the panel and that it will expand its remit beyond grooming.
Badenoch questioned the survivors' fears and told Sir Keir that the probe will
and asked,downplay the racial and religious motivations behind their violence
survivors have been ignored for many yearsaren't the victims right when they say it a cover-up?
Injustice will have no place to hideby the state, according to Sir Keir, who wants to change that.
to respond to their questions.and that Dame Louise Casey, who's study recommended a statutory inquiry, will now be working with it. Many that had withdrawn from the probe are encouraged to revisit it, but if they did or not, they owe it to them
briefing war against survivorsThe probe is not and will never be watered down. Its scope will not change. It would look at the criminals' ethnicity and faith, and it would find the right person to chair the probe, according to MPs. Badenoch went on to accuse the government of waging a
Because Elizabeth was wrong,and ordered that Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips be fired.
she said,the safeguarding minister said she was wrong. Who should we believe? the prime minister's safeguarding minister or Elizabeth?
Sir Keir said.What we're trying to do is get this right and have an inquiry with survivors at the center,
he said,They've all had bad experiences, with a diverse range of viewpoints, and every survivor brings their own personal experience to this,
I was shocked and I didn't know how they could be involved when I learned out the two potential chairs were a former police officer and a retired social worker,I want to press on and get this right. Sir Keir's national inquiry into grooming gangs was announced in June, with the ability to arrest witnesses and a commission of survivors assembled to oversee the process. The terms of the probe are still being hammered out, but the government claims it is close to selecting someone to chair it. Annie Hudson, one of the candidates, had been nominated earlier this week when fears were raised that her social work experience might be a point of concern, but Jim Gamble, a former police chief and child violence specialist, met survivors on Tuesday. In total, there are two panels and about 20 survivors. On Monday, Ms Goddard and Ms Reynoldsquitted the panels, followed by Elizabeth on Tuesday, and now Jess, according to her lawyer Amy Clowrey.
When I found out that the twoJess, a beauty stylist who was groomed between the ages of 12-17, told GB News:
We don't want it widening,They were both members of a profession that failed to please all of us. Elizabeth, another survivor of the inquiry, told BBC Radio 4's Today program that she was concerned that authorities continued to dilute the probe by expanding it to wider topics of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
she said.We want it to be on grooming gangs; we want our voice.
Samantha Walker-Roberts, a former Oldham resident who wants the probe to include victims of other forms of sexual assault, has sluggishly stated that those who have resigned. She was convicted of a grooming group when she was 12 years old, but a man who groomed her online assaulted and assaultee her, and as a younger girl she was assaultes and assault by older men who she encountered through friends.
Ms Walker-Roberts told the BBC.This is a one-of-a-kind inquiry in which survivors are in charge, and it's wrong that certain survivors receive special care to be part of this,
Survivors like us must be included in this program, so the scope must be expanded otherwise we will be silenced.It's wrong that certain people can't see beyond their own struggles because everyone is entitled to participate in this and deserves justice.
provenShe said she had no problem with a chair with experience in policing or social work, because this had been
to serve in previous review chairs, whereone was a former officer and the other was formerly a social worker.
Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips said it was untrue
that the government was attempting to dilute the inquiry's focus, responding to Ms Goddard and Ms Reynolds' resignations in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Phillips also emphasized the challenge of finding a chair that didn't fail these girls over the years, including our courts, who took the girls away from grooming gang victims who were criminalized some of them.
she said, rejecting suggestions that a judge should lead the probe, arguing that Baroness Casey did not want a conventional judicial inquiry. But Ms Goddard, who was abused by gangs while living in a Bradford children's home, told GB News that she wouldThere is no institution in our country that hasn't failed,
considerreturning to the panel, but only if Phillips resigned. Ms Goddard said that there were
manymembers of the survivors' committee who were not members of grooming gangs but that different forms of child sexual assault and exploitation were being investigated by the public. Ms Reynolds, who was abused by a group of Pakistani brothers in Barrow, told BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour on Tuesday that the government was
scared of being seen as racistand that
mark their own homework. Ms Goddard said on Monday that policing and social work services had "contributed most to the cover-up of the national mass rape and trafficking of children.it's a lot simpler for them to mask up grooming gangs that are mainly Asian males, mainly Pakistani Muslim men. Both the survivors have expressed their dissatisfaction with two of the chairs on the shortlist having experience in social work or the police, and they should not be allowed to
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