Howe + Co have been representing victims of child abuse for well over a decade, including in public inquiries in the UK and abroad. We have had the privileged of representing the renowned campaigner, Maggie Oliver for some years.
We have been assisting Maggie in challenging the Secretary of State for the Home Department in relation to the Government’s failure to implement the vital 20 recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
Currently, Howe + Co will be representing Maggie and survivors of child sexual exploitation and abuse in the forthcoming National Investigation and Inquiry into child grooming gangs.
This work arises from the ground breaking report of Baroness Casey on 16 June 2025 – National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
Understanding the Grooming Gang Scandal – What Baroness Casey Found
In her executive summary, Baroness Casey stated:
This audit is focused on group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE) by ‘grooming gangs’. It is rare, but is one of the most horrendous crimes in our society: it involves multiple perpetrators coercing, manipulating and deceiving children into sex, to create an illusion of consent.
While public attitudes have shifted and children who used to be called ‘child prostitutes’ are now understood to be victims of child sexual exploitation, there continues to be an awkwardness in society with acknowledging and discussing child sexual abuse and there remains a tendency to apportion blame to adolescent children for their own abuse.
This audit is the latest in a long line of initiatives and measures looking into child sexual exploitation undertaken since the government adopted its first definition in 2009. Reviews, recommendations and strategies on child sexual exploitation raise the same issues repeatedly: system failures in information sharing, the need for ore training, understanding of risk factors of victims, and the importance of collecting better data and information on perpetrators, including on ethnicity.
The policy and delivery landscape for child sexual abuse and exploitation is spread across government departments and statutory bodies and therefore requires strong leadership, common purpose and above all a grip on the policy. But what emerges instead over at least the last decade is a repeating cycle: seminal moments of scandal and public outrage which lead to bursts of government focus and activity but no sustained improvement, leaving victims and the public with insufficient justice, action, accountability or answers.
The scale of child sexual exploitation
We were unable to provide an assessment on the scale of group-based child sexual exploitation. There is no recent study of the prevalence of child sexual abuse and exploitation in the population. Confusing and inconsistently applied definitions and incomplete data across the police, local authorities, health and the criminal justice system, obscure it. The concept of ‘grooming gangs’, while well-known to the public, is not captured clearly in any official data set.
The data we were able to identify shows that:
- Around 500,000 children a year are likely to experience child sexual abuse (of any kind). However, for the vast majority, their abuse is not identified, and it is not reported to the police either at the time or later.
- Police recorded crime data shows just over 100,000 offences of child sexual abuse and exploitation recorded in 2024, with around 60% of these being contact offences (and the remainder online offences).
- Of these contact offences, an estimated 17,100 are ‘flagged’ by police as child sexual exploitation in police recorded crime data.
- The only figure on group-based child sexual exploitation comes from a new police dataset (called the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Dataset – COCAD) which, while suffering a number of limitations, has identified around 700 recorded offences of group-based child sexual exploitation in 2023.
Given how under-reported child sexual exploitation is, the flaws in the data collection and the confusing and inconsistently applied definitions, it is highly unlikely that this accurately reflects the true scale of child sexual exploitation, or group-based exploitation. It is a failure of public policy over many years that there remains such limited, reliable data in this area.
The nature of group-based child sexual exploitation
The grooming gangs model remains similar to well-known cases like those in Rotherham, with often a man targeting a vulnerable adolescent child – often those in care, or children with learning or physical disabilities – grooming them into thinking they are their ‘boyfriend’ showering them with love and gifts and taking them out.
Subsequently, they pass them to other men for sex, using drugs and alcohol to make children compliant, often turning to violence and coercion to control them. This model has not changed significantly over time, although the grooming process is now as likely to start online, and hotspots might have moved from parks to vape shops and the use of hotels with anonymous check-in facilities.
Grooming gangs are often loosely interconnected, based around existing social connections and so are often broadly homogenous in age, ethnic background and socioeconomic status. Acting in a group likely has a disinhibiting effect on the perpetrators, while misogyny or ‘othering’ allows them to disregard victims.
Other patterns of sexual exploitation that this audit was also made aware of includes sexual exploitation of girls within street gangs where the motive is sexual gratification of gang members, but also to lure girls into working for them. Child sexual exploitation has also emerged as a key feature in children who are victims of modern slavery (a term that includes any form of human trafficking, slavery, servitude or forced labour).
The nature of child sexual abuse in general has been changed by the growth of online sexual abuse offending which now accounts for 40% of all sexual abuse crime. This has altered the age profile of offenders and to an extent the gender profile too, making it harder to see the profile of both perpetrators and victims of group-based child sexual exploitation.
The growth in reporting of child criminal exploitation might have affected how child sexual exploitation is identified. It is easier for a police officer to realise a child is being criminally exploited, for example, through finding them with a significant amount of drugs or money, than it would be to spot the often subtle signs that the same child was also being sexually exploited. This audit is concerned that, because of this, patterns of child sexual exploitation may be obscured.
Victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation
National police data confirms that the majority of victims of child sexual exploitation are girls (78% in 2023) with the most common age for victims being between 10 and 15 years old (57% in 2023).
Most perpetrators are men (76% in 2023).
The data suggests that the age profile of perpetrators varies, with 39% of suspects aged 10 to 15 and 18% aged 18 to 29. This younger age profile is likely to be resulting from an increase in reporting of online and child-on-child offending.
The ethnicity data collected for victims and perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation is not sufficient to allow any conclusions to be drawn at the national level.
There are flaws in the way data is collected and then presented. The latest data (COCAD) covers all child sexual abuse and exploitation committed by two or more perpetrators. It therefore includes a wide range of offending including familial abuse, child-on-child abuse, abuse in institutions as well as group-based child sexual exploitation. That obscures the picture.
Ethnicity of perpetrators
The question of the ethnicity of perpetrators has been a key question for this audit, having been raised in inquiries and reports going back many years. We found that the ethnicity of perpetrators is shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we are unable to provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data.
Despite the lack of a full picture in the national data sets, there is enough evidence available in local police data in three police force areas which we examined which show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination.
More effort is required to identify the nature of group-based child sexual exploitation and, in particular, the ethnicity of perpetrators and offender motivations, in order to understand it better, and to tackle it more effectively.
Data about child sexual exploitation in other services
The identification of child sexual abuse and exploitation is falling in children’s services despite a rise in police recording of child sexual abuse. Child protection plans (where children have been identified as needing protection from significant harm) on the grounds of sexual abuse, have fallen to their lowest level in 30 years.
There is no data published by children’s services about group-based child sexual exploitation. There has also been a decline in the number of serious case reviews about child sexual exploitation in recent years.
In policing, data and intelligence for identifying and investigating child sexual exploitation is stored across multiple systems which do not communicate either within a force, between police forces or with partners.
National data or analysis on group-based child sexual exploitation was not found in health services. Criminal justice data on prosecutions, while showing an upward trend in prosecutions, do not distinguish between different forms of child sexual abuse or on offenders operating in groups.
Despite this, some police forces have developed more approaches to better investigate group-based child sexual exploitation, pursue the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Successful methods include treating group-based child sexual exploitation investigations like major crime, using organised crime tactics in investigations, working with partners to proactively and sensitively seek victims based on known risk factors and data within their own systems; and providing pecialist support for victims to get cases through the courts.
Denial
Our collective failure to address questions about the ethnicity of grooming gangs has dominated political and institutional focus, with energy devoted to proving the point on one hand, or avoiding or playing it down on the other, and still with no definitive answer at the national level.
Despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young White girls, the system has consistently failed to fully acknowledge this or collect accurate data so it can be examined effectively.
Instead, flawed data is used repeatedly to dismiss claims about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ as sensationalised, biased or untrue. This does a disservice to victims and indeed all law-abiding people in Asian communities and plays into the hands of those who want to exploit it to sow division.
On top of the avoidance of ethnicity issues, we also retain an ambivalent attitude to adolescent girls both in society and in the culture of many organisations. We too often judge them as adults (so-called ‘adultification’) especially those in local authority care, who too often are fast-tracked into ‘growing up’ before their time.
Nevertheless, they cannot consent to their own abuse – they remain children. One effect of this is that children are still criminalised for offences they committed while being groomed.
Adults who were victims of abuse as children, are still fighting today to be believed and there is palpable frustration that the organisations, their leaders or sometimes the individuals working for them, are so rarely held to account for wrongdoing. In most areas where reviews and inquiries have been held there has been, at best a reluctance to accept the need for people to understand what has happened. Until this is done, it will be hard to move on.
Blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions, all play a part in a collective failure to properly deter and prosecute offenders or to protect children from harm.
Taxis
As a key part of the nighttime economy, taxis have historically been identified as a way children can be at risk of sexual exploitation. Local authorities issue taxi licenses in line with statutory guidance issued by the government but in some areas especially those who have recognised problems of child sexual exploitation, local authorities go above and beyond this statutory guidance to provide additional protection for children.
However, they are being hindered by a lack of stringency elsewhere in the country, and legal loopholes which mean drivers can apply for a license anywhere in the country and then operate in another area. The Department for Transport should close this loophole immediately and introduce more rigorous standards.
Age of consent
Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator.
This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13–15- year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation.
The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex.
The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-yearolds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
Recommendations
We set out twelve recommendations from this audit to:
- Tighten the law and to make clear that children cannot consent when they have been raped.
- Implement a more vigorous approach to right the wrongs of the past, bringing more perpetrators to justice, holding agencies to account for past failings and delivering justice for victims.
- Improve the information and intelligence we collect and use to inform our approaches to tackling child sexual exploitation.
- Ensure we share information more effectively, use information smartly, and apply the best operational approaches across safeguarding agencies.
Victims and survivors – A personal note from Baroness Casey
I met many victims of child sexual exploitation when I conducted the inspection of Rotherham Council in 2016. I was outraged, shocked and appalled at their treatment – not only at the hands of their vile abusers, but at the treatment afforded them by those who were supposedly there to help, and to be accountable, such as their police force and their council. Those responsible in Rotherham denied any wrongdoing and tried to shirk accountability. I did the absolute most I could do with the power apportioned to me – the council taken over by Commissioners from central government, the council leadership resigned en masse upon receiving the report, and I passed on the names of perpetrators who had yet to be uncovered to the police.
Alexis Jay ensured that South Yorkshire Police could no longer have control over investigating the appalling crimes where there were over 1,400 girls estimated to have been abused. They had been incompetent at best – sometimes turning a blind eye but often actively enabling abuse – and corrupt at worst. The National Crime Agency was brought in and Operation Stovewood took command whilst I was inspecting the Council. By its own acknowledgement, Stovewood had a slow and frustrating start, but has worked to achieve over 39 convictions so far, those already sentenced have been jailed for a total of around 470 years and the operation has kept a particular focus on guiding and supporting the victims.
Perhaps I was complacent that the message the intervention in Rotherham had sent would ensure that victims would be treated better in future. Coupled with the public outcry over what has been uncovered elsewhere – in places such as Telford, Greater Manchester, Oxfordshire – I assumed we would all wake up to the fact that these were abused children and it would mean that the police, councils, health and other agencies would do their damnedest to make sure these victims were given as much care, respect and chance at justice as possible. I am not naive; these cases are difficult. They take a long time to investigate, if they are even reported, let alone to see justice done in court. And these children, who are often adults by the time they are going through the criminal justice system, are often ‘difficult’ too – wouldn’t you be if you had been through what they had been?
Maggie Oliver, of the Maggie Oliver Foundation, kindly brought together a group of survivors. Before meeting them, I had at least a small hope that these women, who had so kindly travelled from far and wide, would reassure me that some progress had been made. I was so disappointed that what I had heard about the treatment of victims in Rotherham, ten years ago, was still being experienced in the present day.
These women were rightly angry at what had been allowed to happen to them as children, but they seemed equally traumatised by their current treatment by statutory agencies. They told me they:
- Had been asked to support the reopening of their case for prosecution, reliving their experiences only to have no progress and no explanation (in one case for over six years after agreeing to take part).
- Were offered reassurances that arrests and charges would be made but continue to see the abusers walk free.
- Are unable to live the lives they wanted, sometimes with criminal convictions they had received whilst children and being groomed. This blighted their chances, for example, leaving some unable to get a bank account or go on their kids’ school trips.
- Have their abusers break anonymity orders with impunity, circulating their names and images on social media. When reported, no explanation is given as to why it isn’t prosecuted.
- Waited years for their cases to come to court while being promised meetings with the Crown Prosecution Service that never happen.
- Told they couldn’t receive full trauma counselling in case it compromised their evidence.
- Watched as people in power who denied their abuse go on to get promotions or take early retirement with no accountability for their actions.
I can’t verify every single thing these women told me, but I believe them, and one thing is abundantly clear; we as a society owe these women a debt. They should never have been allowed to have suffered the appalling abuse and violence they went through as children. This is especially so for those who were in the ‘care’ of local authorities, where the duty to protect them was left in the hands of professionals on the state’s behalf. I can only thank Maggie Oliver for the support she has offered these women and their families, often at great personal cost.
As a result of this audit, I will insist that the cases of these women are looked into and not by those who are part of the problem. I can only thank them and offer an apology on behalf of us all. This audit has been conducted with the victims front and centre of my mind.
Conclusion
Howe + Co will be proud to represent Maggie Oliver and the victims and survivors in the forthcoming investigation
