Victims and Courts Bill

Katie Lam Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

It is a privilege, as a Member of Parliament, to support our constituents in their hour of greatest need. All too often, that is when they are a victim of an appalling crime. Many of the constituents I speak to are at their wits’ end; they are desperate to be heard, helped and protected. They rightly want their tormentors to be made to stop, and they want justice.

Many of the steps taken in the Bill will be welcomed on both sides of the House and by victims across our country. It is right, for example, that we restrict convicted sex offenders’ access to their children, and it is right that we give victims more information about their offenders’ release. However, the calls for justice for the victims of grooming and rape gangs grow only louder. Across this country, people are rightly horrified by these crimes and the subsequent cover-up, which represents the biggest national scandal in our history, yet the Government have failed to use this opportunity to deliver real justice for those victims and survivors.

Last month, I spoke in this place of the details of just some of these disgusting crimes. I was able to so because of the organisation Open Justice for All, which has purchased, redacted and published transcripts from some of these court cases. However, it has been refused permission to do that in several instances, because a judge has claimed that there “no public interest” in doing so. This is wrong. Of course we must make sure that the anonymity of victims is protected, but nobody is suggesting doing anything to compromise that. These were public trials held in open court, and at the moment the transcripts represent the only way to get to the truth of these revolting crimes that have been carried out across Britain for far too long.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Is not the answer, in part at least, a national statutory inquiry into what occurred, not least because we do not actually know whether it is still going on? That inquiry would expose so much, which would allow all those right-thinking people to take the action necessary and protect so many of the people who might be at risk from further horrors.

[Katie Lam]

I can only agree with my right hon. Friend. It is appalling that such transcripts are currently the only way to understand what has happened in these cases. Relatedly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) has previously said:

“These aren’t just legal documents, they’re historical documents that tell the story in detail of some of the worst crimes in our recent history”.

This Bill acknowledges that transparent information about our justice system is in the interests of victims, but it does nothing to address the problem. What is more, due to the current limits on appeals against unduly lenient sentences, many victims of these horrific grooming and rape gangs will be denied a vital opportunity to seek real justice. In far too many of these cases, we have seen courts hand down lenient sentences. For far too many victims, there will be no redress and their abusers will walk free. Often after just a few short years, these monsters are back in the communities they came from, walking among us and walking among their victims.

Just last week, the Court of Appeal revisited the case of three men who were convicted of raping a teenage girl in Yorkshire. Ibrar Hussain and brothers Imtiaz and Fayaz Ahmed were convicted in January for committing unspeakably evil crimes against a 13-year-old girl. In the first instance, they each received sentences of less than 10 years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark mentioned, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) referred this case to the Attorney General. In this instance, the court rightly ruled that these sentences were far too short. This Bill should have made it easier for victims to seek such redress. It does not.

[Mrs Blundell]

This Government have announced specific support for five local inquiries and are getting on with the implementation of the recommendations of the Jay report. Would the hon. Member like to comment on what the previous Government did on this subject?

[Katie Lam]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. There are several points that I would like to make in response. First, five local inquiries is nothing like enough. These events took place in 50 towns and all the victims deserve justice. Secondly, there are trends across the country and only a national inquiry can get to the bottom of those. Thirdly, she mentions the Jay inquiry. Inquiries are very often specific. The Hillsborough inquiry did not investigate every football match. The infected blood inquiry did not look at the whole of the NHS. The Manchester Arena inquiry did not address every terrorist attack. There has been an inquiry into child sex abuse, but that is not a specific inquiry into the specific phenomenon of groups of mostly Asian Muslim men grooming and sexually torturing mainly white children, facilitated and covered up by those in the British state whose job it was to look after them. That is a specific phenomenon, a particular stain on our country, and it deserves a dedicated inquiry.

[Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Katie Lam]

I am coming to the end of my speech.

I am sure that the Lord Chancellor and the Minister want fairness for victims, so will they please amend the Bill, first, to offer the independent national inquiry into grooming and rape gangs that the country and victims need; secondly, to ensure that all such transcripts, appropriately redacted, be made available to the public; and, thirdly, to allow victims greater ability to appeal against the shockingly short sentences that we see all too often?