Child Sexual Exploitation: Bradford

Sarah Atherton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

A mark of a good society is how we protect our most vulnerable. I trained as a social worker in Liverpool in 2000, and anecdotally we knew that institutional cover-ups were going on because people were too afraid to do anything. I urge my hon. Friend to go forth and continue with this campaign; I know he will see personal repercussions for it, but I am fully behind him.

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind intervention. As representatives, we are all elected to do the very best for our community and call out the difference between what is right and what is wrong. This is not a political issue; it is about doing the right thing to stand up for our communities.

This summer, a limited review, which focused on just five children who had been sexually abused over the past 20 years in the Bradford district, was published. It makes horrifying reading. Let me tell the House about Anna—not her real name—who is mentioned in the review. She was repeatedly sexually abused by gangs of men while she was in care. The review says that when she was 15, she had an Islamic marriage with her abuser, and her social worker attended the ceremony.

Ruby—not her real name—had a disrupted childhood, which included the death of her mother when Ruby was a very young child. At the age of 13, Ruby was identified as being at risk of child sexual abuse. Throughout her childhood, she experienced 14 different placements in looked-after care. She was sexually abused, and the report identifies that childcare services in Bradford

“did not keep her safe.”

The limited review published in the summer is only a 50-page document. To my mind, it reflects only the tip of the iceberg of what has been going on across the Bradford district. In 2016, a group of 12 men who committed serious sexual offences against two young girls from Keighley and Bradford were jailed for a collective 132 years. One of those girls was raped by five men in succession. Live cases involving grooming gangs are still working their way through the courts. Only last October, 21 men from Keighley and Bradford were arrested after being linked to offences that allegedly occurred against a young girl between 2001 and 2009.

Decisive action is needed if we are to deal with the issue. That is why we need a full, independent Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Keighley and the wider Bradford district.