Five grooming gang survivors tell PM they will stay on panel only if Jess Phillips remains in post

Five survivors invited on to the child sexual exploitation inquiry panel have written to the prime minister to say they will continue working with the investigation only if the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, remains in post. The women have contacted Keir Starmer and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, outlining a range of conditions for their continued participation. They say Phillips has “devoted her life to hearing and amplifying the voices of women and girls who would have otherwise been unheard”. One of the group, Samantha Walker-Roberts, who was abused in Oldham from the age of 12, has chosen to waive her right to anonymity. The other four have used pseudonyms and call themselves Scarlett, Caitlin, Claire and Katie. The women say they want the inquiry to cover all types of sexual exploitation, including grooming gangs, and that “anyone who believes their evidence should be included” should have the chance to participate. They say they believe Phillips has remained impartial and they want her to “remain in position for the duration of the process for consistency”. They say: “She has offered some of us support prior to this process, helped survivors access services and help they would not have had without her. In consultation, we have asked for the scope to be larger than just grooming gangs, that was our right to input our opinions, which is the purpose of the panel. “Jess was clear that the focus would be on grooming gangs. However, survivors in the group explained that they would be excluded for not fitting the generalised stereotype of what that is and should focus on CSE,” referring to child sexual exploitation. Four other members of the panel resigned this week, saying they felt the government was manipulating them to expand the scope of the inquiry to include other forms of abuse and exploitation. They said on Wednesday that they would return only if Phillips resigned from government and the inquiry was chaired by a leading lawyer. The two frontrunners to chair the investigation, the former police officer Jim Gamble and the social worker Annie Hudson, withdrew their candidacies. Gamble, a former head of the child exploitation and online protection command, said he was withdrawing because of a “lack of confidence” in him among some survivors. Government sources said on Thursday that the inquiry would take months to find a new chair. Walker-Roberts, now 31, was kidnapped from a police station in Oldham, Greater Manchester, in October 2006, as she tried to report a sexual assault she had suffered in a nearby graveyard. It sparked a devastating chain of events in which she was raped and abused by a number of men of various ethnic backgrounds over 24 hours. Police failings meant that just one, Shakil Chowdhury, a British citizen born in Bangladesh, was brought to justice. In a separate case, she was raped by a white teacher, Paul Waites, after he groomed her online. She said on Thursday she was worried for Phillips’ safety. “I’m really concerned it’s going to end up in a Jo Cox situation,” she said. “I respect and understand her answers, unlike other people who are thinking it’s a cover-up. She’s down to earth. She’s real. We need somebody real.” Mahmood said earlier this week that the inquiry would be “robust” and examine the ethnicity and religion of offenders. An audit by the Whitehall troubleshooter Louise Casey earlier this year found that “disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds” were among “suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation” in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. She said it was difficult to paint an accurate national picture because there was no ethnicity data recorded in two-thirds of cases. Walker-Roberts said the survivors worried there were “grey areas” when it came to defining grooming gangs. She she was worried her own experience of group based exploitation would not fit a narrow definition of a grooming gang. She said the gang that attacked her “was a one-off kidnap, so there was no grooming involved. That’s why I am fighting to say widen the scope, so that I can be included.” The Guardian understands the other women who signed the letter were exploited by grooming gangs similar to those investigated by Casey, but that the offenders were not exclusively Asian. Walker-Roberts and the other survivors who have chosen to back Phillips say leaks to the media about private discussions undertaken by the panel have left some feeling silenced and afraid. They said there should be consequences for those who breached confidentiality. They said the panel should be streamlined, but include “a range of voices to ensure everyone can be heard in a respectful way” in an effort to “find a solution that takes all views into account and serves everyone that has been a victim of CSE and their families”. They want a clearer structure when it comes to interviewing a potential chair, so “everyone has the chance to ask questions they feel are relevant in an environment where everyone’s voice is heard and important”. “These sessions should be held in person, to avoid any breaches of confidentiality to protect other survivors’ voices,” they said. They also said there should be “no re-entry” for those who had “forfeited” their position on the panel and called for an independent whistleblowing procedure to be set up. They urged everyone involved to display “respect and compassion”. “We have all been failed in the past, which is why some of us campaigned for this inquiry. It would be another catastrophic failing if the inquiry was to go ahead without including us, but we will not be included in an inquiry process that isn’t fit to serve any victim or survivor who believes they have evidence to submit to the inquiry.” Amid growing rows over the advisory panel of survivors, which will help to appoint the chair, it was disclosed that it had 30 members. All were selected on the basis that they had identified as a survivor of gang or group-based child sexual exploitation. Some of the those who have resigned, however, say there are some people on the panel who are not survivors of street-based gang-related child sexual exploitation, which is usually associated with grooming gangs. Louise Goddard, one of the five who resigned and called for Jess Phillips’ resignation, said: “Grooming gang survivors are never going to agree on everything but that is going to be complex enough without including people with other experiences outside grooming gangs.” A government minister said Phillips had “ridden the storm” and would survive. “I think people can see that this is an extremely difficult and complex inquiry, which anyone would find difficult to establish, even someone with Jess’s experience,” they said.