Bradford Safeguarding Officials have dismissed calls for a local inquiry. (Image: Getty)
is “weak and naive” on the issue of one Conservative MP who has blasted the hypocrisy of Labour’s stance on the issue has told Express.co.uk.
, the Member of Parliament for & , was left incensed last week after the Bradford Safeguarding Partnership refused to hold a local inquiry into the issue of in the area.
The refusal comes despite use of the perceived benefits of local inquiries as the
Moore, who has been the MP since 2019, has called for further examination of the issue for years and believes that refusing to do so is a “failure of the British state.”
He told Express.co.uk: “Literally within days of the safeguarding minister Jess Phillips saying that local inquiries are more effective, they reject it.
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Robbie Moore has been left incensed at the decision not to hold a local inquiry in Bradford. (Image: Robbie Moore)
“I have been calling for this for years, but at every juncture, people such as , the Mayor of West Yorkshire, will not entertain an inquiry, claiming ‘this is a local issue, not a national one.
“They say that they ‘will learn nothing new’ and that it is too expensive, but I do not accept this; what is the cost of justice?”
The mayor hit back at the claims, pointing out that in West Yorkshire, the creation of a specialist police unit has seen 165 perpetrators imprisoned for over 1850 years since 2016.
Brabin told Express.co.uk: “We will always stand with victims of this abhorrent crime to end the abuse and bring perpetrators to justice. Victims tell us they want action now and support for their recovery, which is what we are delivering.
“We will never ignore the systemic failings of the past and there has been a huge amount of work in West Yorkshire to bring about the change survivors want to see, including those recommended by local and national independent reviews and reports.”
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Jess Phillips has come under fire for refusing to hold a national inquiry into grooming gangs. (Image: Getty)
A 2021 report by Bradford Safeguarding officials into child sexual exploitation made 20 recommendations but has been labelled as inadequate by Moore.
Moore added: “The report was 50 pages long which is an indication of the lack of depth but also, they only looked at five children and they did not address the scale that this crime was perpetrated at, which could dwarf what we have seen in places such as Rotherham.”
The report did not address the issues of directly. Instead, it focused on child abuse more generally, leaving Moore believing that its findings are inadequate if local authorities are to uncover the scale of the issue in Bradford and take steps to prevent it from happening again.
Phillipa Hubbard, of the Bradford District Safeguarding Children Partnership who commissioned the report, said: “The national independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), which was published in October 2022 and to which Bradford contributed, has made it very clear that this is a national issue. Like many local authorities up and down the country, we know that agencies in our district have made mistakes in the past.
“This is why we commissioned an independent review into child sexual exploitation, which was published in 2021, so that all the agencies in our district who work with children can implement the learning from past cases.”
Starmer has said that a national inquiry would delay justice, a claim rubbished by Moore (Image: Getty)
Earlier this week, the doubled down on his insistence that a national inquiry was not the most effective way of handling an issue that has plagued cities and towns across the country.
He told MPs that the Jay report commissioned by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2015 took seven years to reach its conclusion as he warned that a national inquiry could delay justice for victims into the 2030s.
Moore labels these claims “ridiculous,” he said: You can have a twin-tracked process. They could enact the recommendations in full whilst also holding a national inquiry, you can do both, there is nothing to stop the prosecution of those involved.
“There are also large elements of the Pakistani community who want this inquiry so that they can show that it is a minority of their community involved in this.
“There are 50 areas of concern that need to be looked at; with that many, how can this not be appropriate for a national inquiry?”