First locations for grooming gang inquiry announced

In a letter to stakeholders, inquiry organisers said the first set of hearings would focus on government departments, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, councils and the NHS. It said despite 800 recommendations being identified by the inquiry, there had been "significant inconsistency" in how these recommendations have been implemented. A statement said the "experiences of victims and survivors in those areas will be at the heart of these investigations". Baroness Longfield said she hoped the inquiry would mean "no further inquiries into grooming gangs will ever be needed". "These hearings will help us to establish what national institutions and services should have been doing to implement these findings and to protect children from abuse and harm - and what, if any, progress has been made in areas where investigations have taken place," she said. Abuse survivor Fiona Goddard, who resigned from the inquiry in October 2025 over concerns that two of the shortlisted chairs had backgrounds in policing and social services, said it had been "a long fight". "Bradford has evaded inquiries for many, many years and it's time that the full truth about what happened comes out."