Why won’t Sadiq Khan ever give me a straight answer on rape gangs?

On Friday Susan Hall, a member of the London Assembly made her latest regular attempt to get Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to answer a sensible question on the subject of whether or not we have a rape gang or gangs (aka grooming gang) operating within the Greater London area.

On previous occasions he either pleaded ignorance of what a ‘grooming’ gang is, or has fallen back on generic police concern about the County Lines gangs of drug running and other general crimes.  The Casey review has put him right about what Mrs Hall means when she says ‘grooming gang’.

This week was no different.

I was pretty sure it is happening in London but not with gangs the size of the northern towns running so many girls a once. Once I saw his body language when Mrs Hall challenged him then I became absolutely certain. Moreover I fear there is a cover-up, or a downplaying and he is party to the secrecy.  If there is no such criminal operation all he had to say was something on the lines of “thankfully the police inform me that there is not, but that County Lines is our main concern”.  The abuse reported by girls around the McDonalds restaurant in Stratford never resulted in prosecutions and the task force to deal with it was absorbed into the Safer City initiative.
We know that girls from the north have been trafficed into London, and at least one girl from the London area transported out.  So the clientele is there.

In the northern towns many people knew who the gangs were, and what girls had been forced into their stables. I’m not hearing (and neither are friends in other boroughs, although I don’t have contacts in west London or far into south London) of kebab shops specifically to avoid, or the misery that befell young so-and-so round the corner. So I think the operations are smaller.  I have long believed that the teachers on bus stop duty outside the single sex, girls only secondary schools that I know are not solely there to enforce good manners and orderly queuing.

The national Inquiry is long overdue.