Nigel Farage warned yesterday that London may be the ‘last great grooming scandal to be uncovered’ as he accused Sir Sadiq Khan of failing victims.
The Reform UK leader accused the Labour mayor of denying the existence of grooming gangs in the capital after police chiefs said they would review thousands of cases.
He also demanded that Parliament take control of the crisis-hit inquiry into child sexual abuse after a victim who quit its panel said it was ‘rigged’.
Sir Sadiq has been accused of stonewalling questions on the issue, saying only that young Londoners were being targeted by county lines gangs.
The Metropolitan Police has, however, said that it will reinvestigate 9,000 child sexual abuse cases in London over 15 years following Baroness Casey’s grooming review, which was published in June.
Asked yesterday whether the mayor had failed victims in London, Mr Farage said: ‘Yes, he’s been denying that there’s grooming going on in London. The Met have been denying there’s grooming going on in London.’
He added: ‘Of course it’s more difficult to spot a particular type of grooming gang in central London than it is in Rotherham just by the sheer size of the city, by the different communities that live in this city. Maybe London is the last great grooming gang scandal to be uncovered – and it looks like we’re very, very close to that.’
Mr Farage gave a press conference alongside grooming gang survivor Ellie Reynolds, who said Sir Sadiq should quit for ‘covering up a mass failing in London’.
Asked what she made of accusations that he had stonewalled the issue by referring to county lines rather than grooming gangs, she branded him a liar, adding: ‘County lines is linked in with grooming and rape gangs. There’s many different types of avenues to which rape gangs operate. There’s county lines, there’s exploitation, there’s drug dealing, there’s sexual exploitation.
‘Sadiq Khan’s a liar. He should be stepping down. It was very bizarre of him to try and cover up a mass failing in London.’ Asked if he had let London victims down, she added: ‘Massively. It’s really traumatising the victims because at the end of the day we get failed twice – once by the abuse we had to suffer and then by the institutions and systems that were there to protect us.
‘They don’t ever protect us. So, yes, he has let them down.’
Labour’s national grooming gangs inquiry has descended into chaos after five survivors quit the victims’ liaison panel and the two candidates to chair it pulled out.
Ms Reynolds, who is one of those who have quit the panel, said she had yet to meet victims’ minister Jess Phillips, despite having tried for more than a year.
She claims the minister has cancelled on her seven times. She alleged the inquiry was ‘rigged from the start’.
Mr Farage, who is calling for Parliament to use its ‘extraordinary powers’ to hold an inquiry, claimed there was a ‘huge racial and ethnic’ dimension to the scandal, adding: ‘A very large part of these crimes could be attributed to racism in its absolutely worst possible form.’ He wants to see a ‘laser focus’ on Pakistani grooming gangs over other forms of abuse.
A spokesman for Sir Sadiq said: ‘Any gangs exploiting children for sex are utterly abhorrent.
‘Sadiq wants justice for every single victim of these horrific crimes, which is why the Met have increased the arrests of vile perpetrators and are reassessing historic cases of child sexual exploitation in London.’
