Highlights:
- Inquiry into grooming gangs faces turmoil after chair Jim Gamble quits.
- Four victims on advisory panel resign, demanding Jess Phillips step down.
- Phillips accused of misleading MPs over inquiry’s scope.
- Baroness Casey brought in to support inquiry after political fallout.
THE GOVERNMENT’s grooming gang inquiry has been thrown into crisis after its expected chair, Jim Gamble, quit, calling the process a “toxic political football”.
His resignation came after Annie Hudson, another frontrunner, also withdrew, and four victims on the inquiry’s advisory panel stepped down, reported The Times.
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister overseeing the inquiry, faced mounting pressure to resign after she was accused of lying to MPs.
Victim Fiona Goddard told The Times Phillips had denied that the inquiry’s scope could be widened to include other forms of sexual abuse, but later evidence appeared to contradict this.
The four victims said they would rejoin the inquiry if Phillips stepped down.
In a letter to home secretary Shabana Mahmood, they wrote: “Her departure would signal you are serious about accountability and changing direction.” Goddard told Times Radio: “I think that there needs to be an apology swiftly followed by Jess Phillips’s resignation.”
Kemi Badenoch and other MPs also called for Phillips to go. In response, prime minister Keir Starmer brought in Baroness Casey to support the inquiry, saying it would “never be watered down”.
Gamble, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, said in his resignation letter that political point scoring had overshadowed the inquiry’s purpose.
“If our politicians cannot come together on an issue as important as this, that is a matter of great concern,” he said.
A Home Office spokesperson said it was disappointed by the withdrawals and would take time to find the right chair.
