Conservative MP Robbie Moore has launched a scathing attack on Labour’s approach to grooming gang investigations, urging Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to “change course urgently” on the issue.
The Keighley & Ilkley MP dismissed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s recently announced measures as just “smoke and mirrors”.
Moore expressed fears that the scale of abuse in the Bradford district could “dwarf that of Rotherham”.
Cooper announced a three-month “rapid audit” to examine gang-based exploitation across the country, following mounting pressure on the Government to act.
Robbie Moore hit out at Keir Starmer’s announcement of five local grooming gang inquiries
PA / GB News
Speaking to GB News, Moore insisted: “We absolutely need a national inquiry into rape gangs and gang related grooming, child sexual exploitation, and that has to happen to complete openness and transparency.”
Moore criticised the limited scope of the Home Secretary’s announcement, pointing to its £5million funding allocation and restriction to only five areas.
The Conservative MP highlighted that the proposed measures “do not have the ability to compel witnesses to give evidence and therefore it will not lead to convictions.”
Moore expressed deep frustration at what he called “the failure of the British state,” criticising both national and local government responses to the issue.
Eight men have been given jail sentences of nearly 58 years for multiple sexual offences against two children in Keighley
West Yorkshire Police
Moore revealed growing tensions over addressing the issue at local level in Bradford.
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Speaking about a recent encounter in Keighley, he described how a former Lord Mayor of Bradford Council and previous Labour councillor had challenged him, saying: “Why on earth are you continuing to bring this issue of rape gangs back to the forefront?”
The MP expressed frustration at local leaders “consistently refusing to get behind my campaign for an inquiry that shines a spotlight across Keighley and the Bradford district”.
He criticised both local resistance and national inaction on the issue.
“The national Government not willing to step in and hold that national inquiry,” Moore said. “It has to happen and Starmer needs to change course on this urgently.”
Moore told GB News that the Home Secretary’s announcement is ‘smoke and mirrors’
GB News
Eight men from a Keighley grooming gang have been jailed for offences dating back to the late 1990s. Three men – Ibrar Hussain, 47, and brothers Imtiaz Ahmed, 62, and Fayaz Ahmed, 45 – were sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on Friday for rape.
The court heard they targeted two underage teenage girls, with one victim aged between 13 and 14 at the time of the offences.
In a powerful victim impact statement, the woman, now in her 40s, said: “If I had been listened to sooner rather than later, maybe, just maybe, my life could have been different.”
Judge Ahmed Nadim criticised police and social services as being either “ill-equipped” or “disinterested” in addressing the victims’ needs.
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