Police re-examine 287 child sexual exploitation cases

Fresh investigations could beryllium launched into 287 kid intersexual exploitation cases that had been dropped by section constabulary forces, Yvette Cooper has told MPs.

The location caput said the cases had been handed to a nationalist constabulary taskforce which volition look astatine whether to reopen them and "pursue immoderate caller lines of enquiry that person not been decently pursued".

In January, Cooper asked each constabulary forces successful England and Wales to "look again astatine historical pack exploitation cases wherever 'No Further Action' was taken".

So acold fractional of the forces person reported back, with 287 cases identified for reappraisal by the nationalist Police Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce.

"Now we are awaiting reports backmost from the different fractional of constabulary forces," Cooper told the Commons Home Affairs Committee earlier connected Tuesday.

The authorities has resisted absorption calls for a nationalist enquiry into grooming gangs with powers to compel witnesses to springiness evidence.

Instead, it has pledged £5m successful backing for astatine slightest 5 section inquiries, including successful Oldham, Greater Manchester, wherever Cooper said enactment is "under mode already".

The Home Office besides commissioned seasoned Whitehall troubleshooter Dame Louise Casey to transportation retired a "rapid" reappraisal of the quality and standard of group-based kid intersexual abuse, and to gully up a model for the section inquiries.

Casey had been owed to merchandise her study past period but has asked for a "short extension," Cooper told MPs.

"We bash request her audit to pass the adjacent steps and decisions astir the section inquiries," she said.

In January, the nationalist taskforce reported that determination were 127 large constabulary investigations underway connected kid intersexual exploitation and pack grooming crossed 29 antithetic constabulary forces.