A senior councillor in Coventry has said that he had “never heard” of any grooming gangs in the city despite there being prosecutions during his time in office.
Tory Councillor Julia Lepoidevin rose in the city chambers on Tuesday evening to ask the Labour-run council to back a local review into the abuse gangs.
She said that she was “shocked to hear Coventry named in relation to this issue.”
Following the “revelation”, she asked the Labour deputy leader if he would instigate a review into this issue.
But Cllr Abdul Khan, Deputy Leader of Coventry City Council and Cabinet Member for Policing, said it had “never been an issue in Coventry”.
The Labour politician said he would not be conducting a review.
Cllr Abdul Khan, Deputy Leader of Coventry City Council and Cabinet Member for Policing, said grooming gangs had ‘never been an issue in Coventry’
COVENTRY COUNCIL
He said: “In all the time I’ve been a cabinet member, I’ve never heard any reference being made with respect to Coventry and grooming gangs.”
He added: “It’s never been an issue in Coventry.”
A report on the Coventry Council website stated that in 2016/17, well within the last decade that Khan has been in his role, that there were dozens of Child Sexual Exploitation suspects in the area.
West Midlands Police said that for ethnicity data, “57 per cent of the cohort are recorded as ‘Asian’, 17 per cent as ‘White’, 12 per cet ‘Black’, per centas mixed and 10 per cent as ‘other’.”
Tory Councillor Julia Lepoidevin rose in the city chambers on Tuesday evening to ask the Labour-run council to back a local review into the abuse gangs
COVENTRY COUNCIL
Cllr Lepoidevin hit back at Khan: “With respect, this issue is too serious to be dismissed without proper consideration.”
She pressed him to clarify why the council should not adopt a local review, as per the prime minister’s recommendation.
Khan’s colleague Cllr Patricia Seaman, who is the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, then stepped in to respond, where she explained how the town had been blighted by abuse gangs.
She said she had been “anticipating” a question about this.
Cllr Seaman raised a gang that was jailed for a total of 42 years in 2017 for grooming and raping children, some of them living in care homes.
Seaman referred to efforts taken by the council in response to the Independent Inquiry to Child Sexual Abuse.
She said that the city now has CSE screening tools and multi-agency partnerships to deal with group-based abuse.
The row comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was opposed to a national inquiry into the scandal but said that his government would support local reviews.
Concerns have been raised about this approach due to many local authorities being resistant to calls for local reviews, including areas severely blighted by abuse gangs.
A spokesperson for Coventry City Council said: “The Council takes child sexual exploitation extremely seriously and works closely with partners across the city to tackle the issue.
“A key element of this has been the creation of the Horizon Team in the city. This multi-agency team provides support to children and young people who are at risk of or experiencing exploitation.
“Horizon was inspected by national services including Ofsted, the CQC and probation less than a year ago and it found that children at risk of criminal exploitation and serious youth violence are safer as a result of the effective partnership work undertaken in the city.”