LONDON:
The UK government announced on Monday that it would bring in tough new laws to “root out the scourge” of grooming gangs, and apologised to thousands of victims believed to have been sexually exploited.
Any adults who engage in penetrative sex with a child under 16 will now face the most serious charge of rape, interior minister Yvette Cooper told parliament, as authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on the gangs.
The announcement came as a damning report, written by parliamentarian Louise Casey, was published into the decades-long scandal, which has affected towns and cities across Britain.
In it she wrote about how institutions failed the victims, and how the young girls and women were often blamed for their own abuse.
Seven men were convicted on Friday in the UK’s latest grooming trial, after jurors heard that two girl victims were forced to have sex “with multiple men on the same day, in filthy flats and on rancid mattresses”.
One of the victims said social workers had regarded her as “a prostitute” from the age of 10.
On Monday, three other men appeared at Sheffield Cown Court in a separate case and denied raping a teenage girl in Rotherham between 2008 and 2010.
Despite the age of consent being 16, Casey’s report said there were “too many examples” of grooming cases being dropped or downgraded where a 13-15 year-old had been deemed to be “in love with” or “had consented to” sex with the perpetrator.
