
‘Sorry’ is the easiest word
The Rape Gangs scandal requires action, not platitudes

Zehroon Razak, Fayaz Ahmed, Ibrar Hussain and Imtiaz Ahmed. In January 2025, they were convicted of rape at Bradford Crown Court for offences committed in the late 1990s
DOMINIC ADLER
I’ve written about the rape gang scandal here, for UnHerd. I was never a child protection or sexual offences investigator, so I confined myself to the impact of social justice politics on broader police decision-making.
Having written the piece, I thought I was done. Then, thinking about it, I decided I wasn’t. There was more to be said about what justice might look like for the victims of Oldham, Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford and the other British towns. The places where young girls were trafficked like meat.
It struck me how little we hear of the victims’ wishes. What do they want? ‘Victim-focussed’ is a buzzword in our criminal justice system, one which seldom survives contact with reality. While our institutions ponder their failures (and begin circling wagons), what of the victims? Then, what do we, as a society, expect? How should the police atone (yes, atone is the correct word) for such full-spectrum failure? This systemic collapse of decency is epochal. I find myself in agreement with Clement Knox, who wrote how the rape gang scandal is;
[A]s central to understanding the crisis of the modern British state as was slavery to the antebellum United States or the Dreyfus Affair to the French Third Republic. It is the rock on which the entire post-1968 British governance model breaks. It indicts the right and the left, the Conservatives and the Labour Party, the judiciary and the civil service and the media. Under the weight of its atrocity every single piety of modern Britain is crushed. The questions posed by the scandal transcend policy. They transcend politics. They are civilisational.’
Hyperbolic? I think not. Those who think it is (including many in government, both national and local) are sticking their heads in the sand. Those who wish this would go away, or think it’s a bandwagon, or argue the existing series of investigations are adequate… are wrong. Very, very wrong. They’re sticking their fingers in their ears and singing nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah.
Partly, this is because their entire belief system faces radical realignment. The Wizard of Oz is exposed; the British multicultural model is broken. The consequences of post-Macpherson Britain – hitherto sacrosanct – are being openly questioned.
And, partly, it’s because of the ugly, machine politics of predominantly Labour-run councils. Then there are the fantasy beliefs of our administrative classes (of all parties), preaching from well-heeled neighbourhoods in cities and university towns.
As for the ‘far right bandwagon’? Yes, online hordes of mouth-breathers, wannabe Nazis and trolls will exploit this scandal. Of course they will – it was ever thus. No activist will ever ‘let a good disaster go to waste’. Their opportunism detracts, in no way whatsoever, from the sheer depravity of the rape gangs, nor the ensuing cover-up.
The bandwagon argument? It’s a distraction technique. The Prime Minister, by deploying it, reveals his weakness. For a man whose religion appears to be human rights law, a man who thinks nothing of paying to surrender territory to assuage obscure international courts, Starmer seems strangely indifferent to this blatant failure of process. Starmer can vacillate as much as he likes. Decent people, of all political persuasions, feel the winds of change. The vibe reminds me, in some ways, of 1989. Yet, this time, there will be no ‘end of history.’
Now, imagine a minefield. A densely-seeded minefield. Every issue I’ve just written about, for senior police leaders, is one of those mines. What if every ideological and operational assumption they’ve operated under for the past thirty years is… wrong? Demonstrably so?

How a police Gold Group views any given scandal
Victims
Police officers routinely deal with victims of crime. Therefore, it’s not surprising victims occasionally become routine. Police officers have varying levels of empathy. Those with high levels of emotional intelligence, unsurprisingly, are often drawn to roles like sexual offences, family liaison and child protection.
First responders, though? Response officers, the poor bloody infantry of policing, easily become cynical and desensitized. I suspect this is the case with some of the officers who dealt with rape gang victims. Girls from, using the sanitized vernacular of social work, ‘challenging backgrounds’. I talk about how easily police officers can become desensitized here, albeit in the context of dealing with death. I know I was. At the time, I considered it a twisted kind of superpower.
Perhaps a future inquiry, after identifying officers whose failures were inexcusable, will ask hard questions about police selection, vetting and training. Yet it would be a mistake to recruit a service composed entirely of emotionally-intelligent empaths (if you haven’t noticed, the police have a tendency to overreact); you need hard bastards too. Yes, really. Victims aren’t a monolith – different victims respond to different types of people. Besides, sometimes the best person to deliver a victim safely to an empath is… a hard bastard.
In my experience, victims also have strikingly different expectations of what constitutes ‘justice.’ Some want to see the perpetrator locked up forever. Or hanged. For others, revenge ‘is a life well-lived.’ Some want to see a legacy of change, to spare others the ordeal they suffered. Others want to forget. Closure, for them, doesn’t involve providing statements or being cross-examined in court.
In cases involving ‘safeguarding’ – child abuse, sexual offences and other cases featuring vulnerable people, this is especially important. In such circumstances, what the police call ‘case disposal’ might be more complex than a simple charging decision. Familial relationships and victim welfare all play their part. It’s why, on paper, brigading police into partnerships seemed logical. Even if the reality – as we saw in cases like Rotherham, played out differently. Victim-centric became, in reality, race-relations centric. Administratively convenience-centric. Don’t-upset-the-horses-centric.
How do we capture the victim’s wishes? And is this the same thing as what ‘the public’ wants? It’s the job of politicians to internalise these expectations and turn them into action. Actions that satisfy justice, as understood by the person on the street. Successive government’s failure to do so is indicative of their lack of courage and imagination. They’re no different from the police gold group. One that doesn’t see victims, only mines.
What does this say about our political culture? I’ll leave that for you to decide. I think an inquiry into how our leaders make decisions is overdue. We call them General Elections, I think, but even they seem a bit wonky nowadays.
Many want a public inquiry into the rape gangs scandal. It’s an option, but is it the best option?
Inquiries and Investigations
Over the past twenty years there have plenty of investigations and inquiries into the phenomena we’re now, at last, calling the Rape Gang scandal (as opposed to ‘Grooming’).
Some were straightforward criminal prosecutions, or large-scale investigations into networked sex crimes. Others were thematic, designed to examine why local authority ‘a’ or police force ‘b’ failed victims. You might have heard of the Jay review too (a broader examination of child protection, only touching upon the Rape Gang affair). Now, under growing pressure, the government is funding a number of additional local inquiries. This includes money for police forces to review their response to the phenomena of majority ethnic-Pakistani sexual abuse of predominantly white victims.
For some, however, only a full Public Inquiry will deliver a definitive answer. Why? This isn’t an article about the ins-and-outs of the Public Inquiries Act 2005, which would be very dull indeed. All the layperson needs understand is this; a public inquiry (PI) means a judge can compel (i.e. subpoena) witness to provide evidence under oath. That means, if you lie to a PI, you can be prosecuted for Perjury. On the other hand, convention has it the Attorney General offers immunity from prosecution for admissions made to a PI. This is to encourage candour from witnesses.
This would force senior decision-makers, including police chiefs, into the box to give testimony under oath. They would have to justify their decision-making (or chuck each other under buses) in full public view. This threatens reputations, careers, knighthoods and honours. On the other hand, the Government is currently arguing they’re relying on a new ‘duty of candour’ by public servants in the local inquiries they propose. That’s a new piece of legislation, by the way, so I’m not going to comment on it. I doubt, however, it has the impact of swearing an oath in front of a judge or of being accused of perjury.
There’s a wealth of criticism of PIs. You can read a few here. My main concerns, in the context of the rape gang scandal? The first is time. PIs are notoriously, tortuously, lengthy. I would say, having looked at previous examples, a proper PI into the rape gangs scandal would take at least a decade. A least. More like fifteen or even twenty years. I’m sure kicking the problem into the long grass like a PI might suit a few establishment types. Not so, I suspect, the wider public. My message to those who propose a PI is to be careful what you wish for.
My second concern is expectations. A PI only makes recommendations. Governments can do with them as they wish. For example, Leveson II (the second part of the inquiry into press wrongdoing)? Well, that was cancelled by the government because it was all getting a bit messy. This time, I don’t think ‘recommendations’ will cut the mustard.
Ten to fifteen years? No. It won’t stand. I’m sure those who wish to entrust the problem solely to lawyers and judges are well-intentioned. They’re also unlikely to be satisfied by the result – if, indeed, they live long enough to see it.
Truth and Reconciliation
Then there’s the idea of a South-African, post-Apartheid style truth and reconciliation commission. This, so the idea goes, would allow for those responsible for failures in child safeguarding – and politically-motivated cover-ups – to confess. To apologise. To learn lessons and, finally, move on. I’ve argued the Rape Gangs scandal is an existential, epoch-defining, societal failure. Why not use adopt the model used by a country as divided and damaged as South Africa?
Initially, I found the idea superficially attractive. Then I read about the problems the South Africans experienced with offering complete amnesty and immunity to wrongdoers. The more immunity the Commission offered, the more horrible the admissions guilty parties offered. This, eventually, threatened the very concept of immunity. I don’t know what horrible secrets are buried in police archives and local council basements (those spared the shredder or bonfire). Personally, I’d like to think if and when they’re unearthed, prosecutions might be appropriate. I’m not playing witchfinder general – I’ve a fairly enlightened view on the subject of redress. On the other hand, I think the option of criminal prosecutions for the worst cases of misconduct must remain on the table.
That’s just my opinion, though. I’m not a victim. They might feel differently. Which brings me to the way forward. This is a unique problem. Should the solution be unique too? Is our existing legal framework adequate?

Is Lady Justice, standing atop Old Bailey, match fit for this challenge?
A Legacy for Victims
This is where I take a leap in the dark, trying to imagine what victims and their families might wish for; I like to think my emotional intelligence has improved since I was a callow young police constable. I remember meeting victims of people-trafficking, women who’d been sold for sex. I saw how they were able to make good lives after their ordeal. It’s a long process, involving considerable time and resources. It also requires skilled, dedicated health and social care professionals. Yet healing is possible. There really is hope. We need hope. In such circumstances, where a society is guilty, it should reinforce such hope in any way it can.
With that in mind, here are my two pennies;
First, we send people to talk to all of the victims, candidly and without prejudice. These people should include those outside of traditional social work, untainted by assumptions that led to victims being marginalised in the first place. They should compile a list of expectations and present them to an independent commission. That list will be the motherlode for subsequent action. I suspect some of the victim’s wishes might be uncomfortable for the Establishment.
Tough.
Establishment laziness, groupthink and hubris created and nurtured this scandal. Now, its time to make amends. Yes, you’ll need more prisons. You’ll need to rethink immigration policy. You’ll need to change the law, to address the unintended consequences of human rights legislation. You’ll need to be more representative of the public when making decisions on sentencing. And, yes, you might demand the offenders are removed from the communities they terrorised. Why should victims have to bump into their tormentors in the supermarket?
Secondly, from a police perspective, there needs to be a Macpherson-level change towards the challenges of policing a multiracial (or balkanised, take your pick) society. There needs to be a radical reset of how multiagency working impacts police decision-making. There needs to be creative tension restored to the system. This will involve upsetting people. Demolishing apple-carts.
Tough.
Without fear or favour, remember?
Third, all victims should be offered substantial compensation from the State, with no long-winded legal assessments or civil service cheeseparing. Just pay them their dues. They’re like veterans of a war they never asked to fight. Oh, the Treasury doesn’t like that, when it routinely wastes billions?
Tough.
Inquiries and recommendations and handwringing have their place, but not now. We need to show victims we’re sorry. We need to restore trust in our institutions. The police are part of that. A big part.
Finally, my message to chief constables? This isn’t actually a minefield. Feel the winds of change.
It’s an opportunity.
Thanks for reading, and hello to new subscribers. Thanks for joining me. I’ll be back soon. I’m returning to my usual beat, with an article on the future of organised crime.
This article (‘Sorry’ is the easiest word) was created and published by Dominic Adler and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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