From the Independent, last week:
The Government has been accused of making “almost no progress” on plans to investigate grooming gangs as ministers are recruiting a chairperson to lead a national inquiry.
Home Office minister Jess Phillips told MPs the appointment process was in its “final stages” and a panel of survivors and victims would be part of the final approval after Sir Keir Starmer committed to a fresh national inquiry in June.
…Ms Phillips replied: “The victims of this crime have sat in front of me with tears in their eyes and said they hate it when we shout at each other about these things, and they wish we would work together.”
She later added that police were involved in the perpetration of these crimes, as well as the cover-ups.
“I would be lying if I said that over the years, I have not met girls who talk to me about how police were part of the perpetration, not just the cover-up, and we need to make sure that victims can come and give that testimony,” Ms Phillips said.
Two retired South Yorkshire Police officers were arrested over alleged involvement in historic child sexual exploitation and abuse in Rotherham in December and January, and more general allegations about “corrupt police officers” working with grooming gangs in the area were reported in July.
Phillips’ apparently off-the-cuff comment has been seized on as an admission that she had information that ought to have been acted on long ago; populist-right commentators suggest the matter has relevance to her October 2024 reply to Oldham Council, in which she explained the government’s (then) position that “it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the Government to intervene”. This was framed by right-wing media as a cover-up, with Elon Musk accusing her of being a “rape genocide apologist”.
Phillips is not without faults, but conspiring to cover up sex offences is not among them. Some clarity, though, would be helpful. Did she really mean to say she had “met girls”, or did she mean young women who had previously been abused as girls?
It also occured to me that she may be referring back to a specific claim about organised abuse that she promoted back in 2017; not “grooming” offences, but supposed ritualistic abuse involving a church and “VIPs” – including her constituency predecessor, John Hemming. The allegations were false, and Hemming wrote about the matter in 2019:
Many people will know that my family and I have been subject to a campaign of false allegations by Esther Baker for the past 4 1/2 years. Yesterday there was a court judgment Baker v Hemming [2019] EWHC 2950 (QB) which formally confirmed that the allegations were false… There is a good summary in the Daily Mail here.
…A substantial campaign was built up to promote allegations which had no substance to them. Various Labour MPs and in particular Jess Phillips and Tom Watson supported this campaign. Jess Phillips is not and never has been the constituency member of parliament for the Esther Baker. However, she dedicated a considerable amount of time to ensuring that the allegations got the maximum publicity including inviting Baker to meet her in the House of Commons.
Baker alleged that some abuse had occurred in woodland, with police standing guard.
There is also this curious report from left-wing website Skwawkbox in 2017, which I previously noted here:
The SKWAWKBOX has also spoken to a serving MP who was one of several witnesses present at the time that a positive identification was made by a young adult who had suffered sexual abuse since childhood. The MP told this blog,
We were all in the Strangers’ Bar [in the Houses of Parliament]. The young victim was holding a phone and looking through pictures online, looking for someone else. Suddenly s/he screamed, dropped the phone and stood there shaking and crying, saying ‘it’s him, it’s him!’ The picture on the screen was that of a serving Chief Constable. It was a very real and spontaneous reaction.
A retired Metropolitan Police officer was also among the witnesses. After they reported the allegations, the MP and Ms Evans were both interviewed at length by the police force – not that of the accused senior officer – to which the accusation was reported…
Was Jess Phillips the unnamed MP? And if so, was this incident the basis for her comment in the House of Commons?
Filed under: Uncategorized
“Police” ? Where? There aren’t any. There are corrupt “constabularies” who evidentially lie to hide Council Crimes against Humanity baby trafficking for torture / sex abuse, me given to a psychotic at my age of eleven days, constabularies covered up as “Legal” “No crime to record” “You can prove it, but child torture is not a crime”. Age old “Constabularies” should be scrapped and replaced by professional police forces as we have in Europe. You know the latest trick corrupt chief constables are using ? To ignore ex-Home Secretary Cooper’s order to 43 chief constables to re-open previously NFAed corrupted child exploitation cases, they remain silent to victims, and without prior victims permission, nor even timely telling victims, that they have bunged the victims’ evidence down to their PSDs (that always lie to shield their friends and colleagues) to slam Cooper’s order shut as “repetitious complaints” NFA. No further correspondence allowed. And the NPCC (funded by constabularies “annual donations” – 132million pounds) to serve constabs interests, not victims of constab’s interests, the CSA, by FOIA I did, only have 35 cases for referral !! There are half a million “Forced Adoptions” covered up for a start.
And NPCC CSA REFUSE to refer council traffickers for prosecutions. I never made a “complaint” I asked the two chief constables involved for my county-lines cases to re-open and obey Cooper’s order to them. Now silence. The only “police” who have given me official evidence, are honest police whistleblowers. One ranked officer who abandoned policing in disgust, told me “Lindsay, don’t look too deeply, you only rise in the ranks if you accept corruption”. Theresa May, when Home Secretary, who scrapped police-paid-to-lie IPCC had also wanted to scrap PSDs, but didn’t last long enough to achieve it. And what is police-paid to refuse: NPCC CSA ? Refusing to refer traffickers for prosecution !! NPCC made up of failed ex chief constables