Baroness Casey Audit on Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Government Response 

In this article Olliers Solicitors Managing Director, Matthew Claughton discusses the recommendations from the National Audit on Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation and the government’s response. 

In her foreword to the report Baroness Louise Casey makes clear the seriousness and scale of the problem.  

‘Group-based child sexual exploitation’, rare though it may be, is one of the most heinous crimes in our society. That term ‘group-based child sexual exploitation’ is actually a sanitised version of what it is. I want to set it out in unsanitised terms: we are talking about multiple sexual assaults committed against children by multiple men on multiple occasions; beatings and gang rapes. Girls having to have abortions, contracting sexually transmitted infections, having children removed from them at birth’. 

Baroness Casey’s report revealed decades of institutional failure in protecting children, in particular girls from ‘group-based child sexual exploitation’ (GB-CSE), now more commonly known as “grooming gangs”. 

The report’s findings include: 

• Systemic neglect: in which authorities repeatedly failed to act on known abuse, frequently downgrading rape charges when there was a perception that victims had “consented.” 
• Ethnicity and data gaps: although some local police data showed disproportionate representation of Asian and Pakistani-heritage men, in two-thirds of national cases ethnicity data was missing. 
• Victim-blaming: girls as young as 10 were criminalised or ignored, with some even convicted of prostitution. 
• Lack of coordination: agencies failed to share data or act on repeated warnings. 
• Online exploitation: new forms of abuse, especially online, are rising and under-addressed. 

Recommendations from the Casey Report 

1. Mandatory rape charges

Baroness Casey’s audit found that too many cases involving 13 to 15 year-olds were downgraded from rape to lesser offences because victims were wrongly seen as having consented or being in relationships with their abusers. This mischaracterisation has led to a failure to prosecute offenders appropriately and has left victims without justice. The report stresses that children must be seen as children, incapable of consenting to sex with adults and that the law must reflect this unequivocally.

The audit calls for a fundamental change in how the law treats sexual activity between adults and children under 16. The recommendation demands that any penetrative sex by an adult with a child under 16 be automatically classified as rape with no room for excuses or lesser charges based on perceived consent or emotional involvement.  

The government has accepted this recommendation and committed to change the law accordingly. It will also work with the Crown Prosecution Service and police to ensure that safeguards are in place for consensual teenage relationships so that the legal changes do not criminalise age-appropriate behaviour between peers. 

2. Step 1. National criminal operation led by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to investigate grooming gangs.  

The audit calls for a comprehensive national police operation to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation across England and Wales. This operation should be scoped and planned by the Home Office in collaboration with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). The NCA would lead delivery, determining the level of support required to supplement local police forces.  

The operation would begin with a systematic review of historic cases focusing on two key areas: 

• Cases reported but not prosecuted in the past ten years, particularly those marked as “No Further Action” (NFA). This builds on the Home Secretary’s existing commission to review such cases. 
• Police and children’s services records to identify children who were at risk of or harmed by sexual exploitation over the last decade. 

The audit recommends using the ‘Smith algorithm’, which is a data-driven approach pioneered by West Yorkshire Police, to identify potential victims. This method flags children in care, those with repeated missing episodes or those previously known to police or social services for sexual abuse concerns. 

The goal is to bring more perpetrators to justice, ensure victims are supported, and hold agencies accountable for past failings. This recommendation reflects the need for a proactive, intelligence-led, and victim-centred approach to tackling one of the most serious forms of child abuse. 

Step 2 Statutory time limited national inquiry with powers to compel evidence. 

Baroness Casey’s audit calls for the establishment of a statutory national inquiry into group-based child sexual exploitation, with full powers to compel evidence and witnesses. This recommendation stems from decades of institutional failure, denial, and fragmented responses that have allowed perpetrators to evade justice and left victims unsupported 

The inquiry is not intended to be another broad, open-ended investigation like the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Instead, it will be time-limited and focused, targeting local areas where failures have occurred and ensuring accountability. The inquiry will be directed by a national commission, which will oversee local investigations and ensure that institutions such as councils, police forces, and social services are held to account for past and ongoing failures  

3. Review criminal convictions of child sexual exploitation victims. Quash any where victims were criminalised instead of protected. 

This will help restore justice to those who faced sanctions when safeguarding should have been applied 

4. Mandatory collection of ethnicity and nationality data for all suspects 

Baroness Casey’s audit highlights a critical failure in the collection of ethnicity and nationality data related to group-based child sexual exploitation.   

The report states that:  

 ‘The appalling lack of data on ethnicity in crime recording alone is a major failing over the last decade or more. Questions about ethnicity have been asked but dodged for years. Child sexual exploitation is horrendous whoever commits it, but there have been enough convictions across the country of groups of men from Asian ethnic’ backgrounds to have warranted closer examination’.   

The report found that ethnicity data was missing for two-thirds of suspects, making it impossible to draw reliable conclusions about offender demographics.  

Shortage of data has contributed to confusion, denial, and politicisation of issues. The audit therefore recommends mandatory, standardised collection and publication of ethnicity and nationality data across police forces and safeguarding agencies. The intention is to ensure transparency, support evidence-based policy, and identify patterns of offending without bias or the risk of stoking tensions within communities.   

 This recommendation is accepted by the government which has committed to implementing a national framework for consistent data collection, with the intention of restoring public trust and improving the effectiveness of child protection efforts.

5. Mandatory information sharing must be enforced among all safeguarding partners in child sexual abuse and exploitation cases. Inspectorates should monitor compliance, overseen by the proposed Child Protection Authority. 

The new duty to share information in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill must be assessed for its effectiveness in preventing agency failures where child safety is at risk.

6. The Department for Education to introduce unique reference numbers for children improving ability of agencies to share their information about at risk children.

7. Police information systems must be upgraded to support unique child reference numbers from the Department for Education. 

CSE highlights the need for police to search and link intelligence across systems to build a full picture. This is urgent for improving cross-boundary investigations into children at risk. 

Some areas already use AI tools and platforms like TOEX to search multiple systems. A full IT overhaul isn’t needed—this can be done incrementally.

8. CSE investigations should be treated like Serious and Organised Crime. Police must apply best practices from major crime investigations to past, current, and future group-based CSE cases.

9. The Department for Education to urgently interrogate child protection data identifying the causes of the decline in child sexual abuse and exploitation representation in child in need assessment data; examining regional variations across local authorities. Also to review the effectiveness of Serious Incident Notifications in relation to child sexual abuse and exploitation.

10. The government to commission research into the drivers for group-based child sexual exploitation, including online offending, cultural factors and the role of the group 

11. Reform of Taxi Licensing to Prevent Exploitation 

Taxis have been linked to child sexual exploitation risks. While some local authorities exceed statutory guidance to protect children, others fall short due to legal loopholes allowing drivers to obtain licenses in one area and operate in another. 

The Department for Transport should close this loophole and enforce stricter national standards. 

12. The government to commit to fully resourcing the implementation of these recommendations and to tracking their implementation across departments and other organisations, regularly reporting to Parliament 

Political (and other) reaction 

Elon Musk had initially amplified the issue globally by supporting far-right activist Tommy Robinson and accusing Starmer of failing to prosecute child rapists during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions. Some say that his comments pushed the issue up the political agenda  

Although Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially resisted a national inquiry, he reversed course after reading the report. He emphasized the need to focus on victims and denounced those spreading misinformation  

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called the findings a “stain on society”. She recognised that there had been “too much denial” and “too little justice for victim”. She confirmed the government would implement all twelve recommendations and pledged the “biggest programme of work ever” to root out grooming gangs.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had criticized Starmer’s delay, calling it an “extraordinary failure of leadership.” She went so far as to demand prosecutions for officials who covered up abuse and accused Labour of previously dismissing the issue as “far-right politics”. 

Formal Government Response 

In summary, the UK government has formally accepted all 12 recommendations. We can expect to see a national inquiry with statutory powers; the initiation of a nationwide criminal operation under the NCA; a commitment to law reforms, better data collection, and victim support; the review of over 800 grooming cases, with expectations that the number will exceed 1,000.  

At Olliers we have over 25 solicitors specialising in criminal defence. We have a significant level of experience of defending sexual investigations and prosecutions including those in respect of alleged child sexual exploitation, also known as grooming gang cases. 

We bring the same skill set to representation of clients in public inquiries particularly where they face potential criticism by the inquiry. We represented a number of clients in relation to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which reported in 2022. 

Olliers Solicitors is ranked as a top tier firm by both the Legal 500 and Chambers Directory. Many of our practitioners are leaders in their field. We specialise in defending criminal allegations but also represent clients before public inquiries where they face criticism.