Grooming gang investigations dropped due to 'human error,' review suggests

The cases are set to be reviewed as part of Operation Beaconport - a national project to unearth failures to tackle grooming gangs.

So far 1,273 files from 23 police forces have been referred to the National Crime Agency-led review, of which 236 are being examined as a priority because they involve allegations of rape.

NCA deputy director Nigel Leary said initial reviews suggest there were mistakes in some of the investigations.

He told journalists: "Initial reviews have identified that in some cases where there has been a decision to take no further action (NFA), there were available lines of inquiry that could have been pursued."

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"We've seen in those cases what appears to be potentially human error.

"We've seen in some cases that those investigations haven't followed what we would characterise as proper investigative practice, actually that would have contributed to the NFA decision.

"That includes, for example, lines of inquiry being identified but not being followed, victim accounts not being taken in a way that we would recognise as best practice, and suspects not being pursued or interviewed in the ways that we would anticipate."

Operation Beaconport is reviewing cases between January 1 2010 and March 31 2025, with thousands expected to come under scrutiny.

Speaking to Charlotte Lynch on LBC News, former Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said questions should be raised about the extent to which it has been a human error.

She said police failing to properly investigative practice with suspects not being pursued or lines of enquiry not followed and victims accounts not taken is "definitely mistake" and "definitely error."

Ms Baird said: "People have been prosecuted for childhood prostitution when actually they've been being groomed into sex and have no choice about what they do.

"And the police have not rescued them, they've prosecuted them instead. So, I mean, that's a very big thing to call a human error.

"And this is lesser, but I think the police will have to kind of strengthen themselves and look properly at really what was going on.

"There is a great truth that I'm afraid groomers are far better at recognising vulnerable young women than necessarily the people who should be looking after them are."

She added: "But I have to say this is positive because the Home Secretary has got it going quickly, the NCA are up and running and more profound inquiries into what's happened under these human errors will come later, I don't doubt."

Operation Stovewood, the investigation into grooming gangs and other non-familial sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, has cost £89 million over 11 years.

Mr Leary continued: "This is going to be a phenomenally large undertaking.

"It will be the most comprehensive investigation of its type in UK history. We estimate that over the life cycle of the operation, it will involve thousands of officers from across policing."

Officials are recording the ethnicity of suspects and victims as part of the review, and have found gaps in the existing data that they are trying to fill.

Investigators have pledged to be "honest and transparent" with victims from the start, to avoid giving them unrealistic expectations.

Mr Leary said: "Not all matters we review, even where they’re reinvestigated, even where victim or survivor says 'I want that to be reinvestigated,' will produce a criminal justice outcome.

"My hope is that what we do is we build confidence in the process, even though the outcome in some cases will not, of course, be that which we might wish."

Last month the Metropolitan Police announced that they are reviewing 9,000 cases of child sexual exploitation.

It is expected that some of these will be referred to Operation Beaconport, which is looking at cases involving two or more suspects, more than one victim, contact offences, where the suspects are still alive, and that has not already been independently reviewed.

Responding to the NCA update, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "This Government initiated this national policing operation to track down the evil child rapists that perpetrated these crimes, and put them behind bars where they belong.

"There will be no hiding place for those who abused the most vulnerable in our society."