South Yorkshire Mayor pledges 'no police complacency' over grooming gangs
Oliver Coppard has been pressed on whether there will be any new inquiry into the issue in South Yorkshire
The Mayor of South Yorkshire has said that the region’s police are determined not to become complacent on the issue of child sexual exploitation.
South Yorkshire Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner Oliver Coppard was responding to a question from member of the public Andrew Benson at a meeting of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel yesterday (April 28).
He asked when the Police and Crime Commissioner will be undertaking a new inquiry into grooming gangs in South Yorkshire, as promised recently by the government.
Mayor Coppard replied that, as far as he is aware, the government has so far only named Oldham as the focus for one of five grooming gangs inquiries announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in January.
He said that Professor Alexis Jay had already carried out an inquiry locally in 2022, which puts South Yorkshire in the forefront of looking at the grooming gangs issue.
“Clearly, there is also a lot of work done by Dame Louise Casey and the IOPC Independent Office for Police Conduct and specifically in South Yorkshire there were a number of areas of learning that were identified and those recommendations have all been pursued, I’m pleased to say,” he said.
“So South Yorkshire, it’s fair to say, is in a different place when it comes to some of these challenges.” He said that the new inquiries could benefit from what has already taken place in South Yorkshire to address the issue.
He stressed: “South Yorkshire Police and partners have taken the findings of previous inquiries very seriously, rightly so, and have implemented the recommendations that have been made.
“I have had conversations with the Chief Constable and police. By no means are they resting on their laurels or complacent about this, despite the significant amount of work that has gone on.
“In my perspective and point of view that’s absolutely right, that sense of no complacency should be the framework that drives all activity in South Yorkshire.”
Mayor Coppard said that Dame Louise Casey has recently been doing some auditing work on child sexual exploitation at local and national levels and his team have been in contact.
He added that his main focus at the moment is supporting the victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation.