The Short and Tall of the New Grooming Gang Data

While the Labour government continues to stall, delay, and obfuscate on r*pe/grooming gangs, behind-the-scenes independent journalists and grassroots researchers have been putting in the hard yards.

This week, after months of silence from officials, a team of investigators led by GB News and Crime Spotlight UK released what may be the most detailed public record of grooming/r*pe gang activity ever assembled.

The release follows a government promise made back in January.

Labour ministers commissioned Baroness Louise Casey to conduct a so-called “rapid audit” of grooming gang activity. It was due to be published within three months. We’re now in May. And the public has heard little since.

Meanwhile, Crime Spotlight UK and its network of researchers spent thousands of hours combing through news archives, court records, and survivor testimony to meticulously map the scale of the scandal.

The new database confirms over 50 towns and cities with known group-based sexual exploitation cases. From 2007, there have been over 500 convictions. But, as we know, the abuse dates back nearly five decades.

From Plymouth to Carlisle, these networks trafficked and brutalised little white girls in every corner of the country. In some cases, they were transported hundreds of miles for pre-arranged exchanges.

In one notorious case, Arshid Hussain—one of the vile convicted ringleaders in Rotherham—stuffed a young girl in the boot of his car and drove her to London, where she was used to “pay off” his debts to three men.

Many of the men behind these crimes are now out of prison. Some have quietly reintegrated into the same communities where they once preyed on children.

The database includes names, convictions, maps, and patterns—a level of forensic clarity the government itself has never made available—neither under the Conservatives, nor Labour.

Grooming gang trafficking links illustrated by Crime Spotlight UK.