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Sadiq Khan grooming gang ‘cover-up’ exposed as new evidence revealed

EXCLUSIVE: The Daily Express has uncovered shocking evidence of grooming gangs scandal in London

Sadiq Khan has been accused of covering up evidence of grooming gangs in London after an Express investigation. The Mayor of London read reports of young girls being raped in hotels by groups of men while publicly denying there were any grooming gangs in the capital.

The children were also plied with drugs and had their lives threatened, evidence uncovered by the Express and MyLondon shows.

Grooming gang whistleblower Maggie Oliver told the Express that the cases followed “the same pattern” she had seen with Greater Manchester Police’s cover-up of the Rochdale scandal. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp MP, accused Khan of being part of a “cover-up” and called for accountability.

He said: “It is shameful that the Mayor of London is claiming to have no indication that grooming gangs are operating in London despite personally responding to reports containing evidence of victims abused by grooming gangs in the city. It is clear Sadiq Khan is facilitating a cover up.”

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson also said the mayor had “serious questions to answer.” He said: “There is real, credible evidence that grooming gangs exist in London, and for the Mayor to have potentially turned a blind eye is utterly shameful”.

He added that the UK could not “go on making the same catastrophic errors we saw in Rochdale, Rotherham, and all over the country” and demanded victims receive “proper justice”.

The mayor and the Metropolitan Police have consistently claimed to have “no reports” of Rochdale or Rotherham-style rape gangs in the capital, with Khan suggesting there was “no indication” they exist. However, in the pages of four different His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services reports from 2016-2025, which the Mayor of London personally responded to, we found details of six potential victims.

When these case studies were assessed by Rochdale whistleblower detective Maggie Oliver and care professional and author Chris Wild, they found “red flags” of grooming gang abuse. Oliver told us she was certain three victims could be described as victims of a grooming gang.

Based on on-the-ground assessments of the Met’s handling of sexual abuse cases from the start of Khan’s tenure to this year, the Inspectorate reports explain, often in horrific detail, how police were slow to react to evidence that girls as young as 13 were exploited by gangs of predatory men.

Case studies describe children being plied with drugs and alcohol, raped in hotels by groups and having their lives threatened.

Sadiq Khan has publicly indicated he read all of these documents in public statements he made in response to the reports, which often criticised the Met. After the Express/MyLondon contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment about these inconsistencies, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner appeared before the London Assembly and reversed the force’s longstanding stance that it had “not seen” grooming gang cases in London.

Answering an off-topic question from a Labour Assembly Member, Sir Mark Rowley revealed it had a “steady flow” of live multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations and a “very significant” number of cases that would need to be reinvestigated as a result of the Home Office’s grooming gangs review.

Oliver said she wasn’t surprised that examples of grooming gangs were hiding in plain sight having faced a lengthy battle to get justice for the victims of similar groups in Rochdale.

”I came to realize that everybody at the top 100% knew and wanted to cover it up,” she said.

“I think the Met is the last bastion of being able to cover up, because I have no doubt from the work we do [at the Maggie Oliver Foundation charity supporting survivors and] from what I’ve read [in the investigation’s findings] that there is a similar pattern of abuse in [London]. I don’t know how they’ve managed to cover it up for so long, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

Chris Wild, a care professional who works with vulnerable children in London, claimed the victims mentioned in the reports were just the tip of the iceberg.

After reading the case studies he said: “It’s happening all over London [and] so much so much more than anywhere else in the country.

“I’m on the front line and workers like me all have stories of girls like this. I’m constantly vocal about this in London. To hear reports from the Mayor’s office saying ‘but this is not a problem here’ show the guy’s deluded. You’ve got to ask yourself the question: who are they protecting? What are they protecting?”

A London grooming gang victim the Express spoke to on the condition of anonymity was outraged by the actions of the mayor in the face of such clear evidence.

They said: “Khan and the Met Commissioner’s continued denials of the trauma suffered by grooming gang survivors is gaslighting the survivors of some of the most unimaginably awful crimes by two of London’s most powerful men. They should be ashamed. It’s shocking that all of this evidence is on public record and that there is recognition that the issue of grooming gangs exist in London.

“For a mayor who positions himself as an ambassador for violence against women and girls justice, why would he so blatantly block the voices of these women survivors from speaking?”

Khan’s political opponents claimed the findings of the investigation as evidence the mayor was helping to “cover up” the problem.

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “It is shameful that the Mayor of London is claiming to have no indication that grooming gangs are operating in London despite personally responding to reports containing evidence of victims abused by grooming gangs in the city. It is clear Sadiq Khan is facilitating a cover up.”

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson added that the mayor had “serious questions to answer.”

“There is real, credible evidence that grooming gangs exist in London, and for the Mayor to have potentially turned a blind eye is utterly shameful,” he said.

“We can’t go on making the same catastrophic errors we saw in Rochdale, Rotherham, and all over the country. The survivors of these grooming gangs deserve proper justice, and this vile, predatory behaviour has to be stamped. That’ll only happen if we stop repeating the mistakes of the past.”

The public record evidence of London’s grooming gangs is not confined to the regular inspection reports of the Met police. The Express/MyLondon investigation found more victim case studies from Tower Hamlets, east London in the evidence presented to the last grooming gangs inquiry.

It’s a matter of public record that the inquiry identified five different children in the east London borough as suffering abuse at the hands of a sexual exploitation networks. During the hearings witness statements described “groups of older men”  sexually exploiting girls in hotel rooms in the late 2010s.

But a detail unreported at the time was that both the local council and Metropolitan Police, who denied the existence of sex abuse gangs in the area, were using a different definition to the inquiry that was based on an “organised crime network,” rather than a grooming gang.

 

When approached for comment a spokesperson for the Mayor of London provided a single overarching statement that said: “The Mayor has always been clear that the safety of Londoners is his top priority and nowhere is this truer than in safeguarding children.

“Sadiq is committed to doing all he can to protect children in London from organised criminal and sexual exploitation and bring perpetrators to justice. This includes his £15.6million Violence and Exploitation Support Service which provides specialist support to young Londoners who are vulnerable, caught up in or being exploited by criminal gangs in the capital as well as supporting the Met to deliver a new child first approach to safeguarding and enforcement action to tackle county lines.

“We remain vigilant to emerging and changing threats and will continue to do everything we can to protect children in the capital from abuse, violence and exploitation in all its forms.”

A Met Police spokesperson said: “We understand the very real concern the public have around so-called grooming gangs and treat all allegations of sexual offences and exploitation extremely seriously. Our data shows the group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation picture in London is more varied than in other parts of the country and does not neatly align with patterns of methodology, ethnicity or nationality seen elsewhere and reported on extensively.

“We are utterly committed to protecting vulnerable children and bringing those responsible to justice. There is still much work to be done, including encouraging reporting of offences so we have the fullest possible picture, but we have made significant improvements in the past decade to enable us to do that effectively.”

A Home Office spokesperson said:“The sexual abuse of children by grooming gangs is among the most horrific crimes imaginable, and every allegation must be investigated thoroughly, wherever it leads. That is why we have initiated a new policing operation, Operation Beaconport, overseen by the National Crime Agency, which has already flagged more than 1,200 closed cases of group-based child sexual exploitation for review.”

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