Britain’s grooming gang scandal may have affected more than 250,000 victims and spread across at least 149 local authority districts, according to a new independent inquiry led by Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe.
Published on Tuesday, 16 June, the 219-page report combines survivor testimony with evidence from previous investigations and argues that organized networks of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men systematically targeted vulnerable girls—many from care homes, troubled family backgrounds, or unstable households — while police, social services, schools, healthcare providers, and political leaders repeatedly failed to intervene.
The inquiry was launched by Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe after public debate surrounding the grooming gang scandal intensified once again in 2025. More than 20,000 people contributed to funding the investigation, which was conducted outside government structures and heard evidence from survivors, whistleblowers, experts, and politicians alike.
The report revisits a scandal that has haunted Britain for decades. Beginning with cases uncovered in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, and Oxford, investigations revealed organized networks that systematically groomed, trafficked, and sexually exploited vulnerable girls over periods spanning decades.
The 2014 Jay Report estimated that at least 1,400 children were abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, while a subsequent inquiry concluded that more than 1,000 children may have been exploited in Telford alone.
Citing previous inquiries and parliamentary estimates, Lowe’s report argues that the total number of victims nationwide could exceed 250,000, although the exact figure remains contested. The inquiry identifies evidence of grooming gang activity in at least 149 local authority districts across the United Kingdom and argues that the same methods of grooming, trafficking, rape, intimidation, and institutional failure were repeated across the country.
Lowe argues that despite numerous previous investigations, important questions remain unanswered. In his foreword, he contends that political leaders, public institutions, and parts of the media were reluctant to confront the ethnic, religious, and cultural dimensions of the scandal because of fears of accusations of racism and a political reluctance to address sensitive questions surrounding immigration and multiculturalism. The report repeatedly argues that these sensitivities contributed to decades of inaction and helped create the conditions in which the abuse continued.
One of the most disturbing accounts comes from a woman identified as "Michelle". She told the inquiry that she was groomed from the age of 13 by three Pakistani brothers who supplied her with alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs before repeatedly raping and abusing her.
She described being gang-raped, beaten, burned with cigarettes, threatened with knives, locked in houses, and passed between groups of men. Michelle testified that she became pregnant four times as a child as a result of rape and estimated that she was abused by between 600 and 700 men over a three-year period. "98 per cent of them were Pakistani Muslim," she told the panel.