'It's time that we drew a line in the sand': Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse

In February 2025, in response to serious and persistent concerns about group-based child sexual exploitation (CSE), the Prime Minister commissioned Baroness Casey of Blackstock to carry out a rapid national audit. Her task was to evaluate our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based CSE and abuse at a national and local level. Over the following months, reviewers conducted visits and met with survivors, police, local authorities and other organisations and individuals. They also reviewed documentary material including serious case reviews, police problem profiles, a range of published research and data, and conducted some further reviews and analysis of national and local reports, data and other information provided from local agencies.

The audit was not born out of a lack of previous inquiries. In fact, the UK has seen more than a decade of reviews and investigations since CSE was first formally defined in 2009. Yet despite countless recommendations, real progress has remained elusive. Children continue to be failed. Offenders continue to walk free. And the system that should protect the vulnerable has remained fractured, inconsistent, and lacking in accountability.

Baroness Casey’s 197-page audit, published yesterday, is a sobering and excoriating account of a system marked by repeated and ongoing missed opportunities. Victims have too often been ignored, criminalised or left without justice, while perpetrators – particularly in group-based CSE – have avoided prosecution. For at least the last decade there has been “a repeating cycle” with “seminal moments of scandal and public outrage which lead to bursts of government focus and activity but no sustained improvement, leaving victims and the public with insufficient justice, action, accountability or answers”.

The audit exposes critical gaps in how the UK responds to group-based CSE because of poor information sharing between agencies; lack of accountability within statutory services; disjointed and under-resourced investigations; and severe underreporting of abuse with inconsistent and incomplete data collection, particularly in relation to perpetrators and their backgrounds.

A repeated finding within the report is the persistent failure of organisations to record ethnicity data in the majority of national databases. The absence of comprehensive data renders national understanding incomplete. This lack of clarity hampers effective prevention, investigation, victim protection and public trust. Yet “despite the lack of a full picture in the national data sets, there is enough evidence available in local police data in three police force areas which we examined which show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination”.

Baroness Casey proposes 12 powerful and necessary reforms, aimed at transforming how organisations and society confront and prevent group-based CSE:

1. The law in England and Wales should be changed so adults who intentionally penetrate the vagina, anus or mouth of a child under 16 receive mandatory charges of rape. However a “Romeo and Juliet” clause should be created so that teenagers in relationships with each other are not penalised.
2. A national police operation should be planned to focus on reviewing and re-investigating historic cases, holding perpetrators – and complicit organisations – fully accountable. Swift movement of cases through the courts should be ensured to stop perpetrators and so as not to retraumatise victims.
3. The criminal convictions of victims of CSE should be reviewed. Where victims were criminalised instead of protected, convictions should be quashed.
4. Data systems should be reformed so that it is mandatory to record ethnicity and group-based CSE as distinct categories for better analysis and accountability. A recommendation of separating this data from other offences of sexual abuse has been made, while sharing data effectively should be prioritised over data protection issues.
5. Cross-agency information sharing should be made mandatory, including police, health, education, and social services in cases of child sexual abuse, and it should be overseen by a proposed Child Protection Authority.
6. Unique reference numbers for every child should be introduced to improve safeguarding through better tracking and information sharing.
7. Police systems and safeguarding technology should be upgraded, using AI to connect the dots across systems and flag risks earlier. This will improve investigations across the country and ensure that they can be done quickly.
8. Group-based CSE should be classified as organised crime, applying the same rigour and protocols used in major investigations with consideration given to whether the National Crime Agency can support police forces so that proven and best methods are used to investigate and bring perpetrators to justice swiftly.
9. Safeguarding records should be audited and interrogated to identify discrepancies, identify the lack of CSE and abuse information in Child in Need assessment data, and to hold services to account.
10. The government should commission research into the drivers for group-based CSE, including online offending, cultural factors and the role of the group.
11. Taxi licensing laws should be tightened, closing regulatory loopholes that have allowed perpetrators to access vulnerable children via this known group-based CSE method.
12. The government should commit to resourcing the implementation of these recommendations fully over multiple years and to tracking their implementation across departments and other organisations, with regular reports to parliament.

In a powerful foreword, Baroness Casey stated that “it’s time that we drew a line in the sand and took definitive action. We are a country that should rightly pride itself on the way it cares for and protects children – all our children – and we have an opportunity here to reassert those values as a nation”.

The government has announced a National Inquiry to build on Baroness Casey’s work. The full terms of reference are expected soon. For this inquiry to be effective, it must be independent, properly resourced, and empowered to compel action across all levels of government and statutory organisations. We await next steps with interest.

Authors:

Sarah Swan – Partner

Daniel Tyler – Associate