Notice a pattern? Find a personal trauma then milk it for political purposes.

In the above report from BBC Scotland today, in nearly 2 000 words on one victim’s experience, there’s no place for this:

In Rotherham alone, at least 1,400 children estimated to have been sexually exploited by predominantly Pakistani-heritage men (Jay Inquiry). Later NCA work identified over 1,100 victims in related investigations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

They will not give up. They smell blood and tears and will try to make sure enough Scots think we have rape grooming gangs too and so are no different. Why do they want this? To keep SNP supporters at home.

Readers will be aware no doubt of new Labour MP Joani Reid’s shameless u-turn on national inquiries into grooming gangs – not in England where they are many, to save her boss a red face, but yes in Scotland, where there are none.

Reid also wrote to FM Swinney, demanding an inquiry here but his response published on 4th July 2025 has had no MSM coverage.

You can see why:

However, in order for any action to be effective, we must appropriately consider the relevance of these recommendations for our specific legislative, statutory service and regulatory landscape, and the scale of this specific form of organised gang-related sexual abuse of children and young people in Scotland.

I would firstly like to clarify that the recent case of child sexual abuse in Glasgow cited in your previous letter, which is now subject to a learning review, whilst horrendous, was of a different nature to the organised gang grooming observed in England and the cases reported in Baroness Casey’s recent National Audit.

Furthermore, Police Scotland have advised the Scottish Government that there are no current investigations in Scotland involving offences against children which would mirror the investigations described in Baroness Casey’s audit as being perpetrated by “grooming gangs”.

and:

In Scotland, all healthcare and education professionals already have a duty to report child abuse to social work or the police, including child sexual abuse and exploitation. A practitioner’s failure to report child abuse, including child sexual abuse and exploitation, could constitute a breach of their employment contract, lead to disciplinary action, or give rise to a claim for civil damages. Practitioners could also be struck off from social work, teaching, or medical registers for gross misconduct.

Not in Swinney’s response but an important factor, mentioned in the last line above – all care staff must be registered in Scotland but in the English report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse October 2022:

There is no system of registration for the approximately 35,000 workers “mainly or solely providing care for children” (that is, in a care role) in England. In Wales (as well as in Scotland and Northern Ireland), children’s social care workers must register with a regulatory body. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report.html

After many paragraphs, the BBC report today does tell us about this:

A national review of group-based child sexual abuse in Scotland, published in September, external, found there is no reliable national picture of the scale of grooming gang offending because of inconsistent data collection and the absence of an agreed definition.

but only in the hope of casting doubt on the denials that there are grooming gangs in Scotland.

The review does document serious data and practice shortcomings that make a confident national assessment impossible and could allow under-detection. That is a legitimate criticism of systems and supports the value of the ongoing public inquiry (chaired by Jay). It does not, however, supply reliable evidence that gangs comparable in scale or nature to the English examples have operated in Scotland, nor does it refute Police Scotland’s assessment based on their investigations and intelligence. Absence of good national data is not the same as evidence of a large hidden problem of that specific type. Survivor testimony and individual investigations matter and should be examined thoroughly; they do not by themselves establish the existence of equivalent organized networks.

Does anyone really think that Police Scotland is hiding the existence of a Rotherham in Rutherglen?

Full FM response at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/ukg-audit-on-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse-first-ministers-response/