Grooming gangs whistleblower pursues judicial review over failure by government to implement recommendations of independent inquiry

The inquiry, chaired by Alexis Jay, was launched to examine how public and private institutions had failed to protect children from sexual abuse.

Concluding in 2022, its final report recommended 20 major reforms to child protection in England and Wales.

However, the Maggie Oliver Foundation claims that despite “repeated public commitments”, successive governments have yet to implement many of the recommendations, more than three years later.

The charity said: “Key recommendations that remain unimplemented include the introduction of national standards for collecting data on perpetrators of child abuse, including ethnicity, religion and occupation; ensuring that children in care have the same access to justice as other children; and ending the use of pain inducing restraint on children in custody, a practice described in the IICSA report as ‘amounting to torture’.”

In January 2025, following receipt of a formal letter from the charity warning of legal action, the Home Secretary committed to setting out a timeline for implementing of all of IICSA’s recommendations.

However, Ms Oliver, who set up the Maggie Oliver Foundation after leaving Greater Manchester Police, where she was a whistleblower about the force’s inaction over grooming gangs, said this commitment has “not been honoured”.

On 5 March, the Court will consider whether the charity’s case should be allowed to proceed to a full judicial review hearing.

Maggie Oliver said: “Based on the Government’s own figures, over 1.5 million children have been sexually abused since the IICSA made its recommendations in October 2022. I was repeatedly sexually abused. The authorities and police turned a blind eye. I do not want other girls or children going through what I went through. I simply cannot understand why the Government will not act to prevent the abuse of children.

“[…] The Government has promised another national inquiry, this time focused on so-called ‘grooming gangs’. Survivors have every right to be heard, but why launch another inquiry when the recommendations of the last one remain unimplemented? After years of testimony and hundreds of millions of pounds spent, survivors should not be asked to relive their most traumatic experiences only to see no meaningful action follow.

“Our charity has been deeply involved in the wider work to tackle child sexual abuse. I have long campaigned for proper national data collection, including on the ethnicity of perpetrators, because without reliable evidence these crimes cannot be properly understood or prevented. I introduced survivors to Baroness Casey during her national audit, which again underlined the importance of implementing IICSA’s recommendations before moving forward.”

She added: “Alongside this fight to see implementation of IICSA’s recommendations, we are campaigning to ensure any new inquiry is shaped in the best interests of survivors, with meaningful survivor input into its terms of reference and a clear commitment that its findings will lead to action.”

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

Lottie Winson