Human error may have led to grooming gang cases being dropped, says NCA

Human error could have led to criminal cases involving alleged grooming gangs being dropped, the early stages of a massive review has found.

Operation Beaconport - a National Crime Agency project tasked with unearthing failings to tackle grooming gangs - is set to look at thousands of cases where police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action against suspects.

Police say that there appear to be cases where lines of inquiry were not pursued properly, victim accounts were not taken, and suspects were not interviewed as they should have been.

Investigations that were wrongly closed with no further action taken have already been discovered.

"Initial reviews have identified that in some cases where there has been a decision to take no further action, there were available lines of inquiry that could have been pursued", said the National Crime Agency's deputy director Nigel Leary.

"We've seen in those cases what appears to be potentially human error.

"We've seen in some cases that those investigations haven't followed what we would characterise as proper investigative practice, actually that would have contributed to the no further action decision," Mr Leary added.

The issue of grooming gangs has made headlines in recent months - with a national inquiry into the issue in England and Wales thrown into turmoil by disagreements before it had even got under way.

Operation Beaconport is a national policing operation led by the NCA and was set up earlier this year in a bid to eliminate inconsistencies in how cases are handled by police forces. It is reviewing cases between January 2010 and March 2025.

It is not clear how much the operation will cost or how long it will take.

So far, 1,273 cases relating to allegations of group-based child sexual abuse and exploitation identified by 23 police forces have been referred to the investigation team.

Of these, 236 relate to allegations of rape, which Operation Beaconport is reviewing as a priority.

The NCA expects the operation to involve thousands of officers from across policing, with Mr Leary claiming it will be "the most comprehensive investigation of its type in UK history".

In response to the review's early findings, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "The grooming gangs scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country's history.

"This government initiated this national policing operation to track down the evil child rapists that perpetrated these crimes, and put them behind bars where they belong."

As part of the review, the ethnicity of suspects and victims will be recorded. Officers admit to finding gaps in the existing data that they are trying to fill. They will also aim to flag dangerous suspects, and any that are at risk of fleeing the country.

The NCA says better data sharing between multi-agency teams and more coordinated efforts to track and disrupt offenders will also be developed to help them tackle these crimes more effectively.

It's not clear how much the operation will cost or how long it will take.

The investigation into grooming gangs and other non-familial sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, cost £89m over 11 years.

Last month, the Metropolitan Police announced it was reviewing 9,000 cases of child sexual exploitation.

It is likely that some of these cases will be checked by Operation Beaconport, which is looking at cases involving two or more suspects. It will also focus on allegations where there have been multiple victims, the suspects are still alive, and the case has not already been independently reviewed.

The review will run alongside the national public inquiry, announced by the government earlier this year.

Richard Fewkes from the National Police Chiefs' Council said that some victims will just want to feel listened too.

"Justice means different things for different victims and survivors, and no one victim and survivor is the same.

"For some, justice is just being believed, perhaps for the first time, by someone in authority, being listened to," he said.

Last month, a watchdog said that while police forces had made significant progress in tracking grooming gangs and child exploitation, "significant challenges" remained.

Inconsistent definitions, data accuracy issues and poor national co-ordination risk undermining efforts to protect vulnerable children, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said in a progress report.

It found only 37% of child exploitation cases were accurately flagged on police systems, with opportunities to protect children still being missed.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the inspectorate's report showed "important progress" had been made but acknowledged there was "more to do".

Shadow home secretary Chris Philip said the Home Office's failure to adopt a definition for group-based child sexual exploitation was keeping "the system blind to patterns of abuse".