‘Sadiq Khan needs to OPEN HIS EYES!’ | London mayor BLASTED over grooming gang failure

Hello, good morning and welcome. This is Britain's Newsroom. We're live across the United Kingdom on GB News with Charlie Peters and me, Nana Akwir. Now, London, Oldham, Bradford and Keithley have been selected as the first three areas to be investigated by the Grooming Gang's inquiry. Now, the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, has reportedly, repeatedly, sorry, told Met leaders to leave no stone unturned when investigating these appalling crimes. But remember his May campaign, that's one of the things he did, encouraging people to report violence against women. You probably wouldn't know a good thing if it slaps her in the face. Someone I'd gladly do if I saw her again. Mate, what did I do now? Stop. Just stop, man. You can't be saying that, Bob. That's serious stuff. Obviously, I'd never do it. Yeah, but just saying it is bad enough, man. Well, back in January of last year, Sir Sadiq clashed with Susan Hall, the leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly, on the issue of grooming gangs in London. Let's remind ourselves of what happened there. I asked you this question last week, and you found every which way but not to answer it. Just how many grooming gangs have we got in London? There wasn't any misunderstanding. Can she define what she means by that? Yes. If you look at what's gone on in Rotherham, where there are people taking young girls, grooming them for sex, that is what I'm talking about. Well, we know in London there are issues about exploitation of young people, but they're not as defined by the member in her definition of what those types of gangs are. Well, Susan Hall joins us now. Susan, great to speak to you this morning. Thanks for giving us your time. We now have London confirmed as one of the areas where this investigation will go ahead. I spoke with the Inquiry Chair and two panellists yesterday, and they spoke about how London is going to be investigated as a hub, talking about High Wycombe, Luton, Oxfordshire, trafficking, all these types of issues, because London is so complex. And I think you also think that it's been overlooked until now. Yes, it has, Charlie. And thank you for all the work that you've done on this, because you've been like a dog with a bone and just kept it in the news. And the girls, the victims or the survivors, as they prefer to call themselves, know what you've been doing and are grateful. And there's some other good journalists that have as well. And we have to do this because people like Sadiq Khan don't want to believe it's happening. And he's not in isolation. There are lots of people that say to me, yeah, but, you know, is it really happening? And of course, it doesn't happen anymore. Well, yes, Charlie, Nana, we all know it is still happening. How anybody thinks it wasn't happening in a city of 9 million? And that's the amount of people we know about living here. You know, they need their bumps felt. Of course, it's happening here. And you and I, Charlie, have actually spoken to these survivors. It's absolutely heartbreaking. And people like Sadiq Khan need to come to the table and open their eyes and see it's happening. I think he actually went a step further, though, and he was worse than that. I think you're being very generous to him because he actually pretended that he didn't really know what a grooming gang was, the way he in the full exchange with you, he acted like, and asked you to kind of explain it. Yes, but he must know what they are. He cannot be that stupid. Yeah. Susan, when I spoke to the panel team yesterday, Eleanor Kelly, one of the panelists said that in London you have county lines, gangs, drug gangs and other issues, and they have to work within that complexity. Do you have a sense of concern that perhaps the grooming gangs, as we all know them, might get caught up in broader child sexual exploitation? And what's your message to the inquiry to make sure it is laser focused on this issue, on the definition that really needs to be established here? Charlie, you are spot on. That is exactly what they're going to do in London. Say, oh, well, it's all county lines. We've been looking at that for ages. You and I both know that it isn't county lines. It is something different. There are places they overlap, of course, but grooming gangs, as you and I know them, Charlie, are here in London. And I do hope they don't get fobbed off by the police, the mayor or anybody else into thinking that, no, actually, this is just county lines. It's not. These are grooming gangs and must be kept separate. There seems to be almost a lacklustre approach to this. I feel as though they were literally forced to get into having an inquiry in London. What do you think is the reason why? They've been brought to it screaming and shouting, weren't they, Nana? Yeah. Nana, sorry, I've got a friend called Nana and I always call you that. Don't worry, Nana keeps calling you Susan and Suzanne, so you're all right with that one, it's fine. We don't care, do we Nana? Not really, I've been called worse anyway. Not by me you haven't. Anyway, they're sort of, I'll tell you why, because London is full of real lefties who call themselves progressives. They love to think of themselves as woke, whereas perhaps some of us would think it's more of an insult. And I don't think they want to believe that this is actually going on at all. Well, it is going on. They need to open their eyes. They need to come to the table and think, OK, we've got this wrong. We need to look after these young girls and sometimes boys, because in effect, we're looking at paedophiles and we're looking at innocent young 13, 14 year olds. They're not being looked after in the care system. They're not always being looked after by the police and anybody else in authority. And very often, but not always, these girls haven't got parents around or people around that can care for them. Damn disgraceful. We need to look after them. Now, Susan, obviously, the London Assembly, you wrote a letter to the inquiry team just a week before this has been announced after some journalists, and I was happy to be part of that panel, gave evidence to the committee you chair on this. What's the next step now for the London Assembly in terms of gathering information, getting more information towards the inquiry team? And how will the Assembly work with this investigation? Right. So next Wednesday, we've got some academics coming to talk about their view on this. I mean, some academics have actually said we mustn't call them grooming gangs. So that will be an interesting meeting, won't it? Because obviously I'm I'm in a different view. But let's hear what they say. Let's see what evidence they've got. Let's see what their thoughts on the situation are. And then two weeks after that, we've got one of the commanders from the Metropolitan Police coming to answer questions. And, you know, we're not going to hang back. We will ask proper questions because people have got to. So that will progress. If Baroness Longfield wants any information, of course, we will do anything we can to assist because this has got to be dealt with once and for all. All right. Well, listen, let's say that they do a thorough investigation into it and not try and fob people off. Thank you very much. Susan Hall, she's the leader of the Tory group for the London Assembly. Thank you very much. Right. We do have a statement from a spokesperson for the mayor of London who said the mayor welcomes the local investigations announced yesterday. He has been clear we must leave no stone unturned. Any individuals or grooming gangs exploiting children for sex are utterly abhorrent. And the mayor wants justice for every single victim of these horrific crimes. It went on to say that these children have not only suffered terrible abuse at the hands of the perpetrators, but have been woefully let down by the authorities meant to protect them from harm. The Met and this independent investigation must follow the evidence wherever it leads. And the mayor will continue to support and hold the Met to account to ensure it does everything possible to tackle child sexual exploitation in London, including grooming gangs. And to that point, Nana, we do know Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Met, he did say that they are looking at tens of cases after they were assessing thousands. And even he said, you know, people might get confused about what a grooming gang is, what it isn't. People might mistake it with inter-family abuse. So he understands, I think, the situation here. His force is now assessing those claims. So no one can say ever again that it's not a problem in London. We know it is. All right. Well, let's hope this is our investigation.