What is the Casey report on UK grooming gangs – and why did Labour U-turn?

The report addressed the UK’s institutional failure to protect children and teenage girls from sexual exploitation.

The British government has announced a national inquiry into organised child sexual abuse following the release of a damning report by Baroness Louise Casey that criticised decades of institutional failure to protect children from so-called “grooming gangs”.

It marks a remarkable U-turn by the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, which had resisted months of calls for an inquiry, stating that it was focusing on recommendations already made in an earlier seven-year probe.

But what exactly is the Casey Report, and what drove Labour’s abrupt change of course?

Commissioned earlier this year by Starmer, the Casey Report is a review of how United Kingdom institutions have tackled child sexual exploitation.