The architect of the bombshell grooming gangs review has admitted she felt she had 'let victims down' – and that there is still a 'sense of denial' over the ethnicity and religion of perpetrators.Baroness Louise Casey, who investigated child protection failures in Rotherham, South Yorkshire more than a decade ago, said she was disappointed when the issue 'hit national headlines' again last year.Speaking at the Hay Festival on Sunday, Baroness Casey said victims 'still weren't believed' and people were 'squeamish'.The crossbench peer led an investigation into Rotherham Council in 2015 after a separate report found more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited by gangs of mainly Asian males in the town between 1997 and 2013.She concluded there had been institutional failures in investigating the abuse of children who were systematically raped, trafficked and intimidated.But the Baroness was called back by the Government last year to carry out a national audit, which went on to find the lack of data showing the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs was 'a major failing over the last decade or more' and listed 12 recommendations, including for a national inquiry.Speaking on Sunday, Baroness Casey said: 'Last year, when the grooming gangs thing hit national headlines again, and I got a call about it, I was kind of thinking, what's going on here?'I was very disappointed, to put it mildly, I was really upset that in the intermediate 10 years (since Rotherham), not enough had changed. Baroness Louise Casey (pictured), who investigated child protection failures in Rotherham, South Yorkshire more than a decade ago, said she was disappointed when the issue 'hit national headlines' again last year The review insisted it is not racist to 'examine the ethnicity of offenders' The report said there was a 'blind spot' in the way institutions approached child sexual exploitation'Victims still weren't believed, people didn't gather the right evidence, everybody was still squeamish over looking at both religion and ethnicity of perpetrators.'I felt there was a sense of denial and I felt possibly, personally, that I had let those victims down… That is never, ever going to happen again.'Last year's long–awaited review found councils, police forces and the Home Office repeatedly 'shied away' from dealing with 'uncomfortable' questions about the ethnicity of rapists preying on thousands of vulnerable girls.Despite years of warnings, Baroness Casey said, the quality of data collected at a national level remained 'woeful and a dereliction of public duty'.With ethnicity still recorded in only a third of cases, the former civil servant said it was impossible to be certain about patterns of offending at a national level.Lady Casey's dire assessment forced Labour into ordering a national inquiry – something Keir Starmer previously rejected.In Rotherham, an investigation into historic cases by the National Crime Agency found that two–thirds of suspects were of Pakistani heritage, despite them accounting for just 4 per cent of the local population.The report also examined a dozen major live police operations into grooming gangs and found a 'significant proportion' of suspects are asylum seekers or were born abroad. Baroness Louise Casey is seen appearing before the Home Affairs Committee in June last year, for a hearing on the Implementation of Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual AbuseFollowing the release of the report in June 2025, Baroness Casey said: 'If you're looking at who commits paedophilia offences, child abuse, as much as we know, with the information you are more likely to be white.'If you look at who is in the areas that we investigated carefully for child sexual exploitation in significant areas of the country, there was an over–representation of Pakistani heritage men.'If you don't collect ethnicity, you can't say what is going on… our failure to be able to collect information properly and hold people to account for it actually gives the racists much, much more power.'We always have to look at the evidence, and you have to own the truth.'The national inquiry will be time–limited and is likely to investigate offending in only a handful of local areas, despite warnings that similar activity may have taken place in 50 towns and cities across the country.Chaired by Baroness Longfield of Godalming, the former children's commissioner, it was set up in response to the recommendation from Baroness Casey's National Audit on Group–based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.The inquiry has secured £65million in government funding and will conclude no later than March 2029.Local investigations will begin in Oldham, Greater Manchester and officials will have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence. Baroness Casey said: 'It's like a war of attrition, every single recommendation… I'm like a dog with a bone, I just won't let go.'