Elon Musk ramps up criticism of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the nation's grooming gang
scandal. This is an abuse that has been going on for decades in dozens of British towns.
Starmer defends his record and vows action to tackle the issue. NTD's international correspondent
Malcolm Hudson has more from London and just a warning this report contains topics some viewers
may find distressing. Elon Musk has called on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to order a
full national inquiry into Britain's grooming gang scandal. This comes after Musk's increasing
criticism of Starmer over the issue and follows reports that the British government recently
recommended a local rather than a national inquiry. Starmer defended his record saying
he tackled the gangs head-on when he was Britain's lead prosecutor and pledged support for abuse
The victims here suffered terrible abuse, unthinkable, unspeakable, genuinely sickening
abuse and then they weren't listened to and that has to be taken seriously. We have to do everything
we possibly can to make sure that never happens again. Starmer was Britain's director of public
prosecutions between 2008 and 2013. Musk claimed Starmer failed to bring quote rape gangs to
Starmer said he brought the first major prosecution of a gang accused of grooming
and rape and had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted when he
left the role. The broader grooming gang scandal revealed how gangs of predominantly Pakistani men
had groomed, trafficked and raped young white girls across towns in Britain over decades.
The 2014 Jay report made a conservative estimate that at least 1,400 girls in the town of Rotherham
were subjected to sexual exploitation between 1997 and 2013. It said girls as young as 11
were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators. The inquiry team also found examples of children
who had been covered in petrol and threatened with being set on fire, threatened with guns
and made to witness brutally violent rapes with the threat that they would be next if they told
anyone. The report also said that in some cases officials had been wary of identifying the ethnic
origins of the perpetrators. This out of fear of upsetting community cohesion or being seen as
racist. Numerous other reports and inquiries tell of similar stories in Rochdale, Telford,
Huddersfield and dozens of other British towns. Now the recent row between Musk and Starmer has
pushed the grooming gang scandal to dominate the international conversation. Starmer has suggested
this is being used by the so-called far right and has rejected any discussion based on lies
and misinformation while still seeking to support victims. But many victims and campaigners have
welcomed the global attention and say much more needs to be done to assure justice. Malcolm Hudson,
NTD News, London.
