The Quiet War on England’s Daughters

A Nation's Shame

The molesting of thousands of vulnerable girls, mostly by Muslim men, is the national scandal of a generation and a taboo which goes to the heart of England’s political and cultural denial. That the authorities were - and are - complicit in this harrowing of working class towns is now a subject of muted national debate. In their mulish Saxon way, the public are taking their fury to the juggernaught of the state in the hope of finding the nearest thing to consolation: answers.

Leading the charge is Robin Tilbrook, Leader of the English Democrats, who demands that the Home Secretary (Minister of the Interior) launch an inquiry into the incompetent, malevolent and cowardly officials who have betrayed the public's trust.

“There are thousands,” says Tilbrook. “Probably more like ten thousand.” Many, he concedes, are retired by now - the period of abuse and cover-up stretching back over twenty or thirty years.

As the 2014 Jay report into the abuse states, it is very difficult to obtain precise figures for the victims. 1,400 such cases are known of in the town of Rotherham, but this is just one town of 265,000 people.

A Full Enquiry

Tilbrook’s statutory inquiry made under the 2005 Inquiry Act would take a different approach from the types of semi-formal local enquiries which have examined the matter so far.

“It does actually have some serious powers to compel attendance by witnesses,” he says. “If they don't respond to the subpoena, they can go to prison. When they're in the witness box, they have to answer the questions put to them, and when they're told to produce paperwork. If they don't produce it, again, they can go to prison.”

Those implicated in the cover up are already in full defence mode over what the media are calling the ‘Grooming Gang Scandal’ - a euphemistic moniker itself.

“It was always statutory rape,” says Tilbrook, “and for any girl under the age of 13, it was doubly serious. Furthermore, it was a racially aggravated rape, because the perpetrators were going around saying that these girls were white trash and other such remarks. The authorities never prosecuted them for racially aggravated rape and sexual assault and so on, which would have significantly increased their sentences.”

Shocking as the numbers involved may be, it is the coverup which has riled the nation at all levels.

“This is a potentially devastating challenge to statist multiculturalism as it's been operated in Britain, because it is precisely the ideological support for the black minority ethnic communities which drove collusion. Labor politicians have openly said that when they tried to raise the issue of the Pakistani Muslim child rape gangs operating in their area they were told to shut up, as it was damaging to Labor's electoral chances because they got a block vote from the Pakistani Muslim community,” explains Tilbrook.

The Great Denial

On first hearing of the scandal Tilbrook, a practising solicitor, quickly found himself caught in the web of institutional denial which England is still coming to terms with.

One of the curious things he noticed was that not only had many officials, including police officers, failed to do their duty, but also that the girls hadn't sued their attackers.

“Usually, if you've got a convicted perpetrator, the case will be more or less open and shut,” he explains, “because the perpetrator is not allowed to argue that he didn't do what he's been convicted of. So it seemed to me quite strange that lots of these cases hadn't been brought.”

“I thought, right, well, the thing to do is put a solicitors advert in to a local newspaper to encourage girls to either instruct local solicitors or to instruct me to pursue these people. The paper was the Rotherham Advertiser, which is a free local paper distributed to every address. They refused to take the advert.”

This pattern was repeated throughout the judiciary and police system.

“The former Crown prosecutor of the North Western Region, Nazir Afzal, chief prosecutor said - under pressure, he's retracted, but he did initially say a couple of times publicly - that he and the police had been ordered to stand down in making these inquiries by [the Labour Prime Minister] Gordon Brown. What they had said in their direction was that the girls had made their own lifestyle choice. These are girls ranged between nine and 15.”

The retracted claims of Nazir Ali chime with the experience of Detective Constable Margaret Oliver of the Manchester Police, an early whistleblower who, in 2012, effectively had her investigation shut down by her own department.

“The money [for her investigation] was withdrawn by great Manchester Police after a meeting of so called ‘Gold Command’ within Manchester police. This decision was basically a breach of police duty. They knew there was some serious criminality going on, and they decided that they were not going to investigate. What we don't know is which officer actually decided to stand this inquiry down. They claim that the minutes have been lost.”

It was strings of events like these which have inspired Tilbrook to take action against the government through the courts.

“Every single one of those officers should be called to the inquiry and required to answer questions as to who made that decision. As police officers, not only could they go to prison, but they'd actually lose their pensions.”

Is Lawfare Wrong?

This is not the first time Tilbrook has rocketed across headlines for shaking up a government (we’ll come to this in a moment), and he knows the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, won’t respond well to his proposed enquiry: “she is, after all,an outright, multiculturalist, Labor politician trying to prevent anybody making making inquiries into wrongdoings by Labor politicians,” he said. “There's no doubt the case will force her to give a full and proper response, but whether the court will go so far as to force her set up the Inquiry… I would have been confident if we got a judge who was appointed for his skill. Since Tony Blair’s Judicial Appointments Commission we've actually got judges being appointed on the basis of their lifetime's commitment to equality and diversity.”

The Judiciary's Judicial Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, as outlined in the Equality Act 2010, requires that perpetrators’ ‘protected characteristics’ are taken into consideration so as to ‘foster an inclusive environment.’

The question now is whether this widespread abuse of the 'grooming' gangs meets the threshold of being in the 'national interest' according to those who would rather deny that Pakistani-origin men are up to four times more likely to be reported to the police for child sex grooming offences than the general population in England and Wales.

Tilbrook is positive, given that an enquiry was held in the wake of a 2023 murder spree in Nottingham - but he knows not to go in to battle unprepared.

“If we win, and we get an order from the High Court ordering the Home Secretary, she might set it off in the direction of a cul de sac. But if she does that, we could Judicially Review her again.”

Today, many would to dismiss Tilbrook’s methods as ‘political lawfare’ but this borrowing from the American hymnbook won’t wash, as his critics are the very people who established the route he is now taking.

“The Constitution, under the Bill of Rights in England was crystal clear that no proceedings in Parliament ought to be questioned in the courts,” he explains. But that was only until October 1, 2009, when the Tony Blair administration opened the doors of the Supreme Court, abolishing the House of Lords as the highest judicial authority in the UK.

Tilbrook and others strongly object to this development.

“The Supreme Court is a Blair creation. It is stuffed with people whose main qualification is they are Social Justice Warriors and so, consequently, we're getting decisions that are against our traditional constitution.”

The use of courts to coerce politicians has since become inevitably commonplace, nevertheless, Tilbrook has reason to be optimistic. He has already stood at the defining moment of this Blairite saga when, in an interesting twist, the newly established court turned against its ideological masters.

The Brexit Veteran

During the wrangling over the UK’s exit from the European Union, when - as now - a clear majority of parliament were at odds with the electorate. Both Robin Tilbrook and Gina Millar rocketed across the headlines as the UKs most prominent ‘lawfare-ists’ - Miller as a remainer, Tilbrook as a brexiteer.

The trouble with their cases - and with lawfare in general - is that it pursues political outcomes through slightly tangential means. Although both Tilbrook and Miller lead political parties whose goals are upfront and honest, the stated objective of Millar’s legal case was to question the Prime Minister’s mandate to leave the EU in the hope of proving it wasn’t there and the objective of Tilbrook’s was to discern whether an extension granted to this process was legal - which remains a moot point as his case was never heard.

What these two did, effectively, was throw down the gauntlet to Parliament: ‘if you don’t settle this now, the courts will do the job for you.’

Parliament was seen to have the last word, but it’s hard to say how their prevaricating over Brexit would have ended without the courts’ ruthless navigation through the legal challenges which the politicians were deliberately throwing into their own path to obstruct Brexit.

What makes Tilbrook's case viable now, as it was then, is the public pressure which directs the political will of the justice system to either deal with the case before it or pass the hot potato back to parliament.

Tilbrook is clear on how to triage his nation’s principles on this matter:

‘‘You don’t get squeamish about using something that you think not quite cricket. If you’re in a fight, use any weapons at hand because the other side will have no compunction about doing the same.”

Strength in Numbers

The Judge who dismissed Tilbrook’s Brexit case, Sir Gary Robert Hickinbottom, is a fellow of the European Law Institute, whose objective it is to stimulate the development ofEU law, legal policy and practice, and particular make proposals for the enhancement of EU law implementation by the EU member states. Tilbrook was only going to receive the hearing that he can expect from judges, civil servants and politicians who subscribe to the Equality and Diversity protocols today.

But, as we have seen, this doesn’t mean he can’t win.

The last Time Tilbrook celebrated a great victory, it came with 17.5m votes behind it. Amid a politicised justice system, we still have to keep public pressure on to prevail, which is why civic engagement outside the legal and political system has never been more important than it is today.

Ultimately, the ‘Grooming’ scandal is not going to be swept under the carpet any more than the result of the Brexit referendum. The world has its eyes on Britain and the name of Rotherham is in the mouths of the Mar-a-Largo grandees.

Comments of maverick media figures and their allies in the USA are vital for keeping Tilbrook’s Croud Justice appeal crowdfunding campaign on the road.

The campaign has an informal motto which carries a serious overtone: "Nonce or Not" (a nonce being a British colloquialism for a paedophile), aimed at shaming public servants and judges who impede the forthcoming investigations as - at best - 'nonce sympathisers.'

If any institution attempts to defend its inaction over the 'grooming' gang scandal, an army of trumpeters must stand ready, under the walls of Jericho, to see that they are shaken down.

Alexander Shaw

Journalist

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