London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been accused of facilitating a cover-up after a joint investigation uncovered evidence of grooming gang activity in the capital documented in official reports he personally read and responded to.
The Daily Express and MyLondon investigation found details of at least six potential victims, including girls as young as 13, hidden in the pages of four different His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services reports spanning 2016 to 2025.
The revelations have sparked fury amongst politicians and safeguarding experts, with Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp accusing Khan of being part of a “shameful” cover-up despite personally responding to reports containing evidence of child sexual exploitation by groups of men.
Six Victims Found in Official Police Reports
The investigation revealed disturbing case studies documented in official HMICFRS reports that Khan publicly acknowledged reading when he responded to the inspectorate’s findings.
The cases included:
- A 15-year-old girl raped by “numerous men” after going missing for four days
- A 17-year-old given alcohol before being raped by several men in hotels
- A 13-year-old plied with drugs and threatened by groups of offenders
- Multiple other victims subjected to organised sexual exploitation
The young girls were raped in hotels across London, plied with drugs and alcohol, and had their lives threatened by groups of men operating in a coordinated manner.
Khan Publicly Denied Grooming Gangs Existed
Despite personally reading and responding to these official reports, Khan has consistently claimed there is “no indication” that Rochdale or Rotherham-style grooming gangs operate in London.
During a fiery City Hall exchange earlier this year with Conservative Assembly Member Susan Hall, Khan appeared to dismiss suggestions that grooming gangs had been active in the capital.
When Hall asked about “grooming gangs, that I would call rape gangs”, Khan responded by asking her to “define what she means by that” rather than addressing the substance of her concerns.
Met Police Forced to Reverse Position
After the Express/MyLondon contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment about these inconsistencies, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley appeared before the London Assembly and reversed the force’s longstanding stance.
Speaking to Assembly Members in City Hall, Rowley revealed that Scotland Yard had a “steady flow” of live multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations.
He also disclosed a “very significant” number of cases that would need to be reinvestigated as a result of the Home Office’s national grooming gangs review.
The admission directly contradicts years of denials from both the Mayor and the Met that grooming gangs were operating in London.
Maggie Oliver: “Same Pattern” as Rochdale
Whistleblower Maggie Oliver, the former Greater Manchester Police detective who exposed the Rochdale grooming scandal, told the Express the London cases followed “the same pattern” she had witnessed.
“I think the Met is the last bastion of being able to cover up, because I have no doubt from the work we do [at the Maggie Oliver Foundation] and from what I’ve read that there is a similar pattern of abuse in [London],” Oliver said.
“I don’t know how they’ve managed to cover it up for so long, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
Oliver resigned from GMP in 2012 in protest at how the force handled the Rochdale investigation, where nine men were eventually convicted of sex trafficking and other offences against vulnerable teenage girls.
Frontline Worker: “Tip of the Iceberg”
Chris Wild, a care professional who works with vulnerable children in London, claimed the victims mentioned in the reports were just the tip of the iceberg.
After reading the case studies, he said: “It’s happening all over London [and] so much more than anywhere else in the country.”
“I’m on the frontline and workers like me all have stories of girls like this. I’m constantly vocal about this in London. To hear reports from the Mayor’s office saying ‘but this is not a problem here’ shows the guy’s deluded.”
Politicians Demand Accountability
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: “It is shameful that the Mayor of London is claiming to have no indication that grooming gangs are operating in London despite personally responding to reports containing evidence of victims abused by grooming gangs in the city.
“It is clear Sadiq Khan is facilitating a cover-up.”
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson added: “There is real, credible evidence that grooming gangs exist in London, and for the Mayor to have potentially turned a blind eye is utterly shameful.
He demanded victims receive “proper justice” and said the UK could not “go on making the same catastrophic errors we saw in Rochdale, Rotherham and all over the country”.
Khan’s Office Responds
A spokesman for Khan defended the Mayor’s record: “The Mayor has always been clear that the safety of Londoners is his top priority and nowhere is this truer than in safeguarding children.”
“Sadiq is committed to doing all he can to protect children in London from organised criminal and sexual exploitation and bring perpetrators to justice.”
The statement highlighted Khan’s £15.6 million Violence and Exploitation Support Service, which provides specialist support to young Londoners vulnerable to exploitation by criminal gangs.
However, the response did not address why Khan publicly denied grooming gangs existed whilst reading official reports documenting multiple victims.
Operation Grandbye Yielded No Charges
The investigation also uncovered details of Operation Grandbye, a probe launched in response to safeguarding reports that resulted in six arrests but no charges.
The failure to secure convictions despite arrests mirrors patterns seen in other grooming gang cases where prosecutions collapsed due to inadequate investigation or reluctance to pursue cases.
Previous Whistleblower Allegations
The new investigation follows earlier whistleblower allegations from former Met detective Jon Wedger, who claimed he uncovered evidence of “industrial scale” child trafficking involving children as young as nine.
Wedger alleged he identified 52 possible victims being trafficked from care homes in Haringey, sold in crack houses and traded for thousands of pounds at upmarket Mayfair restaurants.
He claimed senior police and council officials shut down his investigations, with one superior allegedly threatening to take away his job, house and children if he continued.
Khan’s office rejected Wedger’s allegations as “false, malicious and politically motivated.
Veteran Detective: Met “Lying” to Khan
Another whistleblower, Bernadette Murray, a veteran Scotland Yard detective with 32 years’ service, accused the Met of deceiving Khan about the extent of grooming gangs.
I know that the Metropolitan Police lie to Mr Khan, that’s what they do,” she told the Daily Express.
Murray claimed the force lacks basic knowledge about criminal networks due to systematic data mismanagement: “They don’t even know what grooming gangs they’ve got. They are not trying to find them.”
London Assembly Rejected £4.5m Inquiry
In February 2025, the London Assembly voted on a Conservative amendment proposing £4.49 million for an independent inquiry into grooming gangs in the capital.
The amendment was soundly defeated 16-9, with Labour, Green, Liberal Democrat and Independent members voting against.
Khan and his allies argued that duplicating national efforts could waste resources and delay essential reforms, whilst also warning against racial scapegoating.
Echoes of Rotherham and Rochdale
The investigation’s findings echo the depressing pattern seen in towns across England where grooming gangs operated with impunity for years whilst authorities denied, downplayed or actively covered up the abuse.
In Rotherham, at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013, with the 2014 Jay Report revealing systematic failures by police and social services.
In Rochdale, nine men were eventually convicted, but only after whistleblower Maggie Oliver resigned in protest at how GMP attempted to suppress evidence.
Similar scandals emerged in Telford, Oxford, Derby, Bristol and numerous other towns, with a consistent pattern of authorities dismissing victims’ complaints and refusing to confront organised abuse.
National Grooming Gangs Review Underway
The Home Office has ordered a national review into how police forces handled grooming gang cases, with Sir Keir Starmer committing to a fresh national inquiry following Baroness Casey’s audit.
The Casey audit, published in June 2025, found widespread ongoing problems with how the state understands and tackles grooming gang exploitation.
It pointed to limited data collection by police forces, local government and health authorities, with ethnicity data going unrecorded for two-thirds of gang abusers.
Questions Over Hotels’ Role
The use of London hotels as venues for organised child sexual exploitation raises serious questions about the hospitality industry’s safeguarding responsibilities.
Hotels have a duty to report suspicious activity, particularly when adults book rooms with children who are not their relatives.
The investigation suggests either warning signs were missed or ignored by hotel staff, or perpetrators were sophisticated in concealing their abuse.
Calls for Khan’s Resignation
Conservative members of the London Assembly and MPs have demanded Khan’s resignation on grounds that he helped cover up abuse and failed vulnerable children.
However, Khan’s defenders argue he is being unfairly targeted and that the grooming gang issue is being exploited for political purposes, particularly given he is Britain’s first Muslim mayor.
The ongoing controversy reflects the national imperative to confront child sexual exploitation whilst avoiding divisive identity politics that risk alienating communities critical to preventing abuse.
As pressure mounts on Khan to provide full transparency about what he knew and when, the investigation has reignited the debate about whether Britain has truly learned the lessons of past grooming gang scandals or whether vulnerable children in London remain at risk from organised sexual exploitation hiding in plain sight.
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Photo by London.gov.uk, licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
