Whitehall officials tried to convince Lord Michael Gove to go to court to cover up details of a report into the grooming scandal in 2011, he has said, confirming Sky News reporting earlier this week.
Speaking to Sky’s Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the former senior cabinet minister said it is “undoubtedly the case that more should have been done” to prevent the abuse of young girls in Britain, admitting that it weighs on him.
The allegations of an attempted cover-up were first made to Sky News by former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings in an interview with Sky News, and the claims were substantiated by other sources as well. Mr Cummings was working for Lord Gove, who was then education secretary.
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Lord Gove explained that in 2011, he learned that the late Times journalist Andrew Norfolk, who he described as “a heroic reporter who did more than anyone to initially uncover this scandal”, was seeking to publish details of a report from Rotherham Council about the abuse and grooming of young girls.
He said: “Rotherham Council wanted to stop that happening. They wanted to go to court to prevent him publishing some details, and we in the Department for Education were asked by the council, ‘would we join in, would we be a party to that court action to stop it?’
“And I had to look at the case, advised by Dominic [Cummings] and by others, and there were some within the department, some officials who said, ‘be cautious, don’t allow this to be published, there may be risks for relatives of the victims concerned.”
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How Andrew Norfolk exposed grooming gangs
Rotherham Council also argued that publication may pose “risks” to the process of “improving in the way in which it handles” grooming cases, he continued.
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
But Lord Gove said: “My view at the time, advised by Dominic and by others within the department, was that it was definitely better for it to be published.”
“So we said to Rotherham, we will join the case, but we’re joining it on the side of the Times and Andrew Norfolk because we believe in transparency.”
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Attempted grooming scandal cover-up claim
‘Tough questions’ for Whitehall
Lord Gove went on to say that a national inquiry could see some “tough questions” asked of the Home Office about its culture and its interactions with the police.
But those questions will also be posed to two departments he led – the Department for Local Government and the Department of Education, and he said: “I think it’s right that there should be, because the nature and scale of what the victims have endured means that there’s an obligation on all of us who’ve been in any form of elected office to be honest and unsparing in looking at what went on.”
He said he “certainly didn’t have the knowledge at my command that we now do about the widespread nature of this activity”.
‘Not nearly enough’ progress made
Sophy Ridge put to Lord Gove that despite commissioning a report on what was happening to girls in care, and not seeking to block the publication of Andrew Norfolk’s reporting, he still failed to make change.
He replied: “Yes, so it is undoubtedly the case that more should have been done.”
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He admitted that it “absolutely” weighs on him, and that “not nearly enough” progress was made on the protection of vulnerable girls.
“With the benefit of hindsight, I do wish that I had been more vehement in trying to persuade people to take appropriate action,” he said.
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Local government ‘sought to deny scale’ of scandal
The now Spectator editor went on to say that there was “pushback, particularly but not exclusively, from those in local government” to subsequent questions about cultural background, and he said “local councillors and others sought to deny the scale of what was happening and particularly, sought to deny questioning about the identity and the background of the perpetrators”.
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He continued: “I think the right thing to do is for everyone to acknowledge that sometimes there were people who were acting from noble motives, who did not want to increase ethnic and racial anxieties, who did not to fan far-right flames, and thought that it was better to step away from the really grim reality of what was going on.
“I can understand that. But ultimately, that didn’t serve anyone. It did not serve the victims.”
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council did not respond when approached for comment earlier this week on the claims first made by Dominic Cummings, revealed by Sky News.
