Robbie Moore MP@_RobbieMoore
Today, I can announce we have secured a full independent grooming gangs inquiry across Keighley and the wider Bradford district.
This is a watershed moment and marks a significant turning point in the pursuit of justice, truth and accountability for victims and survivors right across our area. It comes almost two decades after Anne Cryer first had the courage to raise this issue in Parliament.
The inquiry will be fully independent of Bradford Council.
It will focus on examining failures in local and national safeguarding systems, evidence handling, institutional accountability, and investigate the role of ethnicity, race and culture, and allegations of systematic abuse covered up by authorities.
It will have statutory powers to compel witnesses and evidence.
And where there is evidence of wrongdoing or cover-ups, it will be able to refer matters to the police.
No one will be able to hide.
When I first got elected, six and a half years ago, some of the first meetings I had were with local survivors like Fiona Goddard.
Listening to their accounts of this crime, I was confronted with horrors that I will never forget.
I made a promise to them then that I would do everything in my power to ensure their voices were heard and the truth would come out.
Since then, I have consistently campaigned for this inquiry.
I want to pay tribute to Fiona Goddard and the many others from across Keighley whom I have met - without them, none of this would be possible.
Fiona is one of the bravest individuals I have ever met. Her extraordinary courage in speaking out and becoming a leading voice for survivors nationally should be an inspiration to us all - both locally in Keighley and across the UK.
Now, after tireless campaigning and lobbying, their voices are finally being heard.
I also want to recognise the work of leading child abuse lawyer David Greenwood, who has helped bring vital cases and evidence forward. He has been crucial to this campaign. Working with him, it has been clear for all to see that the scale of this issue across the Bradford District will dwarf that of the likes of Rotherham, Rochdale and Telford.
At times, our calls for a full inquiry were dismissed, or rejected altogether. Yet despite this we refused to give up.
For many years, political leaders from across our region, including the previous Bradford Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe, the Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin and Deputy Mayor for Policing, Alison Lowe repeatedly rejected our calls for an inquiry.
It was my firm view that these refusals mirrored the same patterns of denial seen in towns like Rotherham and Telford. There, decades of abuse were hidden in plain sight until independent inquires finally forced the truth into the open.
It was deeply frustrating, but nevertheless welcome that it was only once a national inquiry was recommended by Baroness Casey in June 2025, supported by the Home Secretary, that these same local leaders changed their position, and supported our calls.
Whilst no inquiry can undo the pain and suffering they have endured, it can help ensure the truth is uncovered and that those who were failed finally receive the answers they have spent years fighting for.
And finally.
One of the most difficult lessons of this entire process is that survivors have had to become campaigners themselves just to be heard.
That should never have been necessary.
It speaks to a deep and painful failure in Britain right now, and of the institutions at every level of the British state.
Now we owe it to survivors, and to thousands across our area who suffered in silence, to see this through together.
This inquiry must seek the truth - however horrific it may be. And bring about justice to those who have been failed for far too long.
I will not stop until we achieve this.
Robbie
