Overview
- Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told the London Assembly the force is currently handling tens of complex cases that align with the public understanding of grooming gangs.
- Under Operation Beaconport, the Met is reassessing 9,000 reported and closed cases from 2010 to March 31, 2025, with 2,200 screened so far and roughly 1,200 initially found in scope.
- Rowley said perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 cases may warrant reinvestigation, stressing the audit spans online, intrafamilial, institutional, and peer-on-peer abuse as well as gang offending.
- He reported the ethnicity of victims and suspects varies with London’s diversity and does not show a single dominant typology seen in some other towns.
- The work is expected to take years, cost many millions, and require at least 60 to 80 specialist officers, as the London Assembly urged the government to accelerate the national inquiry and fund the Met; Sadiq Khan was pressed to apologise for earlier comments and declined.