Nearly 100 Child Sexual Exploitation cases investigated
Caroline Gall
West Midlands
Up to 98 child sexual exploitation investigations are under way in Birmingham, with six believed to involve groups, a report to the city council has revealed.
The figures, from the independent Birmingham Children's Trust, paint a picture of what authorities are facing in trying to keep children safe in the city.
The national inquiry into child sexual abuse by grooming gangs has announced it will be expanded to include Birmingham and Wales.
It will look at victim and survivor experience, the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and public concern.
Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and former safeguarding minister said she wanted an investigation in the city, adding that "changes have to happen".
The news has also been welcomed by Conservatives in the city, who said it needed to focus on "getting truth and justice" for those affected.
Councillors in Birmingham heard on Wednesday that between January and June this year, 99 child sexual exploitation (CSE) crimes were recorded in the city, compared with 150 during the same period in 2025.
The figures from the independent Birmingham Children's Trust stated more than 140 children were known to be at risk of, or experiencing CSE.
Those at risk were older adolescents, aged between 13 and 17, with girls accounting for 90.6% of victims.
Offenders were mainly males, with those convicted most often aged 30 and 49 years of age.
Phillips said she had been liaising with the Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs in recent months and had requested it include Birmingham - she said she was informed on Wednesday that that would be the case.
She said she was pleased the team had listened to calls from her and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, also a Birmingham MP, as "so much of the attention over the years on this particular issue" had been in the north of England.
"I think it's important for the inquiry to go to big cities, not just the towns," she said.
Case numbers 'underestimated'
But while she did not know the scale of the problem in Birmingham, she questioned whether 98 live investigations was a true reflection.
"While I was still at the Home Office, there was an operation undertaken to make police forces look back at all of their historic files, to look for new cases," she said.
"Now, I have absolutely no doubt that the West Midlands found many historic cases that they would be seeking where possible and where the evidence allowed that for those to be reopened - I imagine 98 would be an underestimate."
The inquiry said on Wednesday it could expand its investigation to the wider West Midlands if evidence emerged that it was necessary.
In its report, the Children's Trust set out the several strands of protection and enforcement that was undertaken in the city, including multi-agency teams providing support for children and families affected by CSE, monitoring children and supporting parents and carers.
West Midlands Police operations had led to successful prosecutions and safeguarded children, the trust said, with the force jointly leading a group looking at any CSE issues in relation to children's homes as well as convenience stores targeted by organised crime groups.
The Conservative group on the city council, said the inquiry had to be about "getting truth and justice for the children who were failed and ensuring that those failures can never be repeated".
"For too long there have been unanswered questions about what happened in Birmingham, what authorities knew, how victims were treated and whether opportunities to protect vulnerable children were missed," councillor Robert Alden said.
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