The first eight closed grooming gang cases have been sent back to police forces for fresh investigations as part of a nationwide review examining hundreds of files for potentially overlooked lines of inquiry.
Operation Beaconport is reviewing cases from January 2010 to March 2025 involving two or more suspects accused of sexual abuse and multiple victims, where no further action was taken.
The review is limited to cases involving living suspects that have not already undergone reassessment.
By November, 1,273 investigations from 23 police forces had been referred to the National Crime Agency-led operation, with 236 prioritised because they included allegations of rape.
At that stage, reviewers believed that potential lines of inquiry in some cases had been missed because of human error.
Back in November, NCA deputy director Nigel Leary said initial reviews suggest there were mistakes in some of the investigations.
“Initial reviews have identified that in some cases where there has been a decision to take no further action (NFA), there were available lines of inquiry that could have been pursued,” he said.
“We’ve seen in those cases what appears to be potentially human error.
“We’ve seen in some cases that those investigations haven’t followed what we would characterise as proper investigative practice, actually, that would have contributed to the NFA decision.
“That includes, for example, lines of inquiry being identified but not being followed, victim accounts not being taken in a way that we would recognise as best practice, and suspects not being pursued or interviewed in the ways that we would anticipate.”
NCA director general Graeme Biggar said: “Operation Beaconport is the most comprehensive and complex investigation into child sexual exploitation and abuse in UK history.
“After months of careful joint work with policing to lay the foundations, we have sent the first cases back to forces to be reopened. This is the first step toward seeking justice for victims and survivors.
“An investigation of this magnitude will take time. Operation Beaconport is working with determination to get it right for victims and survivors.”
