Musk reignites debate around British child rape case: What is the 'Rotherham scandal'?

With a series of posts on X, Elon Musk revealed one of the worst scandals in recent British history: the discovery of child molestation and sexual abuse gangs in several British towns between 1997 and 2013. There was also a cover-up, as it revealed that local authorities ignored complaints and evidence from social media.

From online, the focus of the debate shifted to Parliament. The opposition tabled a petition on Wednesday to open a national inquiry into so-called grooming gangs. The government, however, with a majority in the chamber, dumped the proposal.

"Unbelievable," Musk reacted. Before the vote, the X owner had claimed that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had a sinister motive for ordering the government to block a new inquiry: "Because he is hiding terrible things. That is why."

Article uncovers the 'Rotherham scandal'

The scandal was first uncovered by journalist Andrew Norfolk. In an article for British newspaper The Times in 2011, Norfolk wrote of a "culture of silence" that had allowed "young British girls" to be raped "by criminal pimping gangs."

Norfolk found that experts and researchers had detected "a repeated pattern" of sexual offenses against minors. Groups of men, mostly Pakistani and Muslim, were grooming British girls under the age of 16. The cases went back a decade. They included one 13-year-old girl who was alleged to have been raped more than 50 times, and another, aged 12, who had had an abortion.

"These girls are being passed around and used as meat," a chief inspector quoted in the Times article said at the time. "To stop this type of crime you need to start talking about it, but everyone's been too scared to address the ethnicity factor," he added. Another source, the director of a Muslim foundation, claimed that these rapes were "a form of racism": "These people think that white girls have fewer morals and are less valuable than our girls."

Official investigations

Norfolk's article led Rotherham authorities to order an independent report. Published in 2014, it revealed that between 1997 and 2013, despite numerous allegations, only one case of sexual abuse had been prosecuted.

In a "conservative" estimate, the authors calculated that some 1,400 girls were victims of these abuse networks. "They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated," they described.

The Rotherham report also points to numerous cases in which police and political leaders failed to intervene. Failures the authors consider "blatant."

On the available evidence, the report asserts, authorities should have acted. Although it cites a number of possible reasons, it highlights the identity component of the case: "Several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so."

That report on Rotherham coincided with the discovery of similar cases in other towns such as Oxford, Oldham and Rochdale. The controversy led to complaints from victims against the police and local authorities.

The main author of the report, Alexis Jay, explained in media appearances that all the cases followed the same pattern: a young man seduces a minor, then demands that she sleep with his friends and, if she refuses, threatens her, even beats her. There were then, in addition, minors who were taken from one city to another to be sexually abused.

In the following years, several arrests were made. In 2023, then-Rrime Minister Rishi Sunak formed the Grooming Gangs Taskforce containing officers from more than 40 police forces in England and Wales. The team identified 4,000 victims, leading to more than 500 arrests.

What was Starmer's role?

Starmer served as Britain's chief prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, when the matter gained national prominence. Musk accused him of being "deeply complicit" in the mass rapes in exchange for votes.

The prime minister hit back, linking Musk to the "far right" and, in response to a question about the tech entrepreneur, condemning "those who are spreading lies and misinformation."

Labour was in charge of a case against a gang in Rochdale. With Starmer now inhabiting 10 Downing Street, he defended his actions:

"When I was chief prosecutor for five years, I tackled this head on because I could see what was happening. When I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record."

Calls to reopen the case

The controversy was reignited in 2024 after the city government of Oldham, in northwest England, called for a national inquiry. Starmer's government refused. Musk echoed the news, calling the minister in charge of the decision a "rape genocide apologist." She responded that the city should conduct an inquiry of its own. In October, the local council complied.

The call for reopening is not an isolated cry from Musk. Despite the government shooting down the opposition's proposal to reinvestigate the gangs, both the Conservative Party and Reform U.K. insisted it was urgent.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had claimed that, although different studies had been carried out, "no one in authority has joined the dots." "2025 must be the year that the victims start to get justice." After the thwarted vote, he re-emphasized its necessity, echoing that a Labour mayor spoke out in favor of a new inquiry.

From Reform U.K., Nigel Farage, its leading figure and one of its founders, stated that the majority of Britons approve of reopening the case: "76% of Britons want a national public inquiry into the rape gangs scandal."

Some victims also came out to call for a new inquiry. "They keep saying there have been inquiries. That’s right for six towns out of over 50," the father of a girl caught by gangs in Rotherham told British media outlet GBN. "People of this country deserve to know what our children are facing and they're facing it today."

One of the victims, Sammy Woodhouse, shared the names of all the ruling M.P.s who had voted against it. He was one of the anonymous sources who spoke to Norfolk, the Times reporter.

"An independent investigation into every council and police force in the U.K. is a must," assured the now child abuse activist. "An investigation must also be done into all politicians to find out who knew and didn’t act. They must be held to account and removed from office."