Reflections from the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee hearing
Following evidence to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee on group-based child exploitation and abuse in the capital, St Giles’ Junior Smart reflects on what the debate must now confront: not only how exploitation is identified and investigated, but how fragmented systems can fail to see the whole child. Drawing on St Giles’ frontline experience, he argues for a child-first, trauma-informed response that recognises risk earlier, invests in trusted relationships and ensures support does not depend on a perfect disclosure, a perfect victim or a successful prosecution.
When I was asked to represent St Giles at the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee hearing on grooming gangs in London, I knew the conversation would be difficult.
It needed to be.
The abuse and exploitation of children is not a subject that should ever feel comfortable. But discomfort must lead somewhere. It must lead us beyond familiar language, institutional reassurance and repeated promises to learn lessons. It must force us to ask whether our systems are genuinely capable of recognising exploitation early enough to prevent further harm.
One message came through strongly during the hearing:
Exploitation thrives in fragmented systems.
A school may see absence. Police may see offending. A hospital may see an injury. A sexual health service may see a health concern. A youth worker may see fear. A parent may simply say, “My child has changed.”
Each service may hold a piece of the picture. The danger comes when nobody is holding the whole child.
Looking beyond the label
The term “grooming gangs” is widely recognised, but it can also narrow the way we understand exploitation.
Grooming is not an offence type. It is a method.
It is the process through which exploiters gain access, build trust or dependency, isolate children, create fear and establish control. That process may lead to child sexual exploitation, but it may also lead to criminal exploitation, county lines activity, trafficking, debt bondage, violence, weapon carrying or coerced offending.
For some young people, sexual and criminal exploitation are not separate experiences. They are the same experience viewed through different professional lenses.
That is why I believe we need to talk more broadly about group-based child exploitation and abuse, while remaining specific when sexual exploitation is the harm being discussed.
Language matters because language shapes the response. When grooming is spoken about only in relation to one form of abuse, we risk missing children whose exploitation first appears through drugs, violence, missing episodes or criminal justice contact.
The first doorway matters
We must also ask where children first come into contact with services.
Girls and young women may not initially present to a specialist exploitation service. They may appear through school absence, exclusion, mental health distress, A&E, sexual health services, housing instability, police call-outs or repeated missing episodes.
Those first contacts are not simply administrative events. They are potential prevention points.
A missing episode should not be viewed in isolation from school absence. A sexual health concern should not be separated from an older relationship, changes in behaviour or unexplained travel. Drug possession should not automatically erase the possibility that a child is being controlled.
The first service to encounter a child may not be the specialist service, but it may be the first chance to protect them.
We need every doorway to become a safeguarding doorway.
Victims do not always look like victims
One of the most damaging ideas in exploitation work is the expectation that victims will present in ways adults find easy to understand.
Children may be angry, withdrawn, inconsistent, frightened, defensive or seemingly loyal to the people harming them. They may miss appointments. They may refuse help. They may deny what is happening. Some will also be involved in offending.
None of this removes the possibility that they are being exploited.
A child’s behaviour may be part of the evidence of harm, not evidence that they are beyond protection.
We should also be careful not to make support dependent on a child’s ability to disclose clearly or support a prosecution. A child should not have to become a good witness before they are treated as a victim.
Support must begin at the point of concern, not only at the point of proof.
The value of lived experience
This is where lived experience can add enormous value.
At St Giles, lived experience is not about placing someone’s past on display. Nor is it a substitute for professional practice.
Properly supported lived-experience practitioners can build trust, recognise risk behind behaviour and understand why a young person may remain silent, protect an exploiter or reject statutory intervention.
They can also act as a bridge between young people and systems in which trust has already been damaged.
But lived experience must be invested in. It requires training, supervision, boundaries, reflective practice and opportunities for progression. We should never extract people’s experiences without supporting the person carrying them.
The value of lived experience is not simply that someone has a story. It is that, when properly supported, they can help the system see what it might otherwise miss.
Race, ethnicity and evidence
The hearing also took place within a wider national debate about race and ethnicity.
We must be honest where local evidence shows that ethnicity, culture, faith or community dynamics are relevant. Avoiding difficult questions can allow harm to continue.
But we must also be disciplined.
A pattern identified in one area of the country should not automatically become a blanket explanation for exploitation everywhere. London is large, diverse and highly mobile. The methods of exploitation, the backgrounds of perpetrators and the experiences of victims will not fit one simple profile.
We should be brave enough to name patterns, but disciplined enough not to turn patterns into prejudice.
Poor analysis does not protect children. It either blames the wrong people or causes professionals to miss victims and perpetrators who do not fit the expected stereotype.
The answer is better data, local intelligence, cultural competence and evidence-led safeguarding.
Justice and recovery are connected, but they are not the same
Prosecutions matter. Perpetrators must be held accountable.
However, convictions cannot be the only measure of whether a system is working.
Children may withdraw from an investigation because they are frightened, threatened, ashamed or traumatised. They may still feel loyalty to the person exploiting them. They may have already experienced criminalisation themselves.
Investigations must therefore build evidence around the child, rather than place the full burden of the case on the child.
And where a prosecution is not possible, safeguarding, disruption and support must continue.
A failed prosecution must not become a failed safeguarding response.
The court case may end. The trauma does not end on the same day.
Trusted relationships require long-term investment
The voluntary sector is often asked to hold the most complex relationships within the system.
Charity workers support young people whose experiences may involve violence, trauma, housing instability, school exclusion, exploitation, family distress and criminal justice contact at the same time.
That work cannot be reduced to short-term engagement or simple signposting.
Trust takes time. Recovery takes time. Family work takes time. Supporting someone through an investigation and court process takes time.
We cannot ask charities to hold long-term risk through short-term funding.
Nor can we commission trusted relationships cheaply and then be surprised when services become overwhelmed or experienced workers burn out.
If London is serious about improving its response, it must invest in stable, independent and relational support before, during and after the justice process.
What must change
The question should not only be: how many grooming gangs are operating in London?
We must also ask:
How many children are showing signs of exploitation before the system is prepared to call it exploitation?
- How many warning signs are being recorded as separate incidents?
- How many parents are saying that their child has changed but do not feel heard?
- How many young people are treated as offenders before anyone asks who is benefiting from their behaviour?
- How many victims are required to reach crisis before meaningful support becomes available?
If the system waits for the perfect victim, the perfect disclosure or the perfect evidence, it will continue to miss real children.
London needs a response that is child-first, trauma-informed and able to operate across borough and professional boundaries. It needs properly trained police, long-term support for victims and families, credible voluntary sector partners and trusted lived-experience practitioners embedded in the places young people actually are.
Most importantly, it needs a system that does not wait for children to explain their exploitation before adults take responsibility for seeing it.
Junior Smart