The Labour Leader at the Centre of Yet Another Grooming Gang Data Scandal

Inspectors call out Manchester City Council.

Bev Craig became leader of Manchester City Council in December 2021, making history as the city’s first female and LGBT council leader.

Before that, she served as executive member for adult services, health, wellbeing and inclusion, was deputy chair of Manchester Health and Care Commissioning, and co-chair of the Manchester Local Care Organisation.

Upon taking office, Craig gave a bold interview to The Guardian, vowing to put the safety of women and girls at the centre of her administration. She criticised urban planning as too “male-led,” arguing it had created public spaces that “do not feel safe” for others.

Two years later, in a separate interview with I Love Manchester, she reaffirmed that “women’s rights, anti-racism, and LGBT rights movements” were central to her political work.

But last week, those priorities faced renewed scrutiny.

A damning report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) revealed that Manchester City Council had failed to share critical data with police investigating grooming gangs.

The obstruction caused “significant delays”—in some cases even undermining evidence preparation for court.

Information requested by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) took “many months to arrive.” When it did, the files were so heavily redacted that, “some pages contained only a few words.”

In the inspectors’ words, the material was so censored it became “impossible to assess the evidential value.” In effect, they were useless.

Bev Craig with her fellow Labour councillor after the 2023 elections.

The council cited data protection laws—claiming that third-party privacy rules had prevented them from sharing the information. But other councils across Greater Manchester shared the same data “promptly and without redactions”.

So the leader of the council who claimed the safety of women and girls was central to her administration ultimately failed to cooperate—meaningfully—with the very investigations into the most serious form of abuse, short of murder, inflicted on women and girls.

The HMICFRS report singled out two major operations that had been particularly affected: Green Jacket and Bernese. The former secured its first convictions earlier this year and remains a live investigation into historic abuse—under Craig’s leadership.

The report was part of a wider inspection into how grooming gangs and child sexual abuse cases are handled across Greater Manchester—involving all ten local authorities, health agencies, and police.

It noted that GMP has 59 active investigations into multi-victim, multi-offender child sexual exploitation, involving 714 known survivors and 1,099 suspects.

It’s unclear to what extent Craig and the council’s stonewalling influenced these other investigations

Members of a Rochdale r*pe/grooming gang found guilty in June 2025 for offences committed between 2001 and 2006.

That such data-sharing failures occurred in Manchester carries particular weight.

This is the same area in which officers refused to pursue investigations involving “Asian men” due to concerns about inflaming community tensions, dismissed whistleblower evidence, and blamed survivors for their own abuse.

Multiple inquiries and reviews have confirmed what many suspected: Manchester authorities were among the worst offenders in the national grooming scandal—failing to act and covering up the abuse.

You’d expect any council leader—especially one who championed women’s safety—to make confronting that legacy a top priority.

A quick glance at Craig’s X feed tells the story.

She has never once posted about grooming gangs.

The only mention of child sexual exploitation dates back to 2015—and only in reference to another councillor’s speech.

By contrast, she’s been consistently vocal about asylum seekers. Her timeline includes dozens of posts on refugee housing conditions and celebrates Manchester’s “proud record” of welcoming migrants.

She’s praised LGBT rights, attacked legal aid cuts, and highlighted the need to “listen to lived experiences”.

A politician’s social feed isn’t everything. But it often reflects what they prioritise.

Manchester is also unique in one important respect: GMP remains the only force in recent years to consistently collect and publish the ethnicity of both victims and suspects in grooming gang cases.

Last month, Baroness Louise Casey’s National Audit highlighted that between January 2022 and May 2025, across 35 grooming gang operations, GMP recorded that 94% of survivors were white.

Using more accurate definitions of group-based exploitation, officers concluded that “Asian” men—despite being a minority of the population—were not only overrepresented, they formed the majority of suspects.

COCAD could be more clearly described as the most misleading method for ethnicity identification compared to GMP1 and GMP2.

These aren’t generalised assumptions. They’re the most accurate figures in the country, confirmed in a national audit.

So we’re left with a question:

If the racial dynamics were reversed—if the majority of victims were ethnic minorities, and the suspects white—would Craig have withheld case files under the excuse of data protection? Would she have remained silent?

Or would she have posted, spoken out, and used her office to act?

To the council’s small credit, a new data-sharing system has now been put in place. HMICFRS confirmed that investigators can now view unredacted files remotely.

But even this comes too late.

The report noted that police have had to “start the process again.” Casework was delayed. Evidence undermined. Survivors let down—once again.

None of it changed—seemingly—until a statutory watchdog forced their hand.

It makes one wonder: how many more survivors will be sacrificed at the altar of progressive politics? If not out of fear of inflaming “community tensions,” then under the new pretext of privacy laws.

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