Authority says it is not involved in MP Rupert Lowe’s privately-funded ‘Rape Gang Inquiry’

PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL has stressed it has had no involvement with the so-called “Rape Gang Inquiry” chaired by former Reform and now independent MP Rupert Lowe.

Earlier this month The Herald published the inquiry’s map, which has since been seen by more than 200,000 readers on Facebook. The map claims to highlight both historic and ongoing organised abuse across the UK, including in Pembrokeshire.

In a statement, the council said: “Pembrokeshire County Council has not had any involvement with, or contact from the privately-commissioned ‘Rape Gang Inquiry’ chaired by Rupert Lowe. The authority understands that this inquiry, which has not yet progressed, will be financed by crowd-funded public donations, and is entirely separate to the government-commissioned inquiry into grooming gangs, announced by the Prime Minister in June.

“Our understanding is that the map produced by the inquiry denotes both current and historical activity in relation to organised abuse. The authority would never comment on any ongoing child abuse investigation, and any such historical investigations will already be a matter of public record. Pembrokeshire County Council is committed to protecting children and will co-operate with any official inquiry held into child abuse of any description.”

The Rape Gang Inquiry, registered earlier this year as a community interest company, says it has submitted more than 9,000 Freedom of Information requests to local authorities, police forces and NHS trusts. According to its organisers, it has already identified 85 local authorities where gang-based exploitation “is taking place, or has historically done so.”

The project has proved hugely successful at raising money, attracting nearly 20,000 supporters and raising over £620,000 through crowdfunding. Organisers claim this makes it the largest political crowdfunder in British history.

Mr Lowe and his team have appointed campaigner Sammy Woodhouse as Victim Liaison Officer and say hearings will begin later this year, offering victims a chance to give testimony. Updates to supporters emphasise that the inquiry is focusing on what it describes as patterns of targeted exploitation by “predominantly Pakistani males” and failures by public bodies to act. It has also launched a petition calling for councils and police forces to publish full data on gang-based sexual exploitation, including ethnicity, immigration status and religion of offenders.

The Herald understands the map’s publication has triggered significant debate locally, with readers divided between those questioning its accuracy and those demanding greater transparency about historic abuse cases in Pembrokeshire.

“Our understanding is that the map produced by the inquiry denotes both current and historical activity in relation to organised abuse. The authority would never comment on any ongoing child abuse investigation, and any such historical investigations will already be a matter of public record. Pembrokeshire County Council is committed to protecting children and will co-operate with any official inquiry held into child abuse of any description.”

Pembrokeshire has faced its own troubling history of child protection failures. In the early 1990s, what was then Britain’s largest child abuse trial took place in Pembroke, with six men jailed for conspiracy to abuse youngsters in barns and on beaches. Around the same time, on Caldey Island, Cistercian monk Father Thaddeus Kotik was abusing children over a period of decades, crimes only exposed years later after an independent review identified dozens of victims.

Concerns about safeguarding continued into the 2000s. In 2010, the Public Services Ombudsman found the county council had been “tardy” in protecting a young boy left with a convicted abuser, and in 2011 a Welsh Government inspection concluded there were systemic failures in the authority’s child protection arrangements. More recently, in 2024, former senior social worker Richard Ford was jailed for serious sexual offences against children, including the possession of hundreds of indecent images.

The Herald understands that the map shared by the inquiry has provoked widespread debate on social media, with some readers questioning its accuracy and others calling for greater transparency around historic cases.