Home Office Response to Open Letter From Ella Hill

"The ordeal that you were forced to endure is truly shocking. I must commend your commitment to tackle this dreadful form of abuse and your continued efforts to ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard."

The following is a response from the Home Office to Dr Ella Hill's open letter accusing the UK Government of institutional racism.

Dear Dr Hill

I am writing in response to your email of 19 April. The ordeal that you were forced to endure is truly shocking. I must commend your commitment to tackle this dreadful form of abuse and your continued efforts to ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard. As set out in our previous letters on 24 February 2021 and 8 April 2021, we have carefully considered your proposed definition of ‘grooming gang crime’. We believe that to adopt such a definition would be counterproductive as many of the offences committed by individuals, gangs, groups and networks would fall outside its scope. We remain of the view that it could hinder efforts to effectively prevent and disrupt group-based child sexual exploitation. We want to ensure that nothing detracts from the work of the police and others in preventing children from coming to harm and bringing perpetrators, no matter what their motivation, to justice. I am sure you will agree that nothing can be more important.

You also mention the importance of recognising, where it applies, the racist or anti-lack of religion motivations of offenders. As we explained in our previous correspondence on this issue dated 8 April 2021 there are already provisions in UK law to deal with such offences, where there is sufficient evidence. This legislation not only allows for the prosecution of hate crime directly but also allows for an increase in sentencing where racial or religious hatred is identified as an aggravating factor. This provision includes;

Furthermore, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have clear instructions on defining and recording hate crime. You can find further guidance for the Crown Prosecution Service relating to racist and religious hate crime here: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/racist-and-religioushate-crime-prosecution-guidance

Further guidance for police on investigating hate crime related offences, including racial and religiously motivated ones, can be found here: https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/major-investigation-and-public-protection/hate-crime/responding-to-hate/#racially-or-religiously-aggravated-offences I must thank you again for your tireless campaigning on this issue. We are committed to better understanding this kind of offending and how to tackle it. However, at this time, based on the current evidence, we do not believe there is a need to introduce legislation for a specific offence of racial or religiously motivated group-based child sexual exploitation. I appreciate that you are likely to be disappointed by this response, given the nature of the terrible abuse you have suffered, and for that I am sorry. I have every sympathy for your situation, but have carefully considered your arguments and responded setting out the reasons for our position on several occasions.

I understand your frustration, which is only likely to be exacerbated by further correspondence which rehearses the same arguments on both sides.

We do not think it would be helpful for us to write again on this issue at the present time.

We wish you all the very best for the future. Tackling Exploitation and Abuse Unit Home Office