Grooming gangs 'active in city', new reports warn

TWO new reports have warned that grooming gangs are operating in Scotland’s largest city, despite the SNP Government's “shameful” refusal to sanction a public inquiry.

- By Ben Borland

The Care Inspectorate found that social workers in Glasgow are well aware of the “risks facing young people including criminal exploitation of children, child sexual exploitation [and] human trafficking”.

Inspectors also looked at Operation Glacies, a “police-led multi-agency screening approach” launched to deal with “concerns about child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation of children”.

The report adds that Police Scotland “had invested in a range of specialist units, including the Glasgow child interview team and uniquely for Greater Glasgow, a specific sexual harm and exploitation unit, to support the multiagency approach to identifying and responding to criminal exploitation of children and child sexual exploitation”.

However, the authorities admit “efforts to disrupt criminal exploitation of children in the city were having a limited impact”.