Northamptonshire Police to look again at unprosecuted grooming gang cases
Plus news from across Northants
Northamptonshire victims of child sexual exploitation will have the right to have their cases re-examined after an intervention by the home secretary.
Yesterday Yvette Cooper announced a new review of national grooming gang evidence as well as five local enquiries, including one in Oldham.
All chief constables will be told to reexamine historic and live cases and survivors who did not see their abusers charged and will be able to ask for the case to be reviewed by newly created independent panels.
The issue of grooming gangs has been in the news over the past two weeks after billionaire Elon Musk claimed the crimes had been ignored by the British mainstream media and that PM Keir Starmer refused to tackle the issue when he was in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service in the early 2010s.
Some senior Tory MPs have jumped on the bandwagon, however the Times journalist Andrew Norfolk, who reported on the abuse cases for several years in the mainstream media, says that Starmer made changes to the way the CPS was working which led to record numbers of prosecutions.
22 recommendations from the seven year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published in 2022 have not as yet been implemented. The home secretary has now pledged that by April the government will set out a clear timetable for taking forward the recommendations in the final IICSA report.
There will also be a rapid national audit led by Louise Casey to uncover the scale and profile of group-based offending in the UK today, including ethnicity.
In Northamptonshire the police, fire and crime commissioner Danielle Stone’s public safety plan pledges to halve levels of violence against women and girls within ten years and her deputy Marianne Kimani’s focus is on women safety’s. Local reports or action plans have not been published yet.
The government is also progressing the Hillsborough Law which will ensure a duty of candour on public servants who will be held to account if they fail victims.
News in brief
The men charged with defrauding Northampton Borough Council as part of a failed scheme to build a new football stand at Northampton town have appeared in court.
Former club chairman David Cardoza, businessman Howard Grossman, his son Marcus and business associate Simon Patnick appeared at Northampton Magistrates Court this morning charged with various fraud and money laundering charges. Andrew Cardoza, David’s father, was permitted to not attend due to health reasons.
They did not enter a plea, were bailed and will next appear at court on February 27.
The BBC reporter Matt Precey, who has been covering the story for several years was in court. Read his report here.
Several major traffic mitigation schemes across West Northamptonshire have been deferred or scrapped completely, as the cabinet member responsible has said ‘there is not enough money in the pot’.
The new local transport plan, which went out to public consultation as a draft last summer, will serve as a baseline for priority highways and transport improvements for the next 20 years. On Monday, West Northants Council (WNC) discussed a list of projects that will not be carried forward within the LTP.
The report highlighted a number of issues raised across multiple consultation responses and clarified the future of those schemes in the plan. These include:
Deferring junction upgrades at the Great Billing Interchange and the A45 Wootton Interchange
Throwing out requests for a Farthinghoe and Cold Ashby bypass
Deferring the Northampton Northern Orbital scheme
Documents explained that junction upgrades had been deferred after National Highways suggested WNC review the Northampton Growth Management Strategy (NGMS), which was first published in 2019, before committing to the A45 junction works.
Cllr Andre Gonzalez De Savage raised concerns about delaying the Wootton Interchange improvements due to large residential developments in the area and their impact on the “key junction”.
Cllr Phil Larratt, cabinet member for highways, told members that there is “not enough money in the pot” to carry out all the upgrades due to inflation. He added that the NGMS needed to be revisited as there were commitments that were no longer necessary, such as upgrades at the Brackmills Interchange.
He agreed that the Wootton Interchange needed to be “top of the list” in the strategy review, but that more time was needed to get an updated understanding of forecast traffic levels in Northampton to ensure improvements are appropriate and long-lasting.
Several representations were received around the importance of the two village bypasses within the LTP consultation last year, however papers state that neither requests will be taken forward. Instead, the transport plan suggests an A422 traffic mitigation scheme at Farthinghoe and a traffic calming programme within Cold Ashby.
Cllr Larratt said the plans for a Farthinghoe bypass “do not stack up” despite the authority’s attempts to create a business case. He added that the Cold Ashby request “falls into the same pot” and wouldn’t be deliverable.
The council said the “need, nature and deliverability” of the Northampton Northern Orbital scheme is not defined enough to include within the LTP.
The plans were supposed to relieve traffic from the north of Northampton and surrounding villages by linking the A5199 and Northampton North West Relief Road. Planning officers said the project remains deferred for further study to await the new Local Plan and react to the scale and location of future development.
Following feedback from the Place and Overview Scrutiny Committee meeting, WNC’s Cabinet will be asked to support the LTP’s adoption at Full Council in March 2025.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
The acting chief constable who stepped into the role after the suspension of sacked chief Nick Adderley is likely to replace him.
After a two day interview process Ivan Balhatchet has become the preferred candidate to take over the Northamptonshire force. Balhatchet who has spent his policing career at the Northants force and the Met and who was selected by Adderley as his deputy, will take on the job after sign off by the police and crime panel at an unspecified date. The panel does not have the power to veto the appointment.
The cost of expanding a primary school in a Northamptonshire village will rise by more than £750k, as contract price increases and issues on-site have been blamed for eating away at the budget.
When completed, Earls Barton Primary School will be able to accommodate another 105 pupils in a new teaching block. The permanent classrooms will replace two mobile units that were previously being used on school grounds.
North Northants Council (NNC) executive members approved the additional Department for Education (DfE) funding yesterday, to complete the primary school expansion scheme.
A 300-home development in Earls Barton, led by Redrow and David Wilson Homes, triggered the need for the extension as demand on pupil places increased. The project will link the school’s infant and junior buildings, which are currently not connected, through a central building running through the grounds.
The scheme will increase the pupil roll from 525 to a maximum of 630 students over time.
In November 2022, NNC approved the £2.8m price tag for the scheme, which was partly funded by developer S106 contributions and money from the DfE.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Bin collections in West Northamptonshire could be moved onto a three-weekly rota when current contracts end.
Councillors were told at a meeting on Monday that officers had been participating with a group of other local authorities who would prefer to move to three-weekly collections to reap various benefits.
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has completed an initial investigation into the switch-up and will look at the proposals in further detail in its review of waste collection and cleansing services this year.
A council spokesperson said:
“Benefits of three-weekly collection include increased participation by residents in separate collection services, particularly for food waste and dry mixed recycling, which increases overall recycling performance and moves waste up the hierarchy, resulting in more sustainable waste management.
“Three-weekly residual collection also enables fewer vehicle miles, which reduces costs and carbon emissions.”
Current waste arrangements from legacy councils end in 2028 and the three-weekly collections could start immediately after the current contract ends. The council says it would like to create one consistent service across West Northants.
Across the former Daventry district, three-weekly black bin collections are already in place in what is called a ‘1-2-3’ service. The collection practice started in 2018 and comprises a weekly food waste collection, two-weekly recycling collection and a general waste pick-up every three weeks.
If any changes, such as three-weekly collections, are decided on within the council’s waste review a consultation will be carried out with residents. There is no further timescale at this point.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
Westminster Watch
MP for South Northamptonshire Sarah Bool has hit out at the government’s tax hike on private schools.
Speaking in a Westminster debate the Tory MP, who was elected in July, says Carrdus School in Middleton Cheney will close at the end of the term. She said 120 pupils will be ‘flooding back into the state system that is already struggling with capacity.”
I participated in the stakeholder consultation for the Local Transport Plan. I was impressed by the stated vision to make active travel "the natural first choice for short trips", travel by public transport "increasingly attractive and accessible", and communities "less dependent on private cars". I was hopeful that it would take a radical turn in a sustainable direction. I am sorely disappointed. It's clear that the planners have struggled to break free from the old way of doing things. They have just carried on with transport-planning-as-usual: building roads.
WE ARE IN A CRISIS! Our air is dangerously polluted, and our climate is changing faster than the scientific community anticipated. The last two years have seen exceptional rain leading to flooding and crop failure. It's only going to get worse. We need rapid and radical change if we are to avert catastrophe.
The Local Transport Plan reflects neither the need of the nation nor it's own vision statement. It contains vague aspirations for active travel and public transport, but detailed plans for extensive road investments to facilitate the use of private cars. The disconnect between the vision and the proposed interventions is stark. It's small consolation that the reason some of these road project won't go ahead is lack of money rather than a change of direction towards a more sustainable future.
Cancelled "due to inflation" essentially, so in actual fact the old money set aside originally for these schemes is still available somewhere, or should be, it's just with inflation they cannot afford the new amount. So, can we have some of that money redistributed to other smaller schemes such as essential repairs in smaller roads such as Abbots Way? Highway keep ignoring people so you never get an answer, as does the MP and cabinet member. In truth, the administration are angling for a top up from government.