Call for independent inquiry into child grooming in Jersey - Jersey Evening Post
by Christie Bailey · Jersey Evening PostPosted inNews
Call for independent inquiry into child grooming in Jersey
by Christie Bailey 12 July 202610 July 2026
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AN independent inquiry into the nature and extent of child grooming in Jersey should be commissioned, the chair of the Island’s Violence Against Women and Girls Taskforce has said.
Kate Wright, who is also the chief executive of domestic abuse charity Freeda, made the comments in an opinion piece on page 16 of this weekend’s newspaper.
“I believe the new government now has an opportunity to demonstrate what child-centred leadership looks like by commissioning an independent inquiry into the nature and extent of child grooming and child exploitation in Jersey,” she wrote.
It comes after Children’s Minister Richard Vibert was forced to clarify comments made during the most recent States Assemby sitting, when he said “that children were being groomed throughout the Island”.
He later moved to reassure parents that he was describing “isolated incidents”.
“I wanted to highlight that the risk of grooming exists across Jersey and that any instance of exploitation is one too many, and we are not immune to this issue that sadly exists across modern society,” explained Mr Vibert.
“Safeguarding risks are taken extremely seriously across Jersey and in our schools. Significant work has been undertaken across government and partner agencies to strengthen our response to the risks children face outside the home.”
Last year, members of a drug syndicate coerced nearly 50 Jersey schoolchildren to deliver almost £2 million worth of drugs around the Island, stuffed in teddy bears and karaoke machines.
Mrs Wright called for an independent inquiry that brings together “independent safeguarding experts, survivors, frontline practitioners and representatives from the voluntary sector, whose organisations often hear the voices least likely to reach official systems”.
“I, like many others across Jersey’s third sector, would willingly support that work,” she said.
“I am far less concerned about whether this conversation is uncomfortable than I am about what happens if we stop having it. We know, from our own history, the cost of looking away.
“The measure of the Island will never be how well we protect our reputation. It will always be how well we protect our children.”
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