WHY PROTECT THE RAPE GANGS?
What Adelle Alexander's Comments Reveal About the Mechanisms of Institutional Denial
Every grooming gang scandal follows the same pattern. The abuse comes first, prolonged and organised, spanning years while adults who should know better look the other way. Then comes the institutional betrayal. Police dismiss girls as "willing participants." Councils worry more about community relations than children's safety. Reviews get written to whitewash rather than investigate. And when the truth finally breaks through, a fourth stage emerges that has become as predictable as it is sickening. The defenders arrive, people who rush not to comfort survivors, but to shield the very institutions that failed them.
In Barrow, that person is Adelle Alexander.
Her comments defending Barrow Council are not unique. They are carbon copies of the same excuses we heard in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Telford, Oxford, Bristol, Newcastle. What makes Alexander worth examining is not that her defence is personal but that it is textbook. We have seen this film before. Barrow is now acting out the same script.
These patterns matter because they explain how rape gangs operate "in plain sight." Not because they are invisible, but because too many people choose not to see.
This is not about Alexander as an individual. It is about the system of denial she represents.
The Facts About Barrow
In February, the Miah brothers were convicted of grave sexual offences in Barrow and Leeds spanning 2008 to 2016. Judge Unsworth did not mince words. Their crimes happened "in plain sight" at a takeaway that became a "hub of criminality." Girls, some still in school uniform, were trafficked across county lines.
That is a rape gang by every reasonable definition.
Denying the Scale
Despite these facts, Alexander's posts keep hammering the same line. There is "no evidence" of an organised rape gang in Barrow, no "official review" supports such claims.
This is the classic deflection. Yes, some abuse happened, but deny its organised nature. Reduce systematic exploitation to random crimes. Make it sound manageable, contained, over.
The pattern repeats everywhere. Rotherham Council insisted there was "no pattern" even as hundreds of girls were being raped. Oldham officials claimed "no evidence" while victims screamed for help. Telford authorities called survivor testimonies "exaggerated" even as the abuse continued.
Every town begins with denial of scale. Every scandal breaks only when the lies become impossible to maintain.
Attacking the Messenger
Here is where Alexander's defence reveals something deeper and far more dangerous. Instead of engaging with the facts about Barrow's scandal, she labels those raising concerns as a "travelling roadshow," "outrage theatre," "conspiracy branding," "attention seeking."
Sound familiar? It should. It is the same character assassination playbook used against every whistleblower who has ever dared to expose institutional failure.
The tactic serves two purposes. First, destroy the credibility of truth tellers. Paint the person exposing abuse as a performer, a political opportunist, anything except someone motivated by justice. Second, flip the narrative. Make the real threat not institutional failure, but the person revealing it.
This is exactly what they did to Jayne Senior in Rotherham. They branded her a troublemaker for refusing to stay quiet about child rape. It is what happened to Maggie Oliver in Rochdale, punished for putting victims before institutional reputation. It has been done to countless social workers, police officers, and survivors across the country.
The message is always the same. Shut up. Stop asking questions. The problem is not the abuse we ignored but you for refusing to ignore it. It is a perverse inversion where speaking truth becomes the crime.
The Labour Amendment Deception
Alexander keeps insisting the Labour amendment "still supported the inquiry," "centred victims," "did not water it down."
This claim is demonstrably false.
The original motion had one concrete action. Instruct the council to write to the Home Secretary. That letter was the only mechanism to get Barrow formally included in the National Inquiry. Labour's amendment deleted that instruction entirely.
They did not modify it. They did not replace it with something better. They removed the action and replaced it with meaningless expressions of support.
This is not about centring victims. It is about avoiding accountability while pretending to care. Replace action with rhetoric, substance with sentiment, demands with declarations.
It is bureaucratic sleight of hand. Alexander either does not understand what happened or is deliberately misrepresenting it. Either way, her defence of this manoeuvre shows how institutional protection masquerades as victim advocacy.
The Official Review Smokescreen
Alexander constantly appeals to "official reviews," police reports, IOPC findings as if they are gospel truth. But every grooming gang scandal has shown the same thing. These bodies are often the last to acknowledge what has been happening under their noses.
Rotherham's police reviews initially missed systematic rape on an industrial scale. Rochdale's social services dismissed victims as liars for years. Telford's early reviews denied organised abuse while it continued. Oldham's internal reports gave reassuring conclusions that bore no relationship to reality.
The lesson could not be clearer. Official reviews cannot be treated as neutral arbiters when they are often part of the institutional failure themselves.
When the same authorities who failed children are asked to investigate their own failure, guess what happens? They find they did not fail.
Alexander clings to these reports because they sound authoritative and feel comfortable. Not because they are accurate.
The Politics of "Not Political"
Alexander declares herself "not political" while simultaneously painting any criticism of Labour councillors as partisan and motivated.
This is a classic gaslighting technique used by institutions in crisis.
When institutions fail, their defenders always claim neutrality while portraying critics as political actors. It makes institutional protection seem reasonable and institutional exposure seem suspicious.
But grooming gang scandals are inherently political, not in the party political sense, but in the fundamental sense. They expose how the powerless were sacrificed for the powerful, how children were abandoned to protect reputations, how silence was valued over safety.
To pretend this is not political is itself the most political act of all.
Why Protect the Rape Gangs?
People like Adelle Alexander do not set out to protect child rapists. They set out to protect institutions they trust, political tribes they belong to, comfortable illusions about their communities.
But the effect is the same.
Minimise systematic abuse. Deflect scrutiny. Attack whistleblowers. Trust flawed reviews. Anything except confront the truth that their trusted institutions failed vulnerable children.
This is how rape gangs operate "in plain sight." Not because they are invisible, but because too many people choose blindness over truth.
Denial does not happen despite the abuse. Denial is what allows the abuse to thrive.
And until that cycle breaks, until people like Alexander stop defending the indefensible, the next scandal is not a question of whether it will happen. It is just a question of where.
I have a message for Adelle Alexander and all like her. You cannot stop the reckoning that is coming.
I am Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs. I cannot do this on my own. I need you to stand with me and help make sure the National Inquiry we have all fought for is not a whitewash.
We’re running out of time. Without the numbers, they will win. It’s as simple as that.
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Raja Miah MBE