Khan was requested 9 instances about rape gangs – now 40K need him gone | UK | News | EUROtoday

More than 40,000 individuals have put their names to a petition calling for Sadiq Khan to step down over his dealing with of the grooming gangs problem in London, with the doc now heading for City Hall.

The CitizenGo advocacy group is because of place the petition within the palms of Reform UK London Assembly member Keith Prince, whose job it’ll then be to place it earlier than City Hall formally. The marketing campaign goals to drive “urgent attention” onto grooming gangs working within the capital whereas shining a light-weight on what it calls the Mayor’s “refusal” to order an inquiry.

Khan’s report on the problem has drawn fierce criticism. Asked 9 instances in January 2025 whether or not rape gangs had ever operated in London — previous or current — he stonewalled repeatedly, saying he was “not clear” what was being requested. When questioners spelled out precisely what they meant, citing the well-documented instances in Rotherham and Bradford, the Mayor stated he was “none the wiser.”

He had individually gone on report the earlier yr to say there was no “indication of grooming gangs” in London performing on the dimensions seen in Rochdale or Rotherham.

Whistleblower

According to GB News, the Mayor’s place seems to be much more uncomfortable in gentle of claims made by former Met Police officer and whistleblower Jon Wedger, who instructed the broadcaster in October that Khan was “beyond redemption” on the topic. Wedger alleged he was pressured to shelve probes into 50 youngster abuse instances beneath menace of dropping his “home, job and children”, with superiors warning that what he had discovered would “f*** the Metropolitan Police.”

The floor shifted additional final month when a BBC investigation established that younger ladies had certainly been pulled into grooming gangs throughout London — slicing instantly in opposition to the Mayor’s earlier place. The head of the Met’s youngster exploitation unit protecting the south London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark, Detective Sergeant John Knox, described ladies and younger girls as occupying the “lowest rung” of gang hierarchies.

A separate examination by Baroness Casey into group-based youngster sexual exploitation discovered fault traces in the best way the Met had been logging youngster abuse — elevating questions on whether or not the true scale of the issue had ever been correctly captured.

‘Catastrophic failure’

According ot the report, CitizenGO UK campaigner Zuzana Revayova pulled no punches in her evaluation of Khan’s tenure, accusing him of overseeing a “catastrophic failure” and attacking his “leadership on this issue, or rather the lack of it.”

She stated: “While the Mayor focuses on divisive ideological agendas, the safety of London’s most vulnerable children is being compromised.

“The tens of hundreds of people that signed this petition are demanding accountability and actual motion.”

Khan’s office pushed back, reportedly insisting the Mayor had “at all times been clear that the security of Londoners is his prime precedence and nowhere is that this more true than in safeguarding youngsters.”

The spokesman pointed to a £15.6million Violence and Exploitation Support Service designed to protect young Londoners caught up in criminal exploitation, and said Khan remained “dedicated to doing all he can to guard youngsters in London from organised legal and sexual exploitation and produce perpetrators to justice.”

The statement added that the capital would “proceed to do all the things we will to guard youngsters from abuse, violence and exploitation in all its varieties.”