Politics LIVE: Labour minister told to quit over grooming gangs blunder | Politics | News

Four women who resigned from the national care gangs investigation victims liaison panel have said they could return if safeguarding minister Jess Phillips resigns.

In a bombshell letter to Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood, they said some of Ms Phillips’ claims were “false” and presented evidence to the contrary.

Ellie-Ann Reynolds, one of the four, said the final turning point for her was “an effort to change the mandate and expand it in a way that downplays the racial and religious motivations behind our abuse.”

Ms Phillips told MPs on Tuesday that “allegations of deliberate delay, indifference or expansion and dilution of the scope of the investigation are false”.

But in a letter to the Home Secretary, the four victims say “evidence since then has proven we were telling the truth”.

This comes on a day when the government’s national investigation into grooming gangs has become even more farcical.

Former police officer Jim Gamble, the sole candidate to head the inquiry, resigned, blaming the “highly charged and toxic environment”.

Lambeth’s former director of children’s services, Annie Hudson, has reportedly already stood down.