Child Protection
Children depend entirely on the adults around them. Sherrie wants every child in Britain protected, and every institution that failed them held to account.
Why child protection comes first
What happens to us as children stays with us for the rest of our lives. A child who is harmed carries it into adulthood.
Much of what the state pays for later, from NHS bills to prison places to mental health waiting lists, goes back to children we did not protect.
A girl in Rotherham was fourteen when the first man told her she was special. She was nineteen before anyone in authority believed her. Across England, networks of men targeted children in care, children who skipped school or ran away, and girls who were not safe at home. The state often already knew these children were at risk.
I grew up working class in England, in a home where the adults were too caught up in their own problems to see clearly. I know how easily a child can slip through the gaps.
"Teachers, social workers, police and politicians saw what was happening to those girls. Many stayed silent because the truth was politically inconvenient."
The same thing happened in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oldham and Bradford, and it keeps happening while politicians look away.
I am in politics because those children are owed justice, and every child in England deserves to be safe.
What Sherrie is calling for
- A full statutory public inquiry into the grooming gang scandals in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oldham, Bradford and beyond, with the power to compel evidence and name those who looked away
- Misconduct in public office charges for officials, councillors and officers who knew and stayed silent
- Mandatory reporting laws making it a criminal offence for any teacher, social worker, or officer to fail to report suspected child sexual abuse
- A dedicated National Child Protection Agency with the powers, funding, and independence to investigate networks across council boundaries
- Lifetime sentences with no parole for organised child sexual exploitation, and automatic deportation of foreign nationals convicted of crimes against children
- Statutory protection and trauma-informed support for children in care, who are often targeted because the state has already failed them
Other campaign priorities
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