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Whitehall officials tried to convince Lord Michael Gove to go to court to cover up details of a report into the grooming scandal in 2011, he has said, confirming Sky News reporting earlier this week.
Speaking to Sky’s Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the former senior cabinet minister said it is “undoubtedly the case that more should have been done” to prevent the abuse of young girls in Britain, admitting that it weighs on him.
The allegations of an attempted cover-up were first made to Sky News by former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings in an interview with Sky News, and the claims were substantiated by other sources as well. Mr Cummings was working for Lord Gove, who was then education secretary.
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Lord Gove explained that in 2011, he learned that the late Times journalist Andrew Norfolk, who he described as “a heroic reporter who did more than anyone to initially uncover this scandal”, was seeking to publish details of a report from Rotherham Council about the abuse and grooming of young girls.
He said: “Rotherham Council wanted to stop that happening. They wanted to go to court to prevent him publishing some details, and we in the Department for Education were asked by the council, ‘would we join in, would we be a party to that court action to stop it?’
“And I had to look at the case, advised by Dominic [Cummings] and by others, and there were some within the department, some officials who said, ‘be cautious, don’t allow this to be published, there may be risks for relatives of the victims concerned.”
Rotherham Council also argued…
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