A judge has rejected a request to release transcripts from a key grooming gang trial arguing that it would be “contrary to the public interest.”
Activists from campaign group Open Justice UK have been raising money to release sentencing remarks and full court proceedings from the abuse trials.
They argue that “crucial information” about the gangs is being hidden from victims, researchers, and the public, which they allege “blocks wider understanding and prevents meaningful reform.”
The group has requested the release of the full transcript from a 2016 trial at Bradford Crown Court for twelve men who sexually exploited a teenage girl in Keighley.
Wren said transcripts not being released from the Keyleigh case was 'egregious' and 'ridiculous'
West Yorkshire Police
Members of the gang were jailed for the “terrible and heartless” abuse of the girl from the age of 13.
Adam Wren, who runs Open Justice UK, wrote to the court to request the transcripts for the case to “enable accurate public discussion” and to “facilitate informed public awareness of these serious matters.”
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But his request was rejected by judge Jonathan Rose, who said that he did not consider the release of the information to be “appropriate.”
Justice Rose objected to the release “in the context of the public debate now taking place in general concerning cases such as this which are said to be part of a currency of offending in this city and elsewhere.”
He said that to use the material amid wider public discussion “would in my view be contrary to the public interest.”
Wren said that crucial information had been “censored,” adding that the release of court proceedings had a clear public interest element.
Wren joined Charlie Peters and Miriam Cates on GB News
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This week, shadow Home Office minister Katie Lam MP shared excerpts from a separate abuse gangs trial at Oxford Crown Court in the commons.
Wren said this was a clear indication in the public interest element of the discussion and that these releases were central to political debate and understanding of group-based abuse.
A spokesperson for the judiciary said: “Transcripts of court hearings can be provided following approval by a judge. Requests are dealt with on a case-by-case basis and are subject to judicial discretion.”
Speaking on GB News, Wren explained his efforts to get the transcripts released.
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“I am from the area where these crimes happened and it’s something I have always cared about”, he said.
“In January, when this all kicked off again, I was reading the transcripts that were released and I realised a lot weren’t made public. The reason one of the reasons they weren’t made public is because they are so expensive to obtain.
“There was a case where one of the girls tried to obtain a transcript and she was quoted £7,000. I realised, ‘we can crowdfund the money for this’, we raised £100,000, an incredible amount of money.
“I was feeling very positive and we have put countless hours into this since.
“We’ve mapped something like 450 different defendants across 90 trials and we have unfortunately been blocked from a few cases, including the Old Bailey.
“By far the most explosive and egregious is this one from Bradford. It’s ridiculous.”
He explained: “We submitted an application saying this information needs to be public because it has not been made public before.
“There was considerations that needed to be made, Section One of the Sexual Offences Act 1992 all about protecting victims, privacy.
“I’ve sought legal advice and had lawyers look at this and draft it with me. It was rejected on the grounds of public interest.
“My opinion here is - we’ve acquired 11 sentencing remarks so far and we have 20 awaiting delivery to us that we’ve had accepted.
“Of those 11 we have acquired, I have given a bunch to MPs and investigative journalists and other people while we can’t quite release them yet because judges need to go through them, redact and such.
“One of the people who acquired them was Katie Lam who used those transcripts to make that incredible speech last week in the House of Commons. Jess Phillips’ response was, ‘we don’t need the national inquiry because this information is already public’.
“However, some of the information Katie raised was from these transcripts, they have not been public before. The idea that not getting them somehow harms the public interest when this information is not available and has been raised in the Commons is ridiculous.”
Robbie Moore MP said: “Blocking the transcripts of these trials protects the system, not the public or my constituents who have a right to know how these horrific crimes were allowed to happen in our area.”
He added: “In a single week in Bradford we’ve seen the courts block access to a grooming gang trial, claims that investigators were threatened with arrest, and local authority leaders still burying their heads in the sand. If this isn’t a case for action I don’t know what is.”
