Elon Musk reignited international attention on Britain’s grooming gangs scandal this week, amplifying a citizen-funded report that accuses the U.K. government of failing to protect children and teenagers from organized sexual exploitation.

"The politicians who turned a blind eye to the Rape of Britain must go to prison," Musk wrote on X on June 16, after Rupert Lowe, the Great Yarmouth MP and leader of Restore Britain, released a more than 200-page independent report into the scandal.

The report, authored by barrister Graham Smith and released through Rupert Lowe's independent grooming gangs inquiry, was funded through public donations. Its Crowdfunder page showed roughly $1.1 million raised from more than 23,000 supporters as of Wednesday. 

Lowe’s report argues that many Britons no longer trust the government to investigate its own failures after years of outrage over grooming gang cases in towns including Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford and Oldham, where girls were groomed, raped, trafficked and abused by groups of men, including a high number of Pakistani decent, while police, social services and local authorities repeatedly failed to intervene.

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The Lowe report claims that grooming gangs "operated with either the active or passive consent of public authorities" and describes the scandal as a "rotting stain" on Britain’s history. Its recommendations include a sweeping overhaul of sentencing guidelines, life imprisonment starting points for organized child rape, deportation of foreign nationals convicted of group-based child sexual exploitation, a dedicated Crown Prosecution Service unit, stronger protections for child witnesses and possible private prosecutions against officials accused of failing victims.

"If they fail to take the necessary steps, we will deploy private prosecutions to obtain justice at last," Lowe wrote in the report.

The report also makes claims about the ethnicity and religion of offenders, arguing that Muslim men, particularly men of Pakistani heritage, were overrepresented in organized grooming gang cases. It claims the number of victims could reach at least 250,000 when known local patterns are extrapolated nationally.

That figure has not been verified by the British government. Baroness Louise Casey’s government-commissioned 2025 audit found serious institutional failures and said authorities had often avoided difficult questions about ethnicity out of fear of racism accusations. 

She wrote, "We found that the ethnicity of perpetrators is shied away from and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators, so we are unable to provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data."

However, her report also stated that "Despite the lack of a full picture in the national data sets, there is enough evidence available in local police data in three police force areas which we examined which show disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination."

Her audit also identified other perpetrators, including White British, European, African or Middle Eastern individuals.

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Emma Schubart, a research fellow at the U.K.-based think tank the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital: "The government should take this report seriously. While some of its headline figures rely on extrapolation and parts of its methodology will rightly be challenged, it raises questions about grooming gangs, institutional failures and offender demographics that cannot simply be ignored."

The British government has already launched a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs across England and Wales. The inquiry was formally established in April 2026 and is expected to examine institutional failures, local and national responses, possible cover-ups and the role of ethnicity, religion and culture in group-based child sexual exploitation.

A Home Office spokesperson told Fox News Digital: "The grooming gangs scandal is one of the darkest moments and most shameful failures in our nation’s history, and we pay tribute to the immense bravery of those who have shared their experiences in the fight for justice."

"We are determined to get victims and survivors the answers they deserve. That is why we have launched the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs with legal powers to hold institutions to account for past failures, and backed the police with record funding to track down and put perpetrators behind bars," the spokesperson said. "There will be no hiding place for those responsible."

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament last year that more than 800 previously closed grooming and child sexual exploitation cases had been identified for formal review, with the figure expected to rise above 1,000. She also said the government would introduce mandatory reporting, aggravated offenses for grooming offenders and new ethnicity and nationality data collection.

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer previously rejected attacks over his handling of the scandal, accusing critics of spreading "lies and misinformation" and saying some were more interested in politics than victims. Starmer has defended his record as former director of public prosecutions, saying he reopened closed cases and changed the prosecution approach to child sexual exploitation.

A central counterpoint to Lowe’s report is that Britain has already held multiple inquiries into child sexual abuse and grooming gangs, including the seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and that the urgent priority should be implementing recommendations and prosecuting offenders rather than launching parallel investigations.

But others say the very existence of a privately funded inquiry shows a deeper collapse of public trust. They argue that previous investigations exposed failures but did not deliver enough accountability for victims or consequences for officials who ignored warnings.

"Perhaps the most striking finding is not in the report itself but in how it was funded," Schubart told Fox News Digital. "The fact that more than 20,000 people contributed to a citizen-funded inquiry reflects a growing lack of confidence that public institutions are willing to confront the issue fully. Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, that loss of trust should concern policymakers just as much as the report’s findings."

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The issue has also drawn public criticism from the Trump administration. The State Department previously warned the U.K. over its handling of the grooming gangs scandal, saying thousands of girls had suffered "unspeakable abuse" before authorities acted.

Lowe said that the government’s statutory inquiry risks becoming another long process that delays accountability, comparing it to other British scandals where official reckoning came only years later.

Officials on Monday revealed new details about a series of arson attacks targeting properties connected to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, alleging the suspects were recruited and directed by a Russian-speaking handler.

According to police and court reporting, the suspects were promised payment to carry out a coordinated campaign in London in May 2025, including attacks involving a vehicle and two properties linked to Starmer.

A new investigation reported that the handler is believed to be a diplomat trained in information warfare and part of a broader Russian sabotage and disinformation operation directed by Moscow, according to the Kyiv Post.

Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, were convicted in connection with the arson plot after Lavrynovych was recruited by a Russian-speaking Telegram handler known as "El Money," according to police and court reporting. Kyiv Post reported that Carpiuc was also born in Ukraine. A third defendant, Petro Pochynok, 35, was acquitted.

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According to police, Lavrynovych was recruited through Telegram by a Russian-speaking handler saved in his phone contacts as "El Money," who allegedly directed him through a series of increasingly serious tasks while promising payment in return.

"Look, you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain. I’ll send you the money you need to leave the city," the handler allegedly wrote in one message cited by investigators, according to the Kyiv Post.

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The handler reportedly offered Lavrynovych Russian citizenship in exchange for carrying out the attacks and frequently voiced support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the outlet. Evidence also suggested that "El Money" was trained in information warfare by propagandists and intelligence operatives, the outlet said.

Investigators added that Russian operatives allegedly coordinated the campaign remotely through social media platforms and Telegram, using fake far-right and Muslim online communities to sow division and fear in the U.K., Kyiv Post said.

The Russian Embassy has reportedly denied any involvement, rejecting "any attempt to associate Russia or its foreign ministry with unlawful activities," according to the report.

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According to officials, the three arson attacks occurred over a five-day period in May 2025.

The first attack took place on May 8, when a Toyota vehicle formerly owned by Starmer was set ablaze.

A second fire was set on May 11 at the entrance of a residential property that was managed by a company in which Starmer had previously served as a director and shareholder.

The third attack occurred on May 12 at a house that is owned by the prime minister.

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"The actions of the two men involved in these arson attacks were incredibly reckless, and it was sheer luck that nobody was killed or injured," Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said in a statement.

Police said Lavrynovych was arrested on May 13 last year after detectives linked the suspect to the attacks through CCTV footage and phone records indicating he had conducted reconnaissance ahead of the fires.

Authorities said Carpiuc was arrested on May 17 in the departure lounge at Luton Airport moments before boarding a flight to Romania.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey resigned Thursday after clashing with Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government over military spending, dealing the British leader a setback weeks before a critical NATO summit to include President Donald Trump.

Healey's departure stemmed from a dispute over the delayed Defense Investment Plan (DIP) — the government's long-promised roadmap for military investment and readiness — and as NATO allies face renewed pressure from Trump to boost defense spending.

"John Healey’s resignation is a seismic moment for the government and the Ministry of Defense," Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Senior Associate Fellow Ed Arnold told Fox News Digital.

"For the government, it creates a sequence of political headaches in terms of a replacement, and trying to get the Defense Investment Plan published."

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Healey had been in intense, late-stage negotiations with Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves over the scale and timelines of the DIP.

Starmer reportedly refused to set out a timeline to reach 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense by 2035 — a promise he made to Trump at last year's NATO summit — and would not commit to a firm date for reaching 3%.

Instead, Starmer offered Healey a deal to spend 2.68% of GDP on defense by 2030, up only marginally from 2.6% next year, Reuters reported.

"You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country," Healey wrote to Starmer in his resignation letter, warning that the financial constraints would "make the country less safe," the outlet reported.

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"If the delay to the Defense Investment Plan was already undermining the government’s credibility on defense, John Healey’s resignation has blown a hole in its side," professor Kevin Rowlands of the RUSI defense and security think tank told Fox News Digital.

"The immediate consequence is not just political embarrassment for No. 10, but a significant loss of planning certainty at a time when the British Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defense, and industry really need clarity on what will be funded, and when," he added.

The political fallout is expected to reverberate across the Atlantic, where Washington has increased pressure on European allies to fulfill their defense obligations. Trump has frequently criticized NATO alliance members as "free riders."

On June 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the upcoming Ankara summit would be the "most important meeting" in NATO’s history because there are some things "that need to be cleared up and fixed."

He added, "The United States is still in the NATO alliance, and we'll be there."

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However, U.S. officials have made it clear that patience is wearing thin.

"Ahead of next month’s NATO summit, POTUS has been clear: Allies must fulfill their commitment to spending 5% of GDP on defense," U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker posted on X this week.

Furthermore, a U.S. official noted that a U.K. funding package far lower than 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) would send a highly "negative" signal to Trump ahead of the Ankara meeting, according to The Times.

Starmer has pledged to lift spending to 3% in the next Parliament but Healey’s exit has exposed that the current strategy leaves the U.K. lagging behind key allies. By comparison, Germany plans to spend 3.7% of its GDP on defense by 2030.

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"Healey knows the threats we face, he knows the capabilities and shortfalls the armed forces have, and if he believes that the financial settlement is not enough to keep the country safe — to the extent that he cannot honorably stay in post — then we are in trouble," Rowlands added.

"While the impact will mainly be felt on Whitehall, the international implications are severe with a NATO summit just three weeks away," Arnold noted.

U.K. surveillance laws drew scrutiny from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, June 5 amid warnings they could expose communications of officials and American citizens, according to reports.

The concern centered on the U.K.'s use of secret Technical Capability Notices under the Investigatory Powers Act, which critics say could make U.S. companies weaken encryption or create "backdoors" that weaken encryption while preventing firms from disclosing requests without U.K. government approval.

Critics have argued this could undermine privacy, create vulnerabilities and limit congressional oversight, with one former intelligence official warning of a "standing invitation to Beijing."

"We have already seen how this ends," former Department of Defense official Andrew Badger told Fox News Digital.

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"There are legitimate privacy concerns here, and those have been well aired. The less examined issue is national security," Badger said.

"A backdoor compelled by one ally becomes a standing invitation to Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. So, once one government can quietly compel access, others will demand the same, and a one-off concession hardens into a permanent vulnerability," he warned.

According to The Telegraph, a June 5 letter sent by Jordan to U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, showed the Trump ally had called for a review.

The report said Mahmood's decision had been to deny a U.S. company permission to speak with Congress about an alleged encryption backdoor notice.

Jordan was also said to have warned that a lack of bilateral coordination raised concerns about the "trust and effective partnership between our two countries."

"Five Eyes works because every partner trusts the others not to weaken the systems they all depend on," said Badger, co-author of "The Great Heist: China's Epic Campaign to Steal America's Secrets."

"If Washington also concludes that U.K. surveillance powers could inadvertently expose Americans and American officials to espionage, it puts real strain on the relationship and makes future cooperation on intelligence and cyber harder to sustain."

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On the encryption issue, Badger noted that mainstream encrypted platforms now function as "de facto infrastructure for sensitive communication well beyond the consumer market."

"Any access point built into them becomes a permanent target. It is not a private key the requesting government gets to keep to itself," he said.

U.S. and British cyber officials have also repeatedly warned that an axis of hostile states — including Russia, China and Iran — poses threats to Western security and infrastructure.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, cyberespionage by groups such as Salt Typhoon, linked to China, has carried out operations targeting sensitive communications.

"China is actively running one of the largest state-backed cyberespionage operations ever uncovered. The Salt Typhoon campaign has targeted hundreds of organizations in roughly 80 countries and, through those intrusions, gained access to sensitive communications and networks used by senior Western officials," Badger warned.

"Chinese state hackers didn't defeat encryption. They walked straight through the lawful-intercept systems telecom providers had built, reaching the communications of senior officials and even information about surveillance targets."

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Reports also surfaced that U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper used a burner phone during a recent trip to Beijing, raising further concerns about state-sponsored espionage.

Badger noted that the episode reflects a broader pattern of Chinese targeting of British democratic institutions, including the "hacking of senior Downing Street officials' phones and an Electoral Commission breach that exposed the data of roughly 40 million voters," he said.

"The telling thing is that no one issues burner phones for a trip to Sweden or Germany," he said.

"The precaution is itself an admission of the threat environment. The working assumption — correctly — is that anything digital taken into China should be treated as potentially compromised."

The systemic vulnerability also highlights a fundamental contradiction in Western diplomatic strategy, according to Badger.

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"This case perfectly underscores the contradiction at the heart of the U.K. Labour government's China policy: chasing positive economic relations and expanded trade with Beijing on one hand, while being forced to take elaborate precautions against a state whose core interests remain fundamentally at odds with its own on the other," Badger said.

"You can't simultaneously treat China as a trusted economic partner and a hostile intelligence threat. It's a fundamental contradiction. The need to use burner phones symbolically underscore this."

The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) is facing intense backlash after it was revealed that a policy paper it promoted contained what critics say are "antisemitic lies," while also facing accusations that the organization is "infiltrated or controlled by Islamists."

This latest embarrassment for British police authorities comes as the government continues to face criticism for alleged two-tier policing, especially when it comes to anti-Israel and pro-British protests.

The paper from the organization, titled "From Past Prejudices to Present Policies: Confronting Anti-Muslim Hatred and Promoting Human Rights," was recently unearthed by The Spectator. 

In it, then-NAMP Vice President Khaldoun Kabbani refers to Zionism as "a narrow, nationalist, and colonialist viewpoint that fosters anti-Muslim hatred, among other forms of xenophobia, distancing itself from the inclusive and compassionate teachings of Judaism."

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In addition to calling the IDF a Zionist terrorist group, the paper surmises that "eventually" the IDF’s actions following Oct. 7 "will be recognized as terrorism, though likely without any reference to the Jewish faith." The report appeared to be deleted from the web, though it continues to be hosted online through an archive at the Wayback Machine.

Andrew Fox, senior associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that the paper is filled with "antisemitic lies and blood libels."

Kabbani’s paper calls for "dismantling myths through education," but he presents unsourced facts about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. 

In one segment, Kabbani notes that "as the hostilities commenced, reports in Israeli and Western media outlets began circulating alarming and unverified stories about acts of violence by Hamas, including claims of beheadings and assaults. These reports have significantly contributed to increasing hatred towards Islam."

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Dr. Chen Kugel, head of the National Center for Forensic Medicine in Israel, told the themedialine in Nov 2023 that many of the burned bodies of Oct. 7 victims, including those of babies, are "without heads." He admitted it was "difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded."

Kabbani also said that reports of 120 children being killed by Hamas "have been challenged by more recent disclosures indicating that not a single Israeli infant was a casualty during the said attacks. It was later confirmed that only one child’s death occurred two days following the attack, with circumstances involving IDF gunfire and lacking precise details."

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Contrary to its report, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has stated that at least 29 of the fatalities from Oct. 7 whose ages had been provided by Oct. 25 were children.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Director of Investigations and Enforcement, Stephen Silverman, said in a public statement that the NAMP paper is "evidence that a major national policing association has been infiltrated by or is controlled by Islamists." Silverman called for those "responsible for publishing this extremist screed" to be "immediately investigated by their respective forces’ professional standards departments and dismissed."

The National Police Chiefs’ Council did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about whether they were concerned by the NAMP’s paper, whether it would take action in reference to it, and whether its statements were problematic for public trust.

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Fox News Digital also received no response from NAMP or the British government.

Noting the "skyrocketing antisemitism" in the United Kingdom, Fox said that the NAMP’s policy paper is "grossly inappropriate." He said that "whilst it is important that minority groups have dialogue with the police to ensure their issues are considered, divisive internal organizations, such as a group for Muslim officers, are clearly counterproductive to public trust. This practice should be clamped down on immediately and no police force should engage with this organization going forward."

A man in his 40s was hospitalized with serious injuries after a brutal knife attack in Northern Ireland, as police arrested a Sudanese migrant on suspicion of attempted murder. 

The attack happened shortly after 10:30 p.m. Monday in north Belfast, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The victim suffered serious injuries to his face, neck, back and eyes, while police said they recovered what they believe was a kitchen knife at the scene.

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Video circulating online appeared to show members of the public confronting the attacker, including one person wielding a hurling stick. PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson praised the bystanders as "heroic," saying their intervention helped save the victim’s life, according to the BBC.

Police initially said the suspect was Somali but later corrected that he is believed to be Sudanese, describing the change as part of a "fast-time investigation." Henderson said police understand the suspect came into Northern Ireland from Dublin, Ireland and had been granted leave to remain, though he said the Home Office would provide further clarity on his status.

On Monday evening, protesters burned down a bus as tensions rose in Belfast following the gruesome stabbing, despite earlier calls from authorities for calm.

"At this stage, we have no information to suggest that this was a terrorist-related incident," Henderson said, while stressing that the investigation remains in its early stages. "However, I must stress, we are still at the early stages of our investigation," he said, according to The Sun.

Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital that the attack exposed what he described as failures in Britain’s immigration system.

"Britain’s broken border and migration system has been put into stark relief once more with this tragic — and entirely avoidable — case," Mendoza said. "This man should never ever have been in the U.K., let alone been granted ‘leave to remain.’ The Irish border is the soft underbelly for a process the British public has long since lost confidence in, as well as in those administering it politically. Nothing short of a revolution in who we allow into the U.K. and how will satisfy a people fed up with false promises about immigration change."

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The swift response from Prime Minister Keir Starmer marked a notable contrast with the case of Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old who was stabbed and then handcuffed by police after his attacker accused him of making racist remarks. Starmer faced criticism from some conservatives over his response to that case.

Starmer quickly posted on X that the attack was "sickening," adding: "I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets." He said his thoughts were with the victim and thanked first responders, including members of the public who intervened.

The attack prompted political reaction across the U.K. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called on authorities to reveal the suspect’s identity and immigration status.

"What happened in Belfast last night is horrific. The authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately. The public are entitled to the truth," Farage wrote on X.

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Robert Jenrick also wrote on X: "We’ve woken up to truly barbaric footage on a street in Belfast. Of a kind you’d think you’d never see in this country. For years now I’ve urged the police to spell out the basic, sober facts, as they have them, when there are horrors like this."

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said people would ask whether there had been "failings around our borders," according to GB News.

Northern Ireland’s main political parties issued a joint statement condemning the violence and urging the public not to share graphic footage of the attack.

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"There is no place in our society for this kind of brutality. Our immediate thoughts are with the victim and his family, and we hope he makes a full and complete recovery," the parties said, according to GB News.

Police said they had declared a critical incident and would increase their presence across Northern Ireland amid calls for protests. Officials urged calm and asked the public to allow the investigation to proceed.