Update #2: 4th February 2025

A month after the request went in we’ve received a rejection (see email in full below) from the Central Criminal Court for the full transcripts relating to the first trial of the Oxford Grooming gang, where 22 men abused up to 300 young girls.

This was our first full transcript request, aiming to understand how the courts respond to further requests, the results have been shocking:

  1. The court struggled to provide the trial details for their own form required for transcript requests. They pushed back on our obligatory request for assistance finding details, citing the excessive time needed to source details as the 2015 trial records weren't digitised.

  2. Case details amounting to public interest was rejected as a valid reason for applying for transcripts 

  3. The court's response was severely delayed. We were told all CCC judges were on holiday for the first two weeks of January. The lack of digitised, accessible records (even to the courts themselves) seemed to worsen the delay, the final response noted: "Judge has reviewed the files we could obtain" and "Court staff have located some, but not all of the relevant files".

  4. The request has been denied on privacy grounds despite the request form stating that only excerpts of the transcripts would be released, which would naturally be done in a way that is compliant with reporting restrictions

  5. The Judge's communication was misleading. In our second correspondence, she mentioned the case related to CSE. However, three weeks later, this was cited as the reason for denying the requests, despite her prior awareness of this fact.

What's next? We'll consult legal experts but plan to resubmit the request for full transcripts, explicitly offering two censoring options: either the court provides censored transcripts, or we censor any material released to comply with reporting restrictions and protect victim privacy (which has always been our intent).

Judges' responses will vary, but the CCC response indicates a significant push may be needed for full transcripts. One full transcript request is with Bradford CC (sent 4 weeks ago), and 3 requests for sentencing remarks are with Oxford & Sheffield CCs, the latter of which should be publishable soon.

Update #1: 13th January 2025

First of all, we would like to thank everyone for both the donations and incredibly kind offers of help. It has been an overwhelming show of support and is massively appreciated. With this and the gravity of the cases involved in mind, we're keen to approach this both as carefully and transparently as possible.

Whenever possible, we'll be sharing updates on how our work is going on this site. We'd like to use this post to update supporters on our progress so far, as well as explaining some of the process behind requesting transcripts. Briefer and more frequent updates will always be available via @g0adm on Twitter/X.

Process

The process behind requesting transcripts is difficult to navigate. We're sure supporters would like a sense of the timelines for when transcripts will be made available, but unfortunately it would be unreliable to provide even a ballpark timeframe currently. We will do so as soon as possible. To give some background, we'd like to explain the full process behind requests - we'll keep this as brief as possible, but do get in contact with any questions or thoughts:

  • Whilst each court case in the UK has an audio recording made, transcriptions are not automatically done

  • In order to request a transcript from a court you need to fill out an 'EX107 form'

  • This form requires various details about the case you're interested in, such as case number, judge involved, specific timings, and official names. These details seem like they should be accessible but many are not available at all. Even at the best of times, some of them can only be found via a mix of court reporting, various legal databases (many of which are paywalled), and other court records.

  • For cases where details are very sparse, courts should be able to use the minimal details to provide any outstanding ones. However, this can be a lengthy process. So far we've had no luck - a week ago three courts were asked to help with details. One was responsive on the phone to the idea and another confirmed receipt over email, but we're yet to hear back.

Once the form can be completed it is emailed off to the court. We'll outline in the progress update what the next steps have looked like to us so far, but it should be the case that:

  1. The court processes the form within 2 days

  2. The Judge looks over and approves the request (in an unspecified amount of time - the Old Bailey suggested this happens 'quickly')

  3. The court will then have to find the audio recording, which will take around 10 days

  4. This is passed on to the transcription company who will send us an estimate of transcription costs

  5. The transcription company will then make the transcription depending on the service band chosen; initially we'll be opting for the 24-hour band

You may have read online some concerns around the legality of publishing transcripts. Our understanding is that we will be fine to do so as long as the right precautions and legal steps are made. We're having ongoing conversations about this currently, but for now we would mainly like to assure:

  • If transcripts are secured, there will be an avenue to publishing details of crimes previously unavailable - even if not in full form

  • Due regard will be taken to censoring the names and personal details of victims as well as anything that could amount to or be pieced together to identify them

Progress so far

We've had an incredible amount of support from people offering their time to assist with research - offering their time and access to critical legal resources. We've currently assembled details on around 30+ cases and are still gathering more. This is a complex process as:

  • As outlined above, the details are hard to come by

  • There is no comprehensive list of every grooming gang case (exacerbating the difficulties). With this in mind, when work is more complete we will also look to create as comprehensive a resource as possible

  • Many of the grooming gangs were tried separately, even if they committed their crimes and were reported on together. This means there are multiple trials to identify and investigate - made more difficult when most court reporting ties them together

  • Some of the larger 'gangs' reported on involve multiple gangs with trials spread across different trials, courts, and sometimes spanning decades. The work of identifying and separating these out takes time

We have already submitted two EX107 forms and are in a position to send around five more out. However, due to the complexity of the process and sensitivity of cases, we're keen to hear back from the two courts contacted before sending out others to ensure we're getting the process right (though interactions with different courts and cases are likely to be different). So far the outreach has been on two cases where we have a good amount of details and are not particularly complex:

  • An application to the Central Criminal Court on the 2013 Oxfordshire Grooming Gangs was sent on 06.01. No confirmation email was sent but on 09.01 the court was called and asked about timeframes. Whilst helpful, they let us know that the judges were 'all on holiday' so wouldn't be able to review the application for about a week. Promisingly, they were aware of our application just by us mentioning that we'd emailed about transcripts, so it doesn't seem like there's a backlog of requests. We'll be in contact with the court again for an update this week

  • An application to Bradford Crown Court on the 2016 Keighley grooming gangs was sent on 11.01. We'll be following up for a sense of timelines on the phone early this week

As soon as we hear back on these cases, we'll update this site and social media.

To continue this work and access funds, we've set up a private company limited by guarantee. For various reasons around timings, political restrictions, and logistics, this is a more straightforward option than a charity. All funds will be going towards securing the transcripts and working to publicise them, and we will be as transparent as possible with activities, whilst maintaining the safety and security of all involved. The application is currently going through Companies House. We've opted to do this under Open Justice UK to leave open the possibility of using this channel to explore transparency and failings in UK justice more broadly in the long term, once work around the transcriptions has made good progress. This, of course, is something we will keep supporters updated on.