Another botched-up UK child abuse inquiry is in disarray with several survivors of ‘grooming gangs’ backing out demanding the resignation of Jess Phillips, the UK Safeguarding Minister. Three potential chairs have retreated as well.
The previous CSA Inquiry was launched in 2014 and went through three chairpersons, one of whom the NZ Judge Lowell Goddard baled after a Times story about her three month absence in the past year on a £500k a year salary. The estimable Alexis Jay finally took over but only five of her 2022 recommendations have been implemented out of 20. It cost £186 million.
This present probe is looking into whether state agencies failed to do more to protect largely white girls from the grooming gangs — disproportionately comprising men of Asian or Pakistani heritage — for fear of being accused of racism. A Home Office spokesperson said: “The grooming gang scandal was one of the darkest moments in this country’s history. “That is why this government is committed to a full, statutory, national inquiry to uncover the truth. It is the very least that the victims of these hideous crimes deserve.”
The survivors’ concerns at present seem in part to be about the inquiry being widened to avoid upsetting sections of immigrant communities.
The 7 July 2014 Inquiry started on an explosive Cardinal Grand Square of a Cancer Sun opposition Pluto square Uranus opposition Mars so rolling crises were to be expected. Plus a Water Grand Trine of Sun trine Neptune trine on Saturn in Scorpio which had potentially healing properties but also too blinkered an approach.
This Inquiry announced 14 June 2025 might be expected to have more going for it – with the healing, helping-the-underdog Saturn Neptune conjunction sextile Pluto and sextile Uranus. But Mars in bombastic Leo is in an explosive square to Uranus sitting close to Algol, all of which will be triggered by tr Uranus hard aspects across the winter. That does not look like a recipe for a well-managed inquiry. Made worse by Mars being on the focal point of a yod to Pluto sextile Saturn Neptune suggesting that heated arguments are inevitable.
Oddly enough Jess Phillips, the Safeguarding Minister, 9 October 1981, Birmingham, also has Mars in outspoken, attention-seeking Leo square Uranus in Scorpio plus a stellium in Libra including a serious Sun Saturn and a pushily confident Jupiter Pluto. Reading her wiki entry she seems to be a rampant feminist though prone to shooting off her mouth and having to apologise.
She’s not looking remotely settled over the winter with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct her Uranus and tr Uranus opposition her Uranus as well. Her relationship with Keir Starmer is also sinking badly across coming months with tr Saturn opposition the composite Sun, square Jupiter and then opposition Pluto in early 2026. Though that may also be coinciding with his continued slide downhill.
It has been a long haul since Jimmy Savile’s rampant child abuse emerged in late 2012 which triggered much of what came after – when the Solar Arc Pluto was conjunct the UK Uranus and tr Neptune was approaching the conjunction to the UK Pluto with tr Pluto heading for the UK Sun.
More gear changes are ongoing at present with tr Pluto trine the UK Uranus with tr Saturn Neptune in opposition and tr Uranus square the UK Pluto next year. Not all of this will be to do with child abuse horrors surfacing though it can only inflame the anti-immigrant protestors so will feed into a wider concern.
Astrologically it will also be connected to the Solar Arc Uranus conjunct the 8th house Mars detonating murky secrets out into the open – with tr Uranus doing the same in milder form through till 2027. And on it goes.
See previous post for further thoughts:
Child Sexual Abuse – too terrible to face ++ ultra-liberal fascism ++ ‘social and state failure’ ++ foreign males commit more sex crimes 4th January 2025
The problem with Jess Phillips is like many of the cabinet, she is reliant on Muslim votes to have her job. I think her majority was only 500 votes.
Labour enabled this abuse because they don’t want to upset the Muslim block vote.
Charlie Peters, the journalist is an interesting case. He’s done some great investigative work after the pioneering work by Andrew Norfolk.
Have any of your readers looked at what these gangs did to these girls? It wasn’t sex, it was torture. It was race hatred. It’s beyond imagination.
I agree that many people, including governments, prefer to ignore or deny the darkest of realities. This protective mechanism always kicks in when something terrible happens – “things like this don’t happen here” is invariably said by someone at the scene of some horrendous crime. It is a universal human response.
Here in the UK, we have a self-protective Cancer Moon trine Neptune in equally emotionally controlled Scorpio, which may highlight our own response as a nation? The 1066 12th house hidden Moon is in sensitive Pisces, square Uranus, and has been having a Saturn and Neptune transit for some time. Plus the recent Solar Eclipse opposing it from Virgo. A lunar spotlight shines on the public and our emotions?
Currently, we have a Cancer Sun government, 5th July 2024. There are some intriguing links with:
Child Abuse Enquiry, 7th July 2014
Campaigning journalist W.T.Stead who fought to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16 in 1885, 5th July 1849.
Stead’s blistering, sensational article “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” was published 6th July, 1885 in The Pall Mall Gazette. This resulted in the Criminal Law Amendment Act finally going through in August, under the airy trine of Pluto in Gemini (young people) and Uranus just into legal Libra for the UK’s Uranus return. The article describes the sale, grooming, rape and abuse of very young girls in the sex trade in Victorian London. Drugs and alcohol were used, just as they were by the Grooming Gangs.
There is much more to say about the astrology of these links, but that’ll have to wait for now. I’ve commented on it before, but have a few further thoughts. The connections are thought provoking, and suggest this government does have an almost karmic opportunity to make a real difference, and shine a huge light into the darkness. If, of course, they have the courage, strength, and clear determination to do this. Ahem.
Curiously, OT, another hot topic for us all now is the disgusting state of our waterways and seas. The Water Act, which lead to the privatisation of UK water services, was passed on 6th July, 1989. Another Cancerian Sun scandal for the government of the day to address…..
I think it’s a sick side of human nature that has always been with us. Reports yesterday that the Met are reopening 9000 cases and the Standard reported:
‘In some incidences, children as young as 11 who reported being raped saw trials against their attackers collapse and were left to become victims of further abuse.’
Also there is a link between child exploitation, grooming of children and county lines drug dealing. One case mentioned in the Standard report is that of ‘Olivia’:
‘Despite evidence of exploitation, Olivia was at times blamed for her situation, the report found and was accused of “placing herself at risk”, the report said.’ So shades of the victim blaming that we see in the case of Virginia Guiffre for example.
The psychology of victim-blaming is interesting. There is the ‘Just World’ theory which is a delusion among populations that individuals who become victims of these crimes must have somehow deserved what happened to them, that they made bad choices that led to the crime. They want to believe that it couldn’t happen to them, that it doesn’t happen to ‘good’ people. Then there is the notion of the ‘perfect victim’, the deluded notion that if victims have, in their judgment made poor choices then they are imperfect and therefore not properly ‘victims’ – they were drunk, they were wearing revealing clothing, they went to a bad part of town, mixed with the wrong crowd, etc. There should be much more done to educate people in this area, because I have seen so much victim blaming online, it’s quite staggering and it’s all part of the problem, it all contributes to the suffering of these children and teenagers.
I agree VF, the whole issue of victim blaming is a very pertinent point. Possibly with the Nodes and eclipses in the ‘victim-saviour’ axis of Pisces and Virgo this is highlighted? Along, of course, with Neptune and Saturn in Pisces. When terrible things happen in broad daylight, and to what the public might regard as ‘nice’ people, few seem to know what to think. The safety net of citing ‘poor choices’ has been ripped away then.
Reading W T Stead’s Victorian material is quite shocking, even when one allows for sensationalism and so on. It is just so very recognisable, striking such a chord with our contemporary experience. This leads me to think the resistance to seeing the truth runs very deep, since little appears to have changed in over a century.
Back then, Pluto in Gemini trine Uranus in Libra seems to have been a positive sign of some sort of progress. So I hope Pluto in Aquarius and Uranus in Gemini may blow some fresh air into the situation, and go towards improving matters. Neptune in warrior Aries may help as well.
Thanks Jane. W T Stead probably faced a wall of denial from some quarters in his own era. I do think we have made small steps – we know so much more about the psychological impact of CSA than we did decades ago. And yes, as you say, a new era of Air and Fire has the potential to bring this darkness more into the light.
I thought Marjorie’s comment back in January hit the nail on the head
“That the perpetrators and their close perverse supporters (whether personally involved or incapable of believing their friend/relative was this monster) as a problem could probably be cracked.”
@ What was not possible to shift was the great congealed mass of ‘nice’ people (neither abusers nor abused) who did not want to know and often did not want to know since it disturbed their idealized view of the world. Their need to hang onto a delusional sanitized world view was the overwhelming obstacle to progress.”
This essentially was the thought underlying my earlier comment on Prince Andrew. People are willing to engage in discussions on child abuse if it can be wrapped up in the world of celebrity gossip but are not so keen to confront it if it is occurring on their street and in their town. This is why the politicians and institutions find it so easy to slide the issue off into the long grass rather than confronting it.
In this, case another thought to keep in mind – the details of this abuse is so horrific you don’t want to think about it. I took one glance at a graphic description of what these girls went through and decided never again. And that was just reading about it.
“The fight against the obliteration of the story could only be won at the cost of the obliteration of the audience.” Dori Laub: Truth and Testimony
Jess Philips appears to have no earth planets in her Chart. Therefore, her high confidence and quite to rile, maybe because she isn’t reading the room that well? Her Sagittarius Neptune sextile Pluto in Libra is a combination of Fire /Water and Air/Water, not exactly clear thinking especially in Groups/Aquarius. Add in Pluto which rules Scorpio, which is where her Uranus is situated and also her Moon in Aquarius , into the mixture, along with her Mercury in Scorpio and you have a combination of an emotional person, quick to give an opinion – which also indicates a volatile approach too working with groups. Her Sun/Saturn conjunction in Libra is watered down by her Sun/ Jupiter conjunction in Libra. Yet Saturn is Exalted in Libra, therefore, will be forceful.
Her Mercury in Scorpio should be excellent at digging into the dark and disturbing subject of child abuse. Unfortunately it is not helped by being retrograde which suggests she would find the results of any such investigation difficult to process either emotionally or intellectually. The nature of this planet in her chart means that she does not process information in quite the same way as other people and may explain why her own communications so often misfire when read by a wider audience. She would probably help most by dialling back on her own opinions and concentrating on ensuring that the enquiry does its investigative job properly
I think how Mercury retrograde manifests rather depends on which house it is in in the natal chart. Unfortunately we don’t know that detail with regard to Jess Phillips. It could be in her 3rd house of communication or even her chart ruler if she’s Gemini or Virgo rising, in fact if she does have Virgo rising Mercury would be both her chart ruler and in her 3rd house (Whole signs). Possible.
Digression : Having just checked it was interesting to discover that J R R Tolkien, Sigmund Freud, Mozart and Beethoven were all Mercury retrograde.
I have noticed that Mercury retrograde in a birth chart appears to confer a positive influence on the mind and communication etc.
I have it retrograde in the 3rd. Vivid imagination but it’s conjunct Neptune. It’s never been a problem afaiac.
I think the problem with Jess Phillips is not what she says but how she says it.
The only aspects JP’s Mercury makes is a wide conjunction to Pluto and a square to her North and South Nodes, otherwise it is unintegrated with any of her other planets, which might explain her problems.
I have a friend who was born only two weeks before Jess Phillips and also has a Libra stellium (Sun Saturn + Pluto Mercury Lilith). With an MC in Aqua and a Pisces moon, he’s very sympathetic to the plight of minorities and operates his own DEI- consulting company. Anyway, one day last year, we were walking towards an intersection and while waiting for the light to change colour, we witnessed a transient (white) man harassing a young (~14yrs) Chinese girl, telling her to go back to her own country and other stupid nonsense. She was obviously scared and yet nobody else was intervening, including my DEI friend who was/is definitely bigger than me (I’m only 5’3″). So I confronted the guy and tried to distract him until the light changed at which point the girl was able to get away. The man lunged at me as we were arguing and it was only then that my friend and the other dozen or pedestrians stepped in to pull him off me.
My friend is a really lovely guy but ever since that day at the intersection last year, I can only tolerate so much of his moralizing knowing he talks the talk but struggles to walk the walk. I’ve found that ppl with an abundance of air are well-meaning but very pie-in-the-sky at the same time.
What am awful but revealing experience! I too am prone to sticking my neck out and intervening when others don’t or won’t — and I’ve shrunk to under 5 feet!
In Jesse Phillips chart, Jesse 7 Libra squares Child 6Cap30; Mars, 22. abuse, trines Holmes,
22Ar, child abuse; Neptune 22Sg trines Holmes, child abuse, 22Aries…fire Grand Trine.
Look like she has the proper credentials for this job. #22 gives her the authority.
It will be interesting to see if this subject gets as many responses as the one on Prince Andrew. Labour grandees are clearly much happier talking about stripping deviant Royals of their titles and properties than addressing the closet full of skeletons about complicity with organised child abuse ratting in their own party’s cupboard.
The astrology suggests that motormouth Jess Phillips is the last person one would want associated with this issue.
She likely has Moon in Aquarius opposite her Mars in Leo. It’s probable that the Moon, like Mars squares Uranus in Scorpio. Mars in Leo square Uranus can ride roughshod over other peoples sensitivities. That is one stubborn aspect, notorious for not getting along with women and certainly not very vulnerable women, formerly abused in adolescence, wounded further by having their voices unheard and their right to justice significantly delayed by the authorities.
For balance, it’s being reported that 5 of the survivors have come forward to support Phillips and the inquiry. Still, the inquiry has alrehad a rocky start.
5 grooming gang survivors have quit the inquiry and will not return unless Jess Philips goes…
5 unnamed survivors of *other* sexual crimes have backed her…
Ie the entire issue in a nutshell.
This is now a national inquiry into grooming gangs that isn’t about grooming gangs and doesn’t include survivors of grooming gangs.
Yes, I do so fear that this inquiry will become politicised and that yet again the survivors will be lost amidst the infighting.