“Degrading and destructive” child sexual abuse was missed by the Met Police and Tower Hamlets council, a landmark report has found.

Local authorities and law enforcement failed to identify the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has found.

Officials wrongly believed rates of abuse were falling, while the issue became “more of a hidden problem” and “increasingly underreported” across England and Wales, it found.

Interview with John O'Brien, secretary to the IICSA