“We’ve had the growth in county lines and child criminal exploitation, at the same time I don’t think child sexual abuse has gone away.
“From the evidence we saw in the audit and the visits we undertook to some police forces, it is clear it is still happening.
“We have to really get a grip of how we treat children.
“This dates back to Rotherham, where I listened to the testimony of a young woman.
“She was a child at the time. She was multiple raped, by multiple men on multiple occasions as a 13th birthday present in the knowledge that her perpetrators said it would not be seen as rape, which she believed.”
But Dame Louise’s report made clear there were many cases like this.
The report found: “We heard about too many cases of child sexual exploitation during our visits to local police forces that highlighted examples of girls between 13 and 16 who: remain under the age of consent and have been raped but who are not automatically seen as victims of rape.
“These issues seemed to cloud decisions about pursuing prosecutions and many of the agencies we spoke to felt this was an issue that required clarification.
“We were told of one case involving a 15-year-old vulnerable child who had been sexually exploited by an older man who had used the ‘boyfriend model’ to groom her.
“Their relationship was well known to local services and the police who tried to disrupt it, but she was insistent she was in love with the older man and did not want to leave him or support a prosecution.
“Despite having substantial evidence that they were having sex, including images on both of their phones and hotel room bookings, the fact she was ‘in love’ with him, said she had consented and would not support the prosecution led to the case not making it to court.”
Dame Louise Casey’s report warned of the “adultification” of girls sexually abused by mainly Pakistani and Asian grooming gangs.
This say vulnerable girls treated as though they were adults.
Rape prosecutions on 13 to 15 year-old girls were dropped because “children of this age are more likely to be viewed as ‘adults’ capable of giving consent.”
It added: “For those fortunate enough to grow up in a loving and stable family environment, adolescence is an often painful process of negotiation with parents; children pushing the boundaries and seeking greater responsibility over decision making while parents resist, continuing to see them as the children who require safety and protection at all times.
“Many parents track their children on their phones, so they know the precise whereabouts of their children every minute of the day.
“However, many of the children affected by child sexual exploitation have not always been afforded the status of a child that is available to someone from a stable supportive home environment.
“Being in care almost fast-tracks children into adulthood – living in residential settings, or ‘semi-independent housing’ long before a child whose family is able to take care of them would do so.
“Sometimes the services who are there to protect these children, often mistake them for adults, as does wider society.
“It is important to recognise that they are still children, however they behave or present themselves: they cannot make choices for themselves or consent to their abuse. When this is forgotten, children, and particularly in this case adolescent children, are made ever more vulnerable.”
Baroness Casey told the Commons' Home Affairs Committee the national inquiry should last three years.
She said: "So I think in anything that we might have said so far, we've suggested three years, certainly initially, but certainly, I think you should be thinking getting the national and local bit done within three years.
"It's partly why we're looking for flexibility about the inquiry model, and looking perhaps a team effort rather than a single individual running hearings.
"We're of the view this is achievable, I just think we need some creative thinking from colleagues in the civil service to help make it happen."
She also urged for local areas to "think carefully" about not being open to scrutiny and to change.
The crossbench peer told MPs she understands other than Oldham "nobody came forward" to take part in five local inquiries announced in January.
Asked how she would like to hold the Government to account on her recommendations in six months' time, Baroness Casey said she did not think it was an "unreasonable thing" to be held to account on what action has been taken on all 12 points.
"We did 12 knowing that we wanted some big, big shifts," she said.
"I hope this is a line in the sand, and I think the 12 things that we're asking for are not impossible.
"They're not pipe dreams, they're achievable."
On the national inquiry and national criminal investigation, Baroness Casey added: "I listened to what the Home Secretary said in Parliament yesterday, I would like to see quite a significant uplift in the prosecutions, the action, the criminal investigations on child sexual exploitation, both historic and current."
