out of calm yourself down. get out of my pub. >> i love that clip. is the government calling last orders on free speech in pubs? we'll hear from a man who's seen this all before, and what he's going to say is going to shock you. get ready britain, here we go. why can't sadiq khan define what grooming gags are next? >> alex, thank you very much and good evening. the top stories this hour, a group of eight men who were part of a west yorkshire grooming gang in the late 1990s have all been jailed. three of the men, 47 year old ibrahim hussain, and brothers, 62 year old imtiaz ahmed and 45 year old fayyaz ahmed, all from

keighley, were sentenced for rape today. they were found guilty of assaults on a girl after a trial in november and december last year. five other men were jailed for their involvement. the court heard the offenders had targeted two children. >> if we're going to be tough, yeah, let's have the inquiry, just as you say. you're quite right about that. but i don't think we should let the government get away with not taking the action. now. we need to take the action now. and i think that's what liberal democrats would urge the government and all opposition parties, and i'm sure you would agree we do need action now. >> well, that was, of course, the liberal democrats leader, sir ed davey, who welcomed the government's announcement for a series of local inquiries into the grooming gang scandal. the home secretary announced government backed local reviews in five areas yesterday, stopping short of committing to a full scale national inquiry. a lawyer representing victims told gb news there may be hundreds of thousands of victims in every

town and city across the country. in other news now tiktok is to be banned in the us from sunday if it's not sold by its chinese parent company. that is. the supreme court ruled that today. however, president joe biden says he won't force the ban for the few remaining hours he's in office, leaving it up to president elect donald trump to decide what to do when he enters the white house on monday, after the white house on monday, after the supreme court ruling, the white house released a statement saying tiktok should remain available to americans. and finally, former manchester united, manchester city and scotland forward denis law has died at the age of 84. manchester united football club has posted on x, saying everyone at the club is mourning the loss of denis law, the king of the stretford end and scotland's men's national team also posted on their x account, saying a true great. we will not see his likes again. law won two league titles with united and was a member of their european cup

winning side under sir matt busby in 1968, when they became the first english side to lift the first english side to lift the trophy. he scored a total of 237 goals in over 400 appearances during an 11 year spell at old trafford. the aberdeen born footballer, previously announced in august 2021 that he'd been diagnosed with dementia. a family statement this evening said he fought a tough battle, but finally he is now at peace. those are the latest gb news headunes those are the latest gb news headlines for now. i'm back in an hour. now it's back to alex armstrong for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to. >> gbnews.com/alerts. >> gbnews.com/alerts. >> i'm going to tell you the a shocking amount of times the mayor of london has failed to adequately respond to questions about grooming gangs. why does

the mayor of london seemingly not know the definition of the statement grooming gangs? well, this week at city hall, london's mayor sadiq khan was asked a very simple and straightforward question by london assembly member susan hall. take a look at this. >> i asked you this question last week and you found every which way, but not to answer it. just how many grooming gangs have we got in london? >> vie portland misunderstanding. can she define what she means by that? >> yes. if you look at what's gone on in rotherham, in where there are people taking young girls, grooming them for sex, thatis girls, grooming them for sex, that is what i'm talking about. >> well, we know in london that there are issues about exploitation of young people, but they're not as defined by the member in her definition of what those types of gangs are. >> mr mayor, you are fully aware of what grooming gangs are, what we're talking about, because we're talking about, because we're talking about them daily

in the national press. your party leader has been discussing them at length in pmqs. the home secretary just made an announcement about them this week, but obviously a clarification is in order, so let me help you. grooming gangs are organised groups of men exploiting, drugging, abusing and raping innocent children throughout our country. so why in a time when the country is having a serious nationwide discussion on rape gangs, would the mayor deflect such an important question that londoners deserve the answer to, is he living under a rock? or was this an ugly attempt to sidestep a difficult and uncomfortable conversation? multiple reports over the years have alleged grooming gangs operating in london, including areas like newham and stratford. the met police warned as far back as 2017, a year after khan became mayor, about children being exploited in london, calling these gangs a significant threat. and yet here

we are, still waiting for clear, decisive action. well, interestingly, the mayor has been pressed on this before, all the way back in 2018, when allegations of grooming gangs in london began to surface. he was asked by an assembly member, how many girls do you estimate are currently being controlled or enslaved by grooming gangs in london? well, the response was exactly the same. the term grooming gangs can be interpreted in different ways. his response went well. in fact, there's been a shocking ten instances ten where assembly members have quizzed the mayor directly about this issue, with the response always failing to declare how prolific they might be. pushing responsibility back to the met police and often unable to answer what exactly grooming gangs are. it's not hard. and at a time like this, when we know that between 2018 and 2023, there have been multiple incidents reported for

sexual violence and rape, they increased by 14% to almost 20,000. don't you think the mayor should pull his head out of the sand and show some respect for all those potential victims? the mayor, of course, has come out strongly in his own defence, stating that violence against women and girls is an epidemic and had launched a city wide strategy dubbed the tackling violence against women and girls strategy that he heralded all the way back in 2021. now look, that clip you saw was pretty damning. i'm joined now by former mayoral candidate and london assembly member susan hall. susan, look, why don't we get your views on what happened in that clip? i'd love for you to take it away. >> well, basically, most londoners want to know, have we got these grooming gangs in london? my job as an assembly member is to scrutinise the mayor and ask him questions. and as usual, he was very dismissive and he didn't want to answer.

and that's what happens. and unfortunately, there's not a lot we can do about that because he just gets away with it. i thought my question was very simple. it was a yes or a no. if it had been yes, then we could have explored what we can do about it. you know, i would have then had a go about the fact that the latest budget shows that the latest budget shows that we're going to lose at least 1800 police off our streets. we can't afford to do that. but he just would not answer the question. and he is the police and crime commissioner for london. we've got 9 million people in london, and he should damn well ask the questions that are put to him. >> well, look, what is it? i mean, he's had ten instances. i went back through the records of the general assembly, ten instances. he he's also, as i said in my monologue there, referred to it as, you know, not being able to define it before. why is he skipping around this issue? is there more going on here? what why is sadiq khan just not answering the question? >> i don't know and he wouldn't.

i asked him last week in a budget meeting and he wouldn't answer then either. i think the trouble is the media up until now and charlie peters is amazing. the media up until now have shied away from all this. i don't know what sadiq khan was expecting me to say yesterday, but if he was expecting me to say what