Politics latest: Nigel Farage says Reform MP’s comments on adverts were ‘ugly’ and ‘wrong’ – but not ‘racist’

Nigel Farage introduces grooming gangs survivor Ellie Reynolds, who describes the public inquiry that the government is setting up – the panel for which she has resigned from – was “a mess from the start”.

“When I joined the panel, we knew from the get-go that it was messy,” she says, adding that it was “gaslighty” and “manipulative”.

The aim was to “seek justice” and “find the truth” to ensure “this shambles” does not continue.

But she says “the way that we were spoken to was very degrading”, and says they were not allowed to seek support from others during the process.

Reynolds says that, in her view, they “don’t want to vocalise the ethnicity” of the men who committed the crimes against them, and they refuse to be silenced any more.

“I decided to withdraw because my head and my heart were saying two different things,” she goes on.

“My head was saying, ‘you can really make a change in this, you can really help the future’, but in my heart, it wasn’t morally correct for me to maintain myself on the panel because of how it was going.

“It was rigged from the start,” she adds.

Reynolds criticises the level of confidentiality required around the identities of the two candidates for chair of the inquiry – both of whom have withdrawn – because grooming victims have previously been failed by both police officers and social workers.

“So, when you put these two candidates were put in front of us, none of us survivors were ever going to sit there and be happy with it,” she says.

Turning to safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, Reynolds hit out at her for “calling us a liar in the House of Commons” when she denied that the scope of the inquiry was being widened.

“The way that she conducted herself all along was absolutely appalling, but to be called a liar by somebody so high up – we’re used to it now, we’ve been called that all our lives. It’s just awful that somebody had to do that and degrade us even more.”

Of the PM’s letter to her, she says she does not want one – she wants “justice” and “accountability”.

The inquiry panel was “corrupt”, Reynolds adds.