Telford child sexual exploitation scandal

The Telford child sexual exploitation scandal is an ongoing scandal in the United Kingdom. Originally, a group of men were convicted of grooming local children for sex between 2007 and 2009 in Telford in the English county of Shropshire.^[1][2][3] While media reports had suggested 100 or more girls had been affected^[4] and around 200 perpetrators were suspected,^[5] the Sunday Mirror reported in March 2018 that up to 1,000 girls may have been abused, with some even murdered, in incidents dating back to the 1970s.^[6]

According to the Home Office, as of 2015, Telford had the highest rate of sex crimes against children of any city in the United Kingdom.^[7] Telford has a population of just under 170,000 people.^[8]

Overview[]

In a series of trials stretching over two years and concluding in May 2013,^[9] seven men were convicted of sexual offences against four girls aged 13 to 16. The offences included rape, controlling child prostitution, causing child prostitution, and trafficking for the purpose of prostitution.^[10][4]

In 2018, investigations by the Sunday Mirror alleged that the extent of the Telford grooming gang was far more vast than had previously been believed, with claims of up to 1,000 girls, most of them white,^[6] having been victims of trafficking, drugging, beating, rape and even murder. Similar with other grooming gang cases, it was alleged that the authorities failed to keep details of abusers from Asian communities for fear of being seen as racist,^[11] with police having known about gang activities since the early 1980s.

The MP for Telford, Lucy Allan, has demanded an independent inquiry, stating, "There must now be an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford so that our community can have absolute confidence in the authorities."^[12]

The police chief for West Mercia police "significantly disputed" the figures claimed by the Daily Mirror.^[13]

The claim of "mostly white girls being targeted due to their background" has also been significantly disputed. Ansar Ali, a spokesman for Together Against Grooming, said he had seen evidence about the background of those affected. He said: "A study on this issue was done by the Office of the Children's Commissioner which dated back to 2013 and, according to that research, a third of victims were felt to be from a non-white background or black minority ethnic background."^[14] A Telford social worker also reiterated this view "It isn't only girls that are exploited, boys can be exploited in exactly the same way through grooming. "We work with an age range of 13 to 19-year-olds, we have females and we have males we support. "We have young people from all different backgrounds, it is not just targeting young girls through working class."^[15]

The police chief also disputed claims that offenders were predominantly groups of Asian men, adding: "What I would say is sexual offending across Telford and Wrekin is virtually identically proportionate to the breakdown of society, so it is not one particular section over others and we will tackle it wherever it is."^[16]

Operation Chalice[]

Location of Shropshire

West Mercia Police set up "Operation Chalice" to investigate allegations that local girls were being groomed. Officers believe that up to 100 girls were affected between 2007 and 2009.^[4]

According to a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, "The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs" (2013), police were told that men in Telford would "ejaculate and then urinate in children's mouths". There were also allegations of "gang-rape by queues of men while girls were held hostage for hours, sometimes days—all the while being forced to listen to the screams of girls in other rooms with other men".^[17][5][18]

Convictions[]

2012 convictions[]

2019 convictions[]

Call for inquiry[]

In September 2016, the Conservative MP for Telford, Lucy Allan, called for an inquiry.^[19] She said she has had a meeting with a victim of the abuse, who told her that many of the worst offenders had not been prosecuted and were still living in the area. Allan said that she would be asking the then prime minister, Theresa May, to take action.^[20]

Investigations[]

The Telford case was one of several cases which prompted investigations looking into the claim that "the majority of the perpetrators have been British Pakistani"; the first was by Quilliam in December 2017, which released a report entitled "Group Based Child Sexual Exploitation – Dissecting Grooming Gangs", which claimed 84% of offenders were of South Asian heritage.^[21] However this report was "fiercely" criticised as having an unscientific nature and poor methodology by child sexual exploitation experts Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, in their paper "Failing Victims, Fuelling Hate: Challenging the Harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' Narrative" which was published in January 2020.^[22][23]

A further investigation was carried out by the British government in December 2020, when the Home Office published their findings, showing that the majority of child sexual exploitation gangs were, in fact, composed of white men and not British Pakistani men.^[24][25]

Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white. Some studies suggest an overrepresentation of black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending.

– Home Office.^[25]

Writing in The Guardian, Cockbain and Tufail wrote of the report that "The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim".^[26]

References[]