More than 1,000 children have been abused by sex-grooming gangs in the English city of Telford, amid decades of deficiencies by police and authorities.
An independent investigation found that rape, sexual abuse, brainwashing, drugging and other crimes had been ‘out of control’ in the town of Shropshire since the 1970s.
Similar findings were made following the 2014 report on gang activity in Rotherham and investigations in other towns, and the Telford report said Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) “still exists today and is prevalent across the country” .
Research Chair Tom Crowther QC said “obvious signs” of exploitation, such as teenage pregnancies and disappearances, were ignored, children were labeled as prostitutes or blamed for their “lifestyle” and perpetrators went free.
“Exploitation was not investigated due to nervousness about race” because the perpetrators are said to be mainly Asian men, he concluded.
“Teachers and youth workers were discouraged from reporting sexual exploitation of children. Violators were encouraged and the exploitation continued for years without a concerted response.”
The investigation found that even after a police operation in West Mercia was launched in 2009 and resulted in several prosecutions, the police and the municipality “reduced their specialized CSE teams to virtual zero – to save money”.
At least one victim of grooming gangs in Telford, pregnant 16-year-old Lucy Lowe, was murdered – and her death was then used as a threat to silence other victims.
She was murdered along with her mother and sister by her abuser Azhar Ali Mehmood, then 26, who set their house on fire in 2000.
Lucy had Mehmood’s first child when she was 14 and had been abused by him since she was 12, but he was not charged with sex crimes.
Simultaneous media reports called Lucy his “girlfriend” and spoke of a “stormy relationship”.
Another victim, 13-year-old Becky Watson, was killed in an unexplained car accident in 2002.
Mr Crowther said the shortcomings of the police, council and other authorities had allowed the “horrific suffering of generations of children”, who were treated as “sexual commodities”, to be either passed on for sex or sold for profit by their abusers.
He added: “Numerous children were sexually abused and raped. They were deliberately humiliated and humiliated. They were shared and traded. They were victims of violence and their families were threatened. They lived in fear and their lives were changed forever.”
Mr Crowther said it would be “totally wrong and undoubtedly racist to equate membership in a particular racial group with a tendency to commit CSE”, and that there were perpetrators of different races, nationalities and backgrounds.
“A large proportion of those cases involved perpetrators who were described by victims/survivors and others as Asian or, often, Pakistani,” he added.
“The evidence clearly shows that the majority of CSE suspects in Telford were males of South Asian descent.”
The report said there had been “racial tensions” over several issues in the local community, which the police and the municipality did not want to “escalate”.
The investigation lasted three years and covered abuse dating back to 1989, although it uncovered accounts of victims who had been targeted in the 1970s.
“CSE has flourished unchecked in Telford for decades,” said Mr Crowther. “I saw that references to exploitation had become ‘generative’, seen as ‘normal’ by perpetrators and inevitable by victims and survivors, some of whose parents had experienced similar experiences.
“Such attitudes can only develop if exploitation is not properly recognized and combated, and in my view that was not the case for many years in Telford – as in many other towns in England.”
The 1,200-page report showed that the abuse was not hidden and that police, schools and the municipality had been aware of it since the 1990s.
But warning signs such as repeated episodes of missing girls, teenage pregnancies and reports in the local press of what was then called ‘child prostitution’ were not answered well by Telford and Wreakin Council of West Mercia Police.
In the meantime, victims were berated for their “lifestyle choices” and accused of endangering themselves.
One survivor told the investigation how she was banned from school after getting pregnant while being abused, and that a teacher told her to “stop sleeping with these guys or she would never make anything of herself”.
According to the report, victims were often caught up in the “boyfriend model” of grooming, targeting older men seeking young and vulnerable girls.
Offenders, sometimes working as taxi drivers and food delivery guys, hitchhiked their targets, bought them food, alcohol, cigarettes and phone credit, convinced them they were in a relationship and then made them increasingly dependent.
The girls were then encouraged to engage in sexual activity and passed on to other men as a “favor” or payment for the gifts.
Victims were also threatened in compliance, sometimes being driven to remote locations and told they would be abandoned if they did not engage in sexual behavior.
Some were told their families would be harmed, or “just raped,” the report said.
The abuse was linked to a spike in teenage pregnancies in the early 2000s, although many victims were thought to have had abortions.
“Key organizations should think about why it took so long to respond when the lives of children – and consequently the lives of the adults they would become – were devastated by exploitation,” said Mr Crowther.
He said that when the Sunday Mirror reported in 2018 that “up to 1,000 girls” in Telford may have been exposed to sexual exploitation over four decades, some officials wrote off the figure as excessive.
“I have come to the conclusion that the Sunday Mirrors estimate is a fully measured, reasonable and non-sensational assessment,” concludes the chairman.
The report contains numerous recommendations to ensure progress is made, victims are listened to and abuse is prevented.
West Mercia Police have apologized to the victims and everyone involved.
Assistant Chief Constable Richard Cooper said: “While there were no findings of corruption, our actions fell far short of the help and protection you should have received from us, it was unacceptable, we disappointed you. It is important that we take the time now to think critically and carefully about the content of the report and the recommendations that have been made.”
A Telford and Wreakin Council spokesperson also apologized, adding: “We have made significant improvements over the years. We work very hard every day to help the victims of this crime as best we can.
“We will continue to work with and listen to victims and survivors.”