Public asked to be aware of signs of sexual exploitation
The public need to be the eyes and ears of the police and raise the alarm at signs of criminal or sexual exploitation, a top officer and force commissioners have said.
Superintendent Jim Baker, Telford and Wrekin’s Local Policing Commander, said at-risk young people were his top priority, and urged anyone who knows of or suspects criminal activity to report it, either to the police or the ongoing independent inquiry.
West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) John Campion said survivors’ accounts regularly include occasions when “somebody could have intervened” or “been a little more probing” about signs they saw.
They were speaking in a live question-and-answer session, hosted on the PCC’s Facebook page.
Supt Baker said: “We need the community to tell us about things we don’t know about, and help us quantify just how harmful those are.
“When I started in Telford, back in January, I said, if I was to make a list, a hierarchy of harm, who was at the top of it? It was children and young people at the risk of exploitation.
“Exploitation there could be criminal, or it could be sexual. We all know the history of Telford, and we know about the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation.
"Challenge ourselves'
“So I would also use this opportunity to make that plea for anybody who knows of any exploitation, or suspects exploitation, to come forward, either to ourselves or to the inquiry, so the evidence can be taken and we can make that difference.”
Mr Campion said: “I, in my role, read a lot of survivors’ accounts and hear stories around how someone has been exploited, often over a long period of time and in quite horrific circumstances.
“There is always a common feature: times in that person’s experience of being exploited that somebody could have intervened. Somebody could have either noticed signs or been a little more probing about the behaviour they were seeing.
“We have to challenge ourselves around the behaviour we see.
“It’s a really important message: Step forward, you will be heard, you will be believed.”
Ms Onslow said: “It is so unlikely the a police officer would come across things that happen in the home just by accident. But you live next door, you see them.
“Just take five minutes, think about what you’ve seen and ask ‘Is it appropriate?’
“Nobody is ever going to tell you not to phone that through.”
The question-and-answer session was one of five organised by the PCC’s office, covering each of West Mercia’s five local policing areas. More information, including how to submit your own questions, is available on the West Mercia PCC Facebook page.
Contact details for the Independent Inquiry into Telford Child Sexual Exploitation are available at IITCSE.com
