Inquiry video reveals true horror of child exploitation in Telford
The man who led the inquiry into Telford's Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) scandal has released a damning video telling how generations of children were failed by the authorities.
Tom Crowther QC, who led the Independent Inquiry into Telford CSE, spoke after the report was published, and explained how victims were blamed for their abuse and were "shared and trafficked".
The Inquiry chairman said the abuse went back to the 1970s and "only the nature of gifts" offered by groomers changed – from sweets in the 1970s to mobile phones and top ups 30 years later.
In a video outlining his findings he said: "For decades CSE thrived in Telford unchecked. The account of a child in the 1970s, who recalls being sexually touched by groups of men in a corner shop and given gifts for her silence echoes in similar accounts given by victims 30 years later.
"Only the nature of the gifts had changed. No longer sweets, but mobile telephones and top ups.
"I saw references to exploitation having become generational, having come to be regarded as normal by the perpetrators and as inevitable by the victims and survivors – some whose parents have been through similar experiences."
The inquiry chair speaks of a "nervousness" from police and council workers that investigating concerns against southern Asian men would inflame racial tensions.
He also adds that where there was an official response it was "often unhelpful and the approach misguided".
He also outlines how just when Operation Chalice had successfully jailed seven men involved in a Wellington grooming gang, the council and police efforts to tackle CSE regressed.
He said: "Following the conclusion of the Operation Chalice trials the council and the police were slow to recognise the importance of a properly funded CSE response. Indeed, by 2015 both the council and police provision for CSE had in some ways gone back almost a decade – ground level officers and practitioners who were keeping the CSE response alive."
He added: "It is proper that I record there were very useful developments in 2015/16 in both the council and West Mercia Police responses.
"These were driven though, it seems to me, by the combination of external reviews of those organisations, and once more because of the continued efforts on the part of a few individuals."
