Telford child sex abuse inquiry: Survivors call for change

Survivors of widespread child sexual exploitation that was ignored by authorities in Telford for years told the BBC they were glad to finally "hold the power" over their perpetrators.

A damning report published on Tuesday found more than 1,000 girls had been abused by gangs of men in the Shropshire town.

Chances to stop it fell through when "obvious evidence" was ignored, abuse was dismissed as child prostitution and teachers and youth workers were "discouraged" from reporting it.

Police and council workers also failed to investigate exploitation because of fears around the racial backgrounds of the alleged abusers, which included men from Pakistani and Asian communities, the report found.

The inquiry was set up in 2018 after the Sunday Mirror reported up to 1,000 girls had been abused by gangs in Telford since the 1980s.

Holly Archer, not her real name, was among those who led calls for the inquiry.

Holly was repeatedly raped between the ages of 14 and 18 after being befriended by boys her own age who passed her number to older men.

She was too afraid to report what happened after her abusers told her they would harm her family.

After fleeing Telford, she launched The Holly Project, a support service for survivors of child abuse, and wrote a book, I Never Gave My Consent, about her experiences.

Police contacted Holly as part of the Operation Chalice inquiry, as a potential witness to the case, which saw seven men jailed in 2012.

She said she had found speaking about her abuse difficult because she had previously blamed herself for what had happened.

"Now I spend nearly every hour of my day talking to other young people, grown adults who have experienced the same things, trying to help them realise that same realisation that I had - that actually when you are a child and an adult is abusing you, you have no role of responsibility within that, that's them, that is not you," she said.

"I hold the power now within myself, whereas before they all held power over me and I feel now like I have overcome so much.

"Watching people recover and move on with their life and build their strength and feel that power within themselves as we have, that is what keeps me getting out of bed every day," she said.

She called for authorities across the UK to heed the findings of reports like those from Telford, Rotherham and Oldham.

"There will be somebody in Telford being exploited for sex who is a child, 100%," she said.

"But not just Telford, across the whole country.

"Every time a report comes out, each local authority across the whole of the UK has the opportunity to implement the changes that are recommended in those reports.

"And if they did that, they then wouldn't be facing their own inquiries or their own investigations and I hope that is something that we get from Telford."

Scarlett Jones, not her real name, wrote her book, Just a Girl, about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

She was enticed into a grooming gang after being approached outside school by a man who convinced her to come home with him.

Her attacks began in the 1980s and the abuse, she said, caused her life to "spiral out of control" until she saw one of her attackers jailed.

Giving evidence to the inquiry was a privilege, she said.

"The adults that abused us were telling us we were responsible, as well as society, as well as professionals.

"I had social workers [involved], I had police, there was a lot of people involved in my life but nobody asked any questions."

Scarlett added it was "extremely frustrating" to see it was still happening.

"There [are] different ways of it happening now, there's a lot more online as well, but it is still definitely happening."

Scarlett said she hoped the Telford inquiry would lead to change but added she and Holly would "not stop until every recommendation is followed and adhered to".

The inquiry has been a non-statutory one, which meant witnesses could not be compelled to take part.

Holly and Scarlett want a further, statutory inquiry to be held, giving legal powers to compel witnesses to give evidence, with legal safeguards provided.

They also want child sexual exploitation to become a criminal offence in its own right, because many of the girls took years to realise that what happened to them were crimes.

Having it as a stand-alone offence would, they say, allow survivors to better understand their experience and reflect the "seriousness" of the crime.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The government is determined to end the abhorrent exploitation of children and young people and to tackle the criminal gangs that prey on them.

"We expect all police forces to investigate claims of child sexual exploitation and abuse thoroughly, relentlessly pursue perpetrators for all offences committed and offer support to victims.

"The home secretary has recently commissioned the inspectorate to investigate how police across England and Wales handle cases of group-based child sexual exploitation."

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