Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

When did you first hear of the awful sexual abuse in Telford?

89 replies

Gogster · 16/07/2022 17:19

I heard about it about a week ago - utterly shameful. Husband had literally just heard about it 5 minutes ago when I told him.

Where has the coverage of this been?

AIBU to think it's not just my ignorance, the media has been silent on this?

OP posts:
PonyPatter44 · 17/07/2022 10:49

"Tommy Robinson" tried to disrupt the trials for him own political ends. He wasn't investigating the rapes or bringing the rapists to justice. They were already on bloody trial, after hundreds of people had worked their socks off investigating and bringing the cases to court. Two-Names Tommy was actively trying to disrupt the trials, which would have led to rapists being released back into the community. Wonder what his actual motives were to do that?

Puzzledandpissedoff · 17/07/2022 10:55

For a long time the people trying to bring attention to what was happening were branded as racists, by the left

This is true, and I've no doubt they'll be along soon to hurl the same accusation against those who dare to as much as mention the cases

We even had a Labour MP who believed that the victims should stay quiet, for “diversity”

This is a bit more nuanced; the comment was "Those abused girls in Rotherham and elsewhere just need to shut their mouths. For the good of diversity”, but it was written by someone else and Naz Shah "liked" and shared it on Twitter.
She later claimed this was "a mistake", though whether she meant the mistake was hitting the wrong button or revealing her views never seemed clear

WhichBitchIsWhich · 17/07/2022 11:03

I grew up in a small Midlands town and was at secondary school in the 90s.

It was definitely going on there at the time, tho I've only realised the scale and true extent of it in retrospect.

Girls from our school would regularly meet men outside the gates at lunchtime and "go for a drive" in their cars, coming back with a McDonald's a while later. Some of us knew this was very obviously abuse but it certainly wasn't a secret, the staff knew about it and said or did nothing (I assume, as it carried on year after year).

Most upsetting to me was a deaf girl with learning disabilities who was in my form group, who lived in a local authority children's home in the next town over. She was pregnant at 15 and I still remember someone asking her in class who the father was and her replying "just some fucking [racist four letter word beginning with p and ending with i]"

I realise now as an adult what was almost certainly happening to her Sad

norijunior · 17/07/2022 11:11

Not Telford, but I remember going to visit relatives in Rochdale when I was 17, 23 years ago. The adults were discussing it around the dinner table. It made a big impression on me as I was shocked no one was helping these girls, and I remembered it when I saw Rochdale scandal in the papers later. The consensus at the dinner table was that it was not possible to do anything because of accusations of racism, and that people who are tried to had gained a reputation for racism.

IdiotCreatures · 17/07/2022 11:11

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-grooming-gangs

Of 52 groups where ethnicity data was provided, 26 (50 per cent) comprised all Asian offenders, 11 (21 per cent) were all white, 9 (17 per cent) groups had offenders from multiple ethnicities, 4 (8 per cent) were all black offenders and there were 2 (4 per cent) exclusively Arab groups.

Of the 306 offenders whose ethnicity was noted, 75 per cent were categorised as Asian, 17 per cent white, and the remaining 8 per cent black (5 per cent) or Arab (3 per cent).

LaPerduta · 17/07/2022 11:19

Roselilly36 · 16/07/2022 17:24

You won’t hear about anything like this on MSM, switch to GB News, who aren’t afraid to report the true news, Mark Stein, Mon-Thurs 8pm til 9pm, regularly raises this issue and interviews the victims of these crimes, not just Telford, but Rotherham and Manchester too.

Sorry, but that's absolute rubbish. I just did a cursory Google search on this topic and found articles from the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mirror and The Sun. Seems pretty "mainstream" to me. If you search by a specific newspaper you get multiple articles.

userxx · 17/07/2022 11:31

@WhichBitchIsWhich Jesus. I wonder how her life has panned out 😞

WhichBitchIsWhich · 17/07/2022 11:45

userxx · 17/07/2022 11:31

@WhichBitchIsWhich Jesus. I wonder how her life has panned out 😞

Me too. She didn't come back to school but a girl who lived in the same "care" home said she didn't get to keep her baby.

Impier · 17/07/2022 11:53

IdiotCreatures · 17/07/2022 11:11

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-grooming-gangs

Of 52 groups where ethnicity data was provided, 26 (50 per cent) comprised all Asian offenders, 11 (21 per cent) were all white, 9 (17 per cent) groups had offenders from multiple ethnicities, 4 (8 per cent) were all black offenders and there were 2 (4 per cent) exclusively Arab groups.

Of the 306 offenders whose ethnicity was noted, 75 per cent were categorised as Asian, 17 per cent white, and the remaining 8 per cent black (5 per cent) or Arab (3 per cent).

That's not right. @DaniRabbity is quite clear that it is 90% white men. And if you say anything else you are just being racist.

IdiotCreatures · 17/07/2022 11:55

Well we do live in the post truth age where facts are lies and lies are facts. So I am definitely being totally unreasonable by posting facts.

PegasusReturns · 17/07/2022 11:57

I recall Posie Parker saying something on Twitter about Pakistani grooming gangs and getting absolutely eviscerated.

Might have been up to 5 years ago.

Tragic for all the girls caught up in it.

YouCantSpellAmericaWithoutErica · 17/07/2022 12:03

10-15 years ago I think. It's come up in the news several times over the years (along with other places like Rotherham) but then it gets buried again by other news. These cases also get hijacked and used as propaganda by far right types like Tommy Robinson Stephen Yaxley-Lennon which does no one any favours.

It's shocking and distressing just how far back this sexual exploitation goes back- to the 70s at least. Police and other high up people in authority must have been involved in it first hand at some point(s) for it have gone on for as long as it has.

Impier · 17/07/2022 12:03

@IdiotCreatures , you should try and get your head around critical race theory and intersectionality where anecdotes (lived experience) have more weight than data and statistics.

KILM · 17/07/2022 12:39

Telford's SA rates are absolutely through the roof in all ethnicity groups, not just grooming gangs but in general just astronomical rates of SA and SA of children - we live close by and have met various people who work in legal/social care areas there and nearly every one of them has said the SA rates are abnormally high (and abnormally focused around children) to the point where its like 'what are they putting in the water'. Purely anecdotal, not sure on stats.

Usou · 17/07/2022 12:45

@IdiotCreatures

I would take Channel 4's "fact checkers" with a pinch of salt.

DaniRabbity · 17/07/2022 12:53

That's not counting the sex offender register (just under 90% white)

fullfact.org/crime/what-do-we-know-about-ethnicity-people-involved-sexual-offences-against-children/

DaniRabbity · 17/07/2022 12:54

As someone who was groomed by a white grooming gang, it's very very alarming to see how many posters don't give a shit about sexually exploited children unless the perpetrator happened to be non-white.

IncessantNameChanger · 17/07/2022 13:06

Years before it broke nationally. One of the mums wrote in and her story published in Take break I think it was?

Said she gone to the police about 14 year daughter but the police told her that her 14, yes 14 year old was a prostitute.

The very basics if law,failed these girls. The ultimate victim / slut shaming of a CHILD

DaniRabbity · 17/07/2022 13:09

www.gov.uk/government/publications/group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-characteristics-of-offending/characteristics-of-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-in-the-community-literature-review-accessible-version#offender-characteristics-1

"The CSA Centre compared the ethnicity of convicted defendants with the proportions of different ethnic groups in the population and found that whilst 14% of the population of England and Wales were from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background according to the 2011 Census, only 8.4% of convicted defendants were from BAME backgrounds"

"However, the media has given much attention to the model of offending involving an Asian perpetrator and White victim (The Children’s Society, 2018; Cockbain and Tufail, 2020) and it is important to examine the evidence underlying such perceptions."

"There is evidence that some agencies focus on the specific model and patterns of abuse seen in high-profile cases involving Asian offenders, leading to greater attention being paid to these types of offenders and cases being more readily identified and recorded. For example, site visits and evidence hearings led the Children’s Commissioner for England to conclude that data were more proactively collected on men and boys of Pakistani and Kurdish origin and that this selection bias likely skews the available data"

"They also observed cases of offenders of other backgrounds (such as White-British or Afghan) being initially classed as ‘Asian’."

"Of the offenders for whom ethnicity was recorded, White formed the largest group of offender ethnicity in both gangs and groups."

"The Children’s Commissioner for England then gathered police data on offenders of CSE collected over the period April 2013 to March 2014, including ethnicity data. From data provided by 19 police forces nearly 4,000 offenders were identified, 1,200 of whom were involved in group-based CSE. These data found that 42% were White or White British, 17% were Black or Black British, 14% were Asian or Asian British, and 4% had another ethnicity."

"The Drew review found that 65.1% of CSE suspects identified between January 2014 and January 2016 were White North European (with a further 2.4% being White South European), 19.1% were Asian, 3.7% were Black and 4.3% were ‘Other’."

user1471504747 · 17/07/2022 13:17

I believe white grooming gangs are more likely to have publicly high profile individuals involved, which adds protection too.

Sickening how people only seem to care when the perpetrator isn’t white, as then they can use it try and score points against the left.

If you’re looking for someone bringing attention to these issues, and acting as a key individual in many cases look at Maggie Oliver. She truly is someone to admire rather than Tommy Robinson

TooBigForMyBoots · 17/07/2022 13:39

In my city the grooming gangs and chief sexual exploiters of women and children are white.

I find the "We couldn't do anything cos people called us racist" excuse from the police to be a load of bollocks. Being racist never bothered them before🙄. They aided and abetted abusers, threatening the victims with prosecution and returning them to their abusers.

Why do you think that was? The answer isn't racism.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 17/07/2022 13:47

It's worth remembering, IdiotCreatures, that a key point in the C4 findings is the caveat "where ethnicity data has been provided"

Unlike some nations the UK hasn't always officially recorded this, which has the potential to skew the data either way

Watchthesunrise · 17/07/2022 13:54

The issue as far as I can see is cultural and religious: the victims - mainly but not exclusively white working class girls - are not members of the religion in question and their standards of dress, behaviour and morals fall far short of the required standards, making them lesser beings and therefore deserving of such treatment. This is a constant, remains unchanged, and will be behind ongoing and future such abuse cases.

Yes. These girls were seen as deserving all they got. Valueless.