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

[Gogster]

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?

How many of you have heard about Oldham?

A few days ago.

About 12 years ago in The Times.

I find this so interesting (and of course horrifying) as I was born there, lived there for 20 years, at school in this places (in a very mixed area, not a private school) and I’ve never ever heard of anyone being a victim of this sort of sexual abuse.

Absolutely not saying it didn’t happen, just don’t know how I wasn’t aware.

Oldham - that's at least a decade ago isn't it? Probably more. Pretty sure I heard about it when I was still in my 'old' house, so before 2010.

Same, i sort of knew it had quite a lot of social problems just from visiting, but i wouldnt have thought it would be much different from other areas. As I said, not sure on the stats as this is just what i've heard, seems to be an awful lot of peadophilia going on in general... god knows what it must have been like in the past when it was probably easier to get away with it.

I saw recent coverage on the BBC website.

It's shameful that so little has been done. The race or cultural background of perpetrators should only matters insofar as it aids investigation/prosecution/prevention of these crimes. What's shocking is that these victims are given so little priority no matter who their abusers were.

So sorry for everyone here personally touched by these awful crimes.

I heard snippets maybe 10 years ago? On the news, sometime after Rochdale etc came to light. I remembered it because it was local to where I grew up - I went to secondary school (private) in Telford. Never heard a thing about it at the time though.

Absolutely this ^.

She's posted a new video on this topic and makes many fair and balanced points.

Agree with @DaniRabbity wrt agendas of various elements of the media.

Nobody wants to look at the double horror of classism and misogyny, or to examine the scale of the effects of poverty on young women.

There was a similar report about Hull. Nothing came of it that I know of news.sky.com/story/hull-grooming-gang-targeted-primary-school-girls-as-police-told-to-declare-war-on-abusers-12476202

Abuse and misogyny is the normal way of treating women and girls for far too many men in this country.

Scale of this abuse must be bigger as these groups exploited white and sikh teenage girls in Telford. i know most of the Sikh girls might not come forward because of cultural barriers . I heard scale of such crimes are much wider in Birmingham and Walsall . Lots of Asian families especially sikh families moved out of such areas in order to protect their girls.

we were looking to buy-a house in Telford ten years ago , i have been warned by lots of people not to buy a house in Wellington as Pakistani grooming gangs exploit sikh girls. So i avoided the area. Until recent years i did not realise the magnitude of such gangs , i thought initially there must be revenge factor for what happened in 1947 back in India between Sikhs and Muslim communities.

how can authorities care about racial tensions than protecting a child ? its beyond belief.

^ it might help if, as in this reminder, they were ‘allowed’ to recognise racial tensions between different cultures. At the moment it feels as if you can’t mention cultural clashes without being called racist.