https://sputnikglobe.com/20220713/telford-child-grooming-probe-finds-1000-girls-raped-as-police-feared-racism-tag-1097260723.html
Telford Child Grooming Probe Finds 1,000 Girls Raped as Police Feared Racism Tag
Telford Child Grooming Probe Finds 1,000 Girls Raped as Police Feared Racism Tag
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An inquiry heard how members of the Telford sexual abuse ring bought alcohol and cigarettes for girls in their early teens or younger before 'brainwashing'... 13.07.2022, Sputnik International
2022-07-13T13:56+0000
2022-07-13T13:56+0000
2022-07-13T13:56+0000
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More than a thousand girls were raped by Asian grooming gangs in the West Midlands town of Telford over decades while police refused to step in for fear of being dubbed racist.A report following a three year investigation accused authorities of "turning a blind eye" for more than 30 years and "ignoring obvious signs of child sexual exploitation".Inquiry chairman Tom Crowther QC said the abuse by gangs of Asian men, many of whom worked in the taxi business, went on for decades even though Telford council and West Mercia Police (WMP) had been "aware of it in detail".Police dropped cases like a "hot potato" for fear of looking racist, while the victims were often blamed for the abuse or accused of prostituting themselves."It is impossible not to wonder how different the lives of those early 2000s victims of child sexual exploitation — and indeed many others unknown to this inquiry — may have been had WMP done its most basic job and acted upon these reports of crime," the barrister added.Witnesses told the inquiry that the police were “frightened to question or challenge because they didn’t want to have the finger pointed at them, saying they were being racist”. The report's findings stated that the WMP's decisions on whether to investigate or charge the men accused were influenced by “fear of complaint” or “because of concern about the impact... on racial tensions”.The inquiry also criticised the council's "disastrous" 2006 decision to stop enforcing taxi licensing rules which it said was “borne entirely out of fear of accusations of racism”.It detailed “numerous accounts of children being subjected to unwanted sexual attention in taxis, which led in some cases to rape or other serious sexual assault by the driver”.The scale of abuse exposed by the report, published on Tuesday, in the new town of less than 170,000 inhabitants was shocking. Home Office figures in 2015 said Telford had the highest rate of child sexual abuse in the UK.'Rape House'The inquiry heard how members of the sexual abuse ring bought alcohol and cigarettes for girls in their early teens or younger before "brainwashing" them into believing they were getting into romantic relationships.The taxi drivers would also work together to gang-rape girls late at night when they had been drinking and were more vulnerable.“Asian men will pick up a girl in a taxi when drunk, stop at a shop, supposedly to buy a drink, and then drive off, leaving the girl abandoned,” one witness said. “He will then call other men, one of whom will pick the girl up, thereby ‘rescuing’ her, with the others driving to a pre-arranged location in readiness for the second taxi to bring the girl there in order that all the men can rape her.”The gang would brazenly pick girls up from outside their schools at lunchtime, and even set up a "rape house" where victims were taken to be abused.Fast food restaurants were also used as sites of abuse, with upstairs rooms kept ready “for committing serious sexual assaults”. Some girls were given weekend jobs there where they could be taken upstairs for sex.The men did not use condoms and many girls became pregnant, including Lucy Lowe who was first abused by taxi driver Azhar Ali Mehmood when she was just 12. Lowe gave birth to Mehmood's child in when she was 14, and was pregnant again when when he set fire to her home in 2000, killing her and two other members of her family. Mehmood was jailed for life in 2001.Victim's TestimonyOne victim, Samantha Smith, waived her right to anonymity to tell the Daily Telegraph the harrowing story of how she was abused from an early age — and how police refused to investigate her allegations even after the code of official silence over the gangs had been broken."I was sexually abused by multiple men throughout my childhood at different stages and groomed," the 20-year-old law student said. "I was five when it started and it carried until I was 14."Smith said she only came forward about her abuse when she was 16, around 2018 when the Telford probe was ordered. She was interviewed by the WMP's Child Sexual Exploitation team, but the force decided to drop the case and took no further action.The young woman said the experience left her feeling anger and distrust towards the police and other authorities. "I felt like there was no point in coming forward or speaking out because I wasn't going to be believed or listened to anyway".Smith's case was not included in the Crowther inquiry's report, but she said reading the text on Tuesday brought back memories of her ordeal."It felt as though everything that I've been saying for years was finally being validated," she said. "The years of silence and shame and victim blaming, it felt as though I was reading about my own story and thousands of other girls' stories in Telford. It felt like our lives were read out on the page in front of us."Code of SilenceAllegations of organised child abuse by gangs of men, mainly of South Asian descent, in cities across northern England first surfaced in the 1990s.But the allegations were swept under the carpet by police and local government authorities — many of them controlled by the Labour Party — in the wake of the murder of black London teenager Steven Lawrence in a racially-motivated attack by a group of six youths in 1993.The 1998 McPherson Inquiry concluded that "institutional racism" in the Metropolitan Police led to failures to properly investigate the crime or see the culprits jailed. Two of the suspects were finally convicted in 2012.Senior officers in other forces around the UK later claimed they had blocked investigations into grooming gangs for fear the revelations would provoke race riots — while deriding the accusers as promiscuous.
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Telford Child Grooming Probe Finds 1,000 Girls Raped as Police Feared Racism Tag
An inquiry heard how members of the Telford sexual abuse ring bought alcohol and cigarettes for girls in their early teens or younger before 'brainwashing' them into believing they were getting into romantic relationships. They abused them in rooms above takeaway restaurants and even set up a 'rape house'.
More than a thousand girls were raped by Asian grooming gangs in the West Midlands town of
Telford over decades while police refused to step in for fear of being dubbed racist.
A report following a three year investigation accused authorities of "turning a blind eye" for more than 30 years and "ignoring obvious signs of child sexual exploitation".
Inquiry chairman Tom Crowther QC said the abuse by gangs of Asian men, many of whom worked in the taxi business, went on for decades even though Telford council and West Mercia Police (WMP) had been "aware of it in detail".
Police dropped cases like a "hot potato" for fear of looking racist, while the victims were often blamed for the abuse or accused of prostituting themselves.
"Countless children were sexually assaulted and raped. They were deliberately humiliated and degraded. They were shared and trafficked," Crowther said. "They were subjected to violence and their families were threatened. They lived in fear and their lives were forever changed."
"It is impossible not to wonder how different the lives of those early 2000s victims of child sexual exploitation — and indeed many others unknown to this inquiry — may have been had WMP done its most basic job and acted upon these reports of crime," the barrister added.
Witnesses told the inquiry that the police were “frightened to question or challenge because they didn’t want to have the finger pointed at them, saying they were being racist”.
The report's findings stated that the WMP's decisions on whether to investigate or charge the men accused were influenced by “fear of complaint” or “because of concern about the impact... on racial tensions”.
The inquiry also criticised the council's "disastrous" 2006 decision to stop enforcing taxi licensing rules which it said was “borne entirely out of fear of accusations of racism”.
It detailed “numerous accounts of children being subjected to unwanted sexual attention in taxis, which led in some cases to rape or other serious sexual assault by the driver”.
The scale of abuse exposed by the report, published on Tuesday, in the new town of less than 170,000 inhabitants was shocking. Home Office figures in 2015 said Telford had the highest rate of child sexual abuse in the UK.
The inquiry heard how members of the sexual abuse ring bought alcohol and cigarettes for girls in their early teens or younger before "brainwashing" them into believing they were getting into romantic relationships.
The taxi drivers would also work together to gang-rape girls late at night when they had been drinking and were more vulnerable.
“Asian men will pick up a girl in a taxi when drunk, stop at a shop, supposedly to buy a drink, and then drive off, leaving the girl abandoned,” one witness said. “He will then call other men, one of whom will pick the girl up, thereby ‘rescuing’ her, with the others driving to a pre-arranged location in readiness for the second taxi to bring the girl there in order that all the men can rape her.”
The gang would brazenly pick girls up from outside their schools at lunchtime, and even set up a "rape house" where victims were taken to be abused.
Fast food restaurants were also used as sites of abuse, with upstairs rooms kept ready “for committing serious sexual assaults”. Some girls were given weekend jobs there where they could be taken upstairs for sex.
The men did not use condoms and many girls became pregnant, including Lucy Lowe who was first abused by taxi driver Azhar Ali Mehmood when she was just 12. Lowe gave birth to Mehmood's child in when she was 14, and was pregnant again when when he set fire to her home in 2000, killing her and two other members of her family. Mehmood was jailed for life in 2001.
One victim, Samantha Smith, waived her right to anonymity to tell the
Daily Telegraph the harrowing story of how she was abused from an early age — and how police refused to investigate her allegations even after the code of official silence over the gangs had been broken.
"I was sexually abused by multiple men throughout my childhood at different stages and groomed," the 20-year-old law student said. "I was five when it started and it carried until I was 14."
Smith said she only came forward about her abuse when she was 16, around 2018 when the Telford probe was ordered. She was interviewed by the WMP's Child Sexual Exploitation team, but the force decided to drop the case and took no further action.
"Throughout when I was interviewed about it ... I remember being asked whether I consented to sexual activity. Whether it was something I consented to," Smith said. "But I was underage, a child can't consent no matter how mature an adult believes them to be, they can't, the burden shouldn't fall on a child to consent to being abused."
The young woman said the experience left her feeling anger and distrust towards the police and other authorities. "I felt like there was no point in coming forward or speaking out because I wasn't going to be believed or listened to anyway".
Smith's case was not included in the Crowther inquiry's report, but she said reading the text on Tuesday brought back memories of her ordeal.
"It felt as though everything that I've been saying for years was finally being validated," she said. "The years of silence and shame and victim blaming, it felt as though I was reading about my own story and thousands of other girls' stories in Telford. It felt like our lives were read out on the page in front of us."
24 October 2020, 16:12 GMT
Allegations of organised child abuse by gangs of men, mainly of
South Asian descent, in cities across northern England first surfaced in the 1990s.
But the allegations were swept under the carpet by police and local government authorities — many of them controlled by the Labour Party — in the wake of the murder of black London teenager Steven Lawrence in a racially-motivated attack by a group of six youths in 1993.
The 1998 McPherson Inquiry concluded that "institutional racism" in the Metropolitan Police led to failures to properly investigate the crime or see the
culprits jailed. Two of the suspects were finally convicted in 2012.
Senior officers in other forces around the UK later claimed they had blocked investigations into
grooming gangs for fear the revelations would provoke race riots — while deriding the accusers as promiscuous.
