Telford child sex exploitation: 'Child abuse capital tag is misleading', says police and crime commissioner

According to the data, only two per cent of child sex exploitation (CSE) crimes are committed by Asian males, despite the town being chosen as the location for a protest by a right-wing group which said it wanted to bring the issue of grooming gangs to the fore.

New figures, revealed by Police and Crime Commissioner John Campion at a Telford & Wrekin's full council meeting last night, show that about 12 offences of CSE are reported in Telford every month.

In 37 per cent of Telford's CSE cases, both the offender and the victim are under the age of 15.

In 54 per cent of cases, both parties are under the age of 18, while 89 per cent of offenders are white males, two per cent are Asian males and one per cent are black males.

Social media is also increasingly a factor in sexual offences against children, currently appearing in 41 per cent of cases involving victims under 16, with no physical meeting or contact between offenders and victims.

Government figures claim there are more reports of children being abused in Telford than the rest of the country, but Mr Campion also challenged the claim that Telford was the UK's "child sex abuse capital".

"For me, these headlines do not take account of the context and analysis needed to understand the issue and the work being done around it."

He added: "I will do everything possible to keep our vulnerable young people safe and bring the full force of the law down on offenders."

Firstly, I need to stress that there is no complacency. There is no 'burying heads in the sand'."

"There is no denial that young people are being exploited here.

"The police, along with other safeguarding partners, have not only acknowledged the issue, but have continually made it a top priority for some time now and some clear, undeniable progress has been made."

Mr Campion told the meeting at Telford College of Arts and Technology last night (NOV 24) that it is true that in the final quarter of 2015/16 Telford had the highest national rate of recorded CSE, with 17.6 offences recorded per 10,000 of population.

He said: "This statistic has often been quoted, but has rarely been scrutinised."

Earlier this month, the English Defence League staged a protest in the borough, after national publicity claimed the town was the child sex capital of the UK.

At the time, one of the organisers of the march, who only wanted to be known as Matty P, said the group wanted to bring the issue of Muslim grooming gangs to the attention of the public.

That image has been propagated after a gang of Asian men were jailed for their roles in a sex ring involving teenage girls in Telford as part of Operation Chalice conducted by West Mercia Police.

Telford MP Lucy Allan made a call in the House of Commons for Teresa May, then home secretary, now Prime Minister, to order an independent "Rotherham-style" inquiry into how child sex exploitation had been handled in the town.

But Mr Campion said that first quarter statistics for 2016/17 show a slight drop in recorded offences in Telford, with other areas around the country now showing higher rates.

He said: "I want to be clear though that a reduction in recorded offences does not necessarily equate to 'success', because we know that this sort of offence is typically very under-reported nationwide.

"I will do everything possible to keep our vulnerable young people safe and bring the full force of the law down on offenders."

Mr Campion's words come as the Independent Police Complaints Commission says it is currently dealing with 187 investigations into potential police failures in dealing with past child sex abuse cases in England and Wales.

Of those cases, one is from West Mercia Police.