Telford child sex abuse: Steps to set up inquiry ‘on the way’

Councillors this week voted in support of a motion for an inquiry into CSE to take place immediately – with around 250 members of the public also present for the meeting.

In the wake of the vote, council bosses have said they are committed to putting plans in place to try to get answers to questions being asked by the public.

The vote to back a council-led inquiry came after all members of the authority voted to support a motion put forward by its Conservative members.

Labour’s Lee Carter, who is the council’s cabinet member for finance, commercial services and economic development, said: “The report to cabinet next week will set out what needs to be done to set a council inquiry up.

“We are absolutely committed to ensuring that we have something in place that gets the answers to the questions people have been asking.”

He added: “There is a clear demand for this to happen as soon as possible and so I am pleased that next week we can decide how the inquiry will be set up.”

Councillor Carter said that several other reviews would also be looking at what had happened in the borough.

He said: “We have already been working on putting this in place for some time now.

“This has included lobbying the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse which has resulted in the Truth Project coming to Telford to hear from victims and survivors next month.

Professionals

“We have also continued to lobby Government, and the Home Office has told us that the Secretary of State for Education has asked a new national child safeguarding practice review panel looking at serious child safeguarding cases of complex or national importance to look at Telford among other places where this vile crime has happened.

“We have secured support from the NWG Network, which supports professionals whose work includes tackling child sexual exploitation.

“Also our cabinet at the end of March allocated further resources to tackle child sexual exploitation and meet initial costs of any inquiry.”

The Truth Project is set to come to Telford starting from next month, and will give victims the chance to speak with representatives of the national Jay Inquiry.

Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, Telford & Wrekin Council leader Shaun Davies said any inquiry into sex abuse in the town would be better than no inquiry at all, but bringing the national inquiry to Telford would still be the preferred option. He argued a council-led inquiry would not have the ability to force people to talk to it.

Councillor Andrew Eade, leader of the Tory opposition, said that waiting on the national inquiry to come to Telford was “simply not good enough”.