Shropshire Star comment: Voices of victims can thwart evil
Telford has been in the national spotlight as a result of the reports which paint it as a grim capital of child sex abuse, with hundreds of children groomed and abused.
With the Truth Project visiting Shropshire at the end of his month, part of the national Jay Inquiry into child sexual exploitation, an important point should not be lost.
Although it is Telford & Wrekin which has been in the headlines, this is not an issue just for Telford, and anybody who believes it is is either being extremely naive or is having a wilful disregard for the evidence. It is an issue for all Shropshire and everywhere else for that matter.
This in turn means that there are victims everywhere, too. By the very nature of these crimes, a lot of those victims will be suffering in silence, so cowed, dominated, threatened or brainwashed that they have no voice. Some of them may have even been persuaded that what is happening to them is some sort of normality.
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A report last week revealed that there were 67 children identified as being at risk in the Shropshire Council area. Again, that is the ones that are on the radar.
Whether things in Telford are, or have been, especially and uniquely bad, and if they are, the factors and failings that have created that situation, is something that the inquiries being set up will determine.
Every single case is a human tragedy of abuse and mental, physical and sexual cruelty.
The leader of the Truth Project, David Poole, says that victims from across Shropshire will be welcomed and their evidence valued when the project comes to the county. Their evidence, he says, will lead to change and ensure children are better protected. The project has already visited other towns where there is considered to be a particular problem.
Nobody should dream of trying to force victims to come forward to give evidence. They have been forced to do enough already. But one who has given evidence has spoken of how she found it empowering.
And without the voices of the victims, she points out, it will be the voices of ‘a bunch of academics’ who dominate at the inquiry. If present victims are to be rescued, and future victims prevented, lessons need to be learned from those who have been failed in the past.
With the help of those brave victims who feel able to speak, we can take strides to dismantle this dark and evil world which has been able to flourish in the shadows of society.
