Former cabinet ministers told Telford Council to hold its own inquiry and abuse survivors believe this was the right decision, which put “survivors at the heart of the process”
Senior Tories including former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and former Home Secretary Amber Rudd rejected calls for a public inquiry into the abuse scandal exposed by the Sunday Mirror in Telford.
Instead they insisted the Shropshire council should commission and fund its own inquiry into one of the UK’s worst grooming scandals. Local abuse survivor Holly Archer believes this was the right decision, which put “survivors at the heart of the process”.
It comes as US billionaire Elon Musk has waded into a similar row in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Labour’s Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has rejected calls from Oldham council for a public inquiry into child exploitation in the town.
Eight years ago, it was the then Tory Government facing similar calls in Telford. Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd first rejected calls for an independent public inquiry in 2016, telling local Tory MP Lucy Allan that: “It is for the authorities in Telford to decide whether a further review is necessary.”
Following an 18-month investigation, we revealed in March 2018 that up to a thousand girls had been abused in Telford over four decades, and that the scandal was linked to five deaths. Within days, Rishi Sunak, then Minister for Local Government, met with Ms Allan, who wanted an independent inquiry and thought one commissioned by the council would not be seen as “impartial”.
Sunak told her: “The Ministry’s view is that this is not the case. The experience of the Jay review in Rotherham shows that a review led by the right individual and given the right terms of reference can be genuinely independent, even when initiated by the Council itself. It is for the local Council … not this Ministry, to decide whether to initiate a focused, specific and proportionate review of what has happened in Telford.”
Amber Rudd wrote again to Ms Allan later that same month, repeating that it would “not be appropriate” for the government to commission an inquiry into the Telford abuse scandal. Victoria Atkins, who is serving in the shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Agriculture, was at the time Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability at the Home Office.
A follow-up letter in June 2018 from the Home Office’s Director Tackling Slavery and Exploitation to Telford Council’s Director of Children’s Services made clear that the Government would not fund the local inquiry. The Government’s £40m Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was looking into national issues, including the “type of offending we have seen in Telford and elsewhere” but adding that: “It is for local authorities to fund investigations into local issues and we cannot therefore agree to fund the inquiry in Telford and Wrekin.”
The inquiry, published two years ago, backed the findings of our 2018 investigation and issued a string of recommendations. In July, we revealed how three survivors of Telford’s grooming gangs worked alongside the council - in a "brave and revolutionary" decision - to try to ensure such abuse could never happen on this scale again.
Sunday Mirror front page from March 11 2018 after an 18-month investigation into Telford grooming gangs ( Image: Sunday Mirror)
One survivor, Holly Archer, which is not her real name, said: “A national inquiry won’t get into the nitty gritty of each place. The Telford inquiry put survivors at the heart of the process.” She praised Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips for her support.
In a letter in October to Oldham Council, Ms Phillips said she recognised the “strength of feeling” for a Home Office-led inquiry but that the Government will not “intervene”. She wrote: “I believe it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally.” US billionaire Elon Musk tweeted in response that Ms Phillips, a long-standing campaigner for abuse victims, “deserves to be in prison”.
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