An independent investigation found on Tuesday that the failure of the police and local administration to look into the perpetrators led to the sexual exploitation of more than a thousand children in Telford, England, since 1989.
The investigation was started in response to reports of sexual exploitation from the 1980s that were discovered during a 2018 Sunday Mirror probe. These reports have now been verified by the investigation, which also discovered that the abuse persisted because the victims—not the abusers—were given the responsibility.
The investigation discovered that teachers and youth workers were discouraged from reporting child sexual abuse and that police were concerned that looking into some of the Asian individuals who committed the abuse might exacerbate racial tensions.
“Numerous kids were raped and subjected to sexual assault. They were insulted and humiliated on purpose. They were traded and sold, “Tom Crowther, the head of the investigation, said
The investigation was often recounted by victims and survivors about how, while they were young, adult men attempted to earn their trust before viciously breaking it and treating them as sexual objects or commodities.
Both the municipal administration and the police department apologized to the survivors for their mistakes.
In Britain, there have been numerous horrifying instances of sexual abuse. While the late television host Jimmy Savile was determined to have assaulted 500 children, another independent assessment from 2014 indicated that up to 1,400 children in another English town had experienced sexual abuse over a period of decades.
