TELFORD POLICE PROMISED TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM GANG RAPE. THEY LIED.

WEST MERCIA POLICE PROMISED A FULL-STRENGTH CHILD EXPLOITATION TEAM UNTIL 2027. TELFORD’S COUNCIL LEADER SAYS IT IS NOW RUNNING AT JUST 29 PER CENT.

WEST MERCIA POLICE RECORDED TWENTY OFFENCES AGAINST TELFORD’S CHILDREN IN ONE YEAR. FOUR OF THEM WERE RAPE. ELEVEN MEN WERE IDENTIFIED. NOT ONE WAS CHARGED. THE POLICE TEAM THAT WAS MEANT TO CATCH THEM WAS RUNNING AT 29 PER CENT OF THE STRENGTH THE FORCE HAD PROMISED TO KEEP UNTIL 2027.

West Mercia Police signed a promise in December 2023. The team that protects Telford's children from the men who rape and sell them would stay at full strength until July 2027. Two sergeants, eight constables, one coordinator. Tom Crowther KC took that promise and closed his inquiry.

By July 2026 the leader of the council was writing to the Police and Crime Commissioner to say the team was running at 29 per cent, the force had recorded 20 offences against children in a year and charged nobody, and the training the force had promised every front-line officer was at 30 per cent.

The commissioner was John Campion. He is the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner who, in his first year in the job, signed the letter telling the Home Secretary that Telford did not need an inquiry into the rape of its children. He wrote back that Carter’s letter was political grandstanding and told him not to jeopardise Telford’s progress for cheap political nonsense.

WEST MERCIA POLICE RECORDED TWENTY OFFENCES AGAINST TELFORD'S CHILDREN AND CHARGED NOBODY

The figures are the police's own. They gave them to the council for the annual report on child sexual exploitation in the borough, the fourth since Crowther, published in July 2026 and covering the year to March 2026. In that year 64 children were being looked after by the council's specialist team because of concerns they were being sexually exploited. Of the 32 taken on during the year, 18 had been sexually exploited and 14 were at risk of it. Sixty of the 64 were girls. The average age was 14.

Here is the link to the the annual report on child sexual exploitation in the borough.

Against those 64 children the police recorded 20 offences.

• Four were rape.
• Seven were modern slavery.
• One was arranging travel with a view to exploitation.

Eleven suspects were recorded. The report lists what happened to every case.

• Four were open when it was written.
• Six closed with no suspect found.
• Two confirmed a crime and closed with no suspect found.
• Four had a suspect and closed because the girl did not support further action.
• Two had a suspect and closed for evidential difficulties.
• One was dealt with by what the report calls diversionary or educational activity.
• One was closed because a prosecution was not considered to be in the public interest.

Twenty offences against children. Eleven men. Not one charge.

Four girls had a man identified and the police closed the file because the girl would not go on. Carter spelled out for Campion why a girl stops. The men threaten her, and Carter wrote that any force dealing with child sexual exploitation should expect it. West Mercia Police closed four cases on it. Baseness Casey told every force in England to record the ethnicity of every suspect. For four of the eleven, West Mercia Police did not bother.

Telford's survivors wrote the training. The council made every member of staff sit it and 96 per cent have. The police bought one from a charity instead and in July 2026 seven in ten of the officers it was for had not had it.

On 9 July 2026 Lee Carter, Labour leader of Telford & Wrekin Council since 2024, put those figures to John Campion and added one the report does not contain.

• The reasons behind the low number of offences identified and the absence of charges
• The force’s approach to pursuing evidence-led prosecutions where victims are unable or unwilling to support proceedings
• Plans to improve the recording and analysis of ethnicity data
• Current staffing levels and recruitment plans within specialist exploitation teams
• Timescales for ensuring that all relevant officers and staff receive appropriate CSE training

WEST MERCIA POLICE PROMISED CROWTHER IN WRITING THAT THE TELFORD TEAM WOULD STAY AT FULL STRENGTH UNTIL 2027

The 29 per cent is the measure of a broken promise. Crowther's eighth recommendation in 2022 was that the force keep the Telford team at its full strength for five years. On 19 December 2023 the force's Temporary Chief Constable signed this at the Chief Officers' Meeting:

"West Mercia Police commits to the continued existence of the Telford & Wrekin Child Exploitation Team, at no less than its strength of July 2022 (in both numbers and budget adjusted for inflation), until at least 12th July 2027. This resourcing level was two sergeants, eight constables, and one CSE co-ordinator."

The same agreement promised the force would publish the team's staffing and workload in every annual report so the public could check.

Crowther went back to Telford in March 2024, met the chief officers of the force and met Campion. He read the signature and marked the recommendation implemented. The force told him every front-line officer and member of staff, and everyone who deals with the public, would get the training "in the next financial year", and he marked that in progress.

In July 2024 he published his review, found 38 of his 47 recommendations implemented, four in progress and five waiting on national change, and wrote that every organisation "without exception" had met his expectations. He closed the inquiry and said there would be no further review. He could not compel a witness and he will not be back. He asked them for a promise and they gave him a paragraph.

The 2026 report lists the team's posts.

• A Detective Inspector,
• two sergeants,
• eight constables,
• a coordinator,
• an analyst.

It lists the caseload, 43 investigations and 33 victims. It does not say how many of the posts had anyone in them. A list of thirteen jobs tells the public nothing about who was at work. That was the one thing the force promised to publish and the one thing it left out. Carter says 29 per cent. The promise signed in December 2023 to hold until July 2027 was broken in July 2026, and the training promised for 2025 was a third done in 2026.

JOHN CAMPION ATTACKED THE MAN WHO ASKED AND ANSWERED NOTHING ABOUT HIMSELF

John Campion has been Police and Crime Commissioner for West Mercia for ten years, elected as a Conservative in May 2016 and twice since. Four months into the job he signed the letter to the Home Secretary from Telford’s council leader saying no further inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Telford was necessary. In the same job he sat across from Crowther in 2024, chose the Chief Constable in 2025 and answered Lee Carter in 2026.

His job is to hold the Chief Constable to account for how West Mercia Police protects children. On 14 July 2026 he replied to Carter and put the reply on his own website. It does not say one figure is wrong.

It says Carter is "not the governance of West Mercia Police". It says he has "no knowledge of individual police investigations" and no expertise Campion is aware of. It says his assertions are "not credible". Carter, it says, has "a track record of performative outrage" at council meetings, the council has turned up to the Police and Crime Panel 41 per cent of the time in three years, and his letter is "a sad indictment of your own political vulnerability". The letter reminds him of the councillors' code of conduct. It calls the whole thing "political grandstanding" and "cheap political nonsense". It says the Chief Constable "will write separately to clarify the points you have raised".

Here is his letter again.

Campion could tell Carter to the percentage point how often the council had turned up to his panel. He could not tell him how many officers were in the Telford team.

He had a word for a council leader asking why no man had been charged. Performative. Children were being sold in his force area and the commissioner reminded the council leader of the code of conduct.

Only Campion can answer for Campion. Carter asked why the commissioner had not held a meeting on child sexual exploitation in twenty-one months. The reply does not mention it.

The man lecturing Carter on expertise had been told by a former High Court judge that his own way of holding the police to account had failed. Crowther's 2024 review found it "failing", with a relationship that had "degenerated into open distrust".

Carter wrote again on 15 July 2026 with six questions for the Chief Constable and an offer to meet. The council's published record of the exchange had no reply from the Chief Constable on 3 November 2026. Neither the force nor Campion had published one.

Timeline of child sexual exploitation work

A summary of corporate actions taken by the Council and others in relation to child sexual exploitation (CSE).

Timeline of child sexual exploitation work

RICHARD COOPER APOLOGISED TO TELFORD IN 2022 AND WAS IN THE ROOM WHEN THE PROMISE WAS MADE IN 2023

The Chief Constable who has to answer for the promise is the man who apologised for the last failure and the man whose own portfolio the promise was made about. On 12 July 2022, the day Crowther reported, Assistant Chief Constable Richard Cooper spoke for West Mercia Police. “Our actions fell far short of the help and protection you should have had from us.” “There are no excuses for the past.” He gave Telford assurances that the force had made vast improvements. He was the chief officer in charge of crime and vulnerability, which is where the Telford Child Exploitation Team sits, when the Chief Officers’ Meeting signed the promise in December 2023. He was Temporary Deputy Chief Constable when Crowther came back in March 2024 to check.

Police Professional | West Mercia Police makes ‘unequivocal apology’ to Telford CSE victims

Police Professional - policeprofessional

Campion picked him for Chief Constable, the Police and Crime Panel confirmed him on 19 March 2025 and he took the job on 31 March 2025. There has not been a day since the apology when Cooper was not a chief officer of the force that made it.

Carter’s questions go to the Chief Constable. The one that matters most is whether the team Cooper’s own force promised to protect until July 2027 was at full strength on 9 July 2026. From 9 July to 3 November 2026 he did not say how many officers he had. Four months to count to eleven.

Carter's questions go to the Chief Constable. The one that matters most is whether the team Cooper's force promised to protect until July 2027 was at full strength on 9 July 2026. From 9 July to 3 November 2026 he did not say how many officers he had. Four months to count to eleven.

JOHN CAMPION SIGNED THE 2016 LETTER WITH SHAUN DAVIES

Campion told Carter he had enjoyed "a successful and respectful relationship" with Carter's predecessor and asked him to reflect on what had changed. The predecessor was Shaun Davies. Davies led the council for Labour from 2016 to July 2024, when he became Telford's MP. On 22 July 2026 Labour made him a Government Whip. On 22 September 2016 Davies wrote to the Home Secretary that the council did not feel a further inquiry into the rape of Telford's children was necessary. Ten people signed that letter. Every body that had failed those girls signed it. John Campion was one of them.

Newsroom Archive - Letter to Home Secretary about support for victims and survivors of CSE

Letter to Home Secretary about support for victims and survivors of CSE

Labour signed it, the Liberal Democrats signed it, and the one Conservative who signed it was the man whose job was to hold the police to account. He signed as Police and Crime Commissioner, four months into the office. The letter gave the Home Secretary its reasons for not looking at Telford, and not one of them was about the police. Six days before he signed it, on 16 September 2016, his own office had announced that he and Davies had met and agreed to work together on child sexual exploitation.

Newsroom Archive - Leader and Police & Crime Commissioner commit to partnership working

Leader and Police & Crime Commissioner commit to partnership working

In April 2018 a newspaper reported that Campion had emailed Home Office officials to say a separate Telford inquiry was not needed, on the same day he told the public he would support one. Campion said it was a wilful misrepresentation and that any Telford inquiry would have to add to the national one rather than repeat it. The council gave in that year after a front page it could not survive, and Davies commissioned Crowther. That is the relationship Campion wants back.

ANNE LONGFIELD HAS THE POWER TO TEST THAT PROMISE UNDER OATH AND HAS NOT NAMED TELFORD

Anne Longfield's inquiry can compel the witnesses Crowther could not. She has named London, Oldham, Bradford, Keighley, Birmingham and Wales for local investigation. She has not named Telford.

Her National Accountability Hearings begin in London in the week of 14 December 2026. Their purpose, in her inquiry's own words, is to examine why the recommendations of earlier inquiries were not implemented or did not result in change. It has one here. It is signed and dated, it has a number on it, and a council leader is already asking. It has not asked.

The list of Core Participants for the hearings does not have Shaun Davies on it. She can call him and Campion. She has not. The 2016 letter carries the signatures of a Government Whip and a serving Police and Crime Commissioner, and that commissioner has answered a question about whether Telford's children are being protected by attacking the man who asked it.

TELFORD MUST BE NAMED AND THE MEN WHO SIGNED THE LETTER MUST ANSWER UNDER OATH

None of this will be answered by a letter. West Mercia Police gave Crowther a promise on paper and on paper is where it stays until someone with the power to compel asks how many officers were at work. John Campion will not answer for the 2016 letter in a reply to a councillor. Shaun Davies will not answer for it from the Whips' office. The only room in the country where any of them can be made to answer is Anne Longfield's.

Longfield has to name Telford. She has to call John Campion and Shaun Davies to answer under oath for the letter they signed. She has to put West Mercia Police's promise of December 2023 in front of its Chief Constable at her hearings. He has to say, under oath, how many of those eleven posts were filled.

She will not do it because I have asked. The politicians in Telford who put the rape gangs on their leaflets have to demand it. Reform has to demand it. Restore has to demand it. The Conservatives, whose own commissioner signed the letter, have to demand it or explain why they want him in the job for a fourth term. Lee Carter asked the police the right question and has to ask Longfield the next one. His council has to pass a motion demanding to be named in place of the one that welcomed a role.

We forced Oldham onto the list when its council and its police told everyone there was nothing to see. Telford's politicians will not demand it until the people of Telford make them, and that is what we are going to do.

The rape gangs are not crimes of the past. The abuse of little girls in Telford continues. Sixty-four children were on that team's books in a single year. Sixty of them were girls. Eighteen of the new ones had already been sexually exploited. Twenty offences were recorded against them and not one man was charged. The people paid to protect them spent the summer of 2026 writing letters about each other.

Raja Miah MBE

You know what we are up against. The mainstream media will not touch my work. Institutions I investigate do not volunteer their records. Politicians do not suddenly decide to hold themselves to account.

And yet, despite every attempt to stop us, we forced the national inquiry. We did that because enough ordinary people refused to go away.

But getting the inquiry was never the end of this campaign. In many ways it was only the beginning. Now we have to watch where it goes, what it investigates, which places it avoids, which witnesses it calls, which records it obtains and whether the same institutions that failed these children are allowed to control the story again.

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For eight years I have exposed how politicians, police and public bodies failed working class White girls who were systematically raped by Pakistani grooming gangs. Together, with the support of the people of Oldham, we forced the Government to concede a National Statutory Inquiry after years of resistance.

Children gang raped, communities betrayed, politicians and police officers involved protected, and you expected to shake your head and carry on as if nothing more can be done because lessons have been learned.

For eight years, I have refused. The police repeatedly dawn raided my home and falsified evidence to try and silence me. The newspapers smeared me. And Pakistani gangsters, under the protection of Labour politicians, followed me home. Islamists openly incited my murder.

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