BBC and Police Play Down Telford Child Rape Scandal, Slam ‘Unhelpful Headlines’

Mar 15, 2018 by Jill

by Liam Deacon, Breitbart:

After being accused of “ignoring” the Telford grooming gang scandal, the BBC has now run a headline on the recent revelations, claiming “victim numbers sensationalised”.

In their report, the BBC also sought to question the claims of local Tory MP Lucy Allan that victims were mainly white, working-class girls and the officer they quoted suggested white people were equally guilty of child sex crimes.

Rather than focus on the dozens of victims who have come forward, the UK’s national broadcaster instead led with the words of West Mercia Police Superintendent Tom Harding, who said the force “significantly disputed” the number of girls attacked.

“I don’t believe Telford is any worse than lots of places across England and Wales,” the officer said after authorities were accused of failing to act, including ignoring girls found in cars with older men, giving birth at 14, and using the morning after pill many times a week.

“Without an independent inquiry, how will we know?” responded Rotherham Labour MP Sarah Champion to the officer’s claims, following calls for a report into the scandal like the one focusing on Rotherham.

The initial Police probe, Operation Chalice, identified at least 100 potential victims in Telford targeted between 2007 and 2009. Yet, just nine were jailed and the case was closed. One was convicted of murder but never charged with grooming his victim.

Then, last weekend, the Sunday Mirror published the findings of an 18-month probe, during which they obtained freedom of information requests, spoke to victims, charity workers, a local MP, and police, concluding that 1,000 girls could have been targeted over 40 years.

The victims identified 70 alleged attackers, and the paper linked five deaths to the abuse and found that girls as young as 11 years old had been targeted in the small town by men of Asian and Muslim backgrounds.

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