Telford abuse: Concerns over youth workers' caseloads

A frontline team set up to tackle child sex abuse in Telford was overworked and under-resourced, a report says.

Youth workers were unable to keep appointments with vulnerable girls due to facing "almost double" the recommended caseload.

Team members raised concerns about the volume of high-risk cases in 2016, three years after a grooming gang was jailed for abusing girls.

Telford council said it spent an extra £200,000 last year to tackle abuse.

The town has been in the spotlight since the Sunday Mirror published a report about "groups of mainly Asian men" targeting vulnerable white teenagers in the town since the 1980s.

A Telford & Wrekin Council report found specialist youth workers in the Cate (Children Abused Through Exploitation) team were spending a "disproportionate amount of time" taking children to GP or sexual health clinic appointments.

They were meant to meet with girls considered to be at high risk of sexual exploitation two or three times a week.

But, due to their workloads, they were unable to meet this target.

The specialist youth workers flagged concerns around "decreased capacity" and said there was no time to train other organisations in how to tackle child sexual exploitation.

Police offered to pay for help from children's charity Barnardo's so its staff could take on lower-risk cases but this had not happened, the report found.

The committee which compiled the document, to look at how abuse was being tackled in Telford, said it had particular concerns about resources against a backdrop of "dramatic" public sector cuts.

It was written after seven men were jailed following West Mercia Police's Operation Chalice.

More than 100 girls could have been targeted by the gang between 2007 and 2009, police believe.

One victim told how she was abused at a "rape house" and the town's Conservative MP Lucy Allan has said white working-class girls were being traded for sex in a "routine way".

"Holly" - a victim of exploitation in the town from the age of 14 - told the Victoria Derbyshire programme she went to a sexual health clinic for the morning-after pill twice a week for three years, but no-one ever asked her any questions.

She said she was beaten with a belt and sold "two or three times a night".

Calling for an independent inquiry, Ms Allan said the cases would not have happened had the victims been from different backgrounds.

Adele Gladman, an independent safeguarding consultant, said: "As a country, England is becoming reactive rather than proactive.

"I think we have a far greater problem with CSE in England than in Wales or Scotland. The long-term impacts are going to be extraordinary."

Chris Cowan, director of school theatre group Loudmouth, which works in Telford, said: "Over the last 15 years things have changed and are getting worse in many areas.

"There used to be many different funded organisations that offered support in the community from youth clubs and centres to community centres or hubs and Sure Start centres.

"There were more outreach workers who would know the young people in an area and were an on hand source of support and would see or hear what was going on."

Meanwhile, the head of Telford's safeguarding children board claimed there was "no evidence" grooming gangs were still operating in Telford.

Chairman Andrew Mason, said he feared "misrepresentation" could mean children suffering abuse did not come forward.

"The reason we are hitting the headlines is because we are so open and talk about the work we are doing."

He disputed up to 1,000 children had been victims.

"It doesn't help anyone having these figures banded around when they are a completely incorrect figure.

"It gives the impression to children that are being abused that authorities don't care and we're not good at what we do, which will discourage them from coming forward and is a poor outcome for everyone involved."

A spokesman for West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner said more than £80,000 had been given to Barnardo's this year and last year to help tackle exploitation in the force area.

Barnardo's said that money was only for work in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and not Telford, in Shropshire, as there was a Cate team already operating there.

Telford & Wrekin Council said current workloads within its Cate team were at recommended levels. It added the team now offered training to other organisations.