Call for independent inquiry On 26 October 2016, the Conservative MP for Telford,
Lucy Allan, called for an independent inquiry. She said she had a meeting with a victim of the abuse, who told her that many of the worst offenders had not been prosecuted and were still living in the area. Allan said that she would be asking the then prime minister,
Theresa May, to take action. However this report was fiercely criticised as having an unscientific nature and poor methodology by a child sexual exploitation expert Ella Cockbain and Waqas Tufail, in their paper "Failing Victims, Fuelling Hate: Challenging the Harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' Narrative" which was published in January 2020. Writing in
The Guardian, Cockbain and Tufail stated that "The two-year study by the Home Office makes very clear that there are no grounds for asserting that Muslim or Pakistani-heritage men are disproportionately engaged in such crimes, and, citing our research, it confirmed the unreliability of the Quilliam claim". A further investigation carried out by the
Home Office, the findings of which were published in December 2020, showed that child sexual exploitation groups were most commonly composed of white men and not British Pakistani men. It reports: "Research has found that group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white. Some studies suggest an overrepresentation of black and Asian offenders relative to the demographics of national populations. However, it is not possible to conclude that this is representative of all group-based CSE offending."
Independent inquiry and report A report that resulted from an independent inquiry chaired by Tom Crowther QC was released on 12 July 2022. The report found that more than 1,000 girls had been abused over a 40 year period, and their abuse was ignored for decades due to "nervousness about race" in the belief that investigation against Asian men would inflame "racial tensions". It found that teachers and social workers were discouraged from reporting child sexual abuse, and authorities tended to blame the children instead of the perpetrators, dismissing reports of child exploitation as "child prostitution". Speaking after the publication of the report, West Mercia Police's Assistant Chief Constable, Richard Cooper said he was embarrassed to acknowledge the failures of the past, but insisted there was now a very different approach. "The victims are seen as victims and we are absolutely dedicated to the protection of children," he told reporters. "There was not the cohesion that there is today. We have set up teams incorporating police and other agencies." ==See also==