It has been claimed council staff viewed the underage girls as prostitutes instead of victims, and authorities failed to keep details of abusers from Asian communities for fear of 'racism'.Īccording to a Sunday Mirror investigation, three people were murdered in incidents linked to the scandal. Social workers are said to have known about the abusers' activities as far back as the 1990s, but it took cops a decade to launch a probe, called Operation Chalice. The youngsters' hell went on for decades as authorities repeatedly failed to stamp out a network of paedophiles in the Shropshire town. If this figure is correct, it would mean there are more victims per head of population than in the similar scandals that hit Rochdale and Rotherham. AS many as 1,000 children may have been drugged, raped and abused in Telford since the 1980s, child abuse experts say.
