They Call It Reform. We Live the Aftermath. A Survivor’s Journey After Telford’s Local CSE Inquiry — The Truth Locked in Complaints and Procedures
Telford's local inquiry into CSE was meant to draw a line in the sand. We were told that listening would be the new standard, that child protection would come before reputation, and that survivors would not be asked to prove their pain twice. But once the cameras left, a different story took over—the story written in complaints portals, behaviour policies, and meetings without minutes. My daughter’s truth was moved off the record and into procedure.
This is her journey after the inquiry: a child survivor funnelled through systems that spoke of safeguarding while quietly protecting themselves. Since disclosing at 14, she has been denied a full education and met only hostility from those duty-bound to protect.
2022 — Where Reform Begins and Reality Ends
The Year Crimes Became “Concerns”
This blog is not about the abuse. It’s about the system that promised reform — the one that said it had learned, vowed to protect, and still failed to act. The abuse itself is my daughter’s story to tell. That belongs to her.
What I’m sharing here are the recorded crimes: sexual harassment and coercion; threats to share indecent images of a child; rape; racially and sexually motivated harassment; threats to kill; stalking and harassment in person and online.
Only one person committed the rape. But the daily attacks came from many, peers, associates, and strangers who targeted her online and in person after she reported it. The sexual abuse, hate crimes, and threats formed a group-based pattern that trapped her in fear. She could not escape.
Almost every day for 18 months, she endured abuse, threats to her safety, sexualised and racial harassment. This was not a lone offender but a network of harm, enabled by silence and institutional drift. The group-based element was visible to every agency involved — in crime reports, logs and chronologies — and still nothing changed.
Each crime should have triggered urgency and protection. Instead, responsibility slid between agencies: school to police, police back to school, children’s services “overseeing.” We were trapped in loops of confusion and desperation. By the fifth recorded crime, I lodged a formal complaint. Safeguarding was spoken of as someone else’s job. A child learned that serious crimes can be ignored by language and delayed by process.
“Better information sharing… professionals know what action to take.” — Council Leader - Lee Carter
After Crowther (2023): What Telford told the nation vs what they told a 15-year-old child
The national line: survivor-centred reform, culture change, zero tolerance.
The lived line: the old grammar in a new font.
On paper, the reform era had begun. Press statements spoke of learning, listening and putting victims first. At the very same time, the language around a 15-year-old survivor in Telford looked painfully familiar: “choosing not to engage,” “attention-seeking,” “relationship issue,” “no safeguarding concerns.”
The most corrosive lines were those that shifted culpability onto her body or her choices: “looked older than her years,” “mutual,” “consensual relationship,” “lifestyle choices”—or reframed exploitation as “just children.”
The effect was the same as before the inquiry: the spotlight moved from the crimes to the child. In 2023, while Telford told the nation it had changed, a survivor was being told—through labels and procedure—that the problem was her.
“Survivor-centred reform.” — Council promise.
“Attention-seeking, relationship issue.” — What they told a 15-year-old.
Behaviour, not safeguarding (2022–2024)
Inside the school, exploitation was reframed as behaviour or poor choices. Trauma responses—panic, avoidance, shutdown—were labelled as non‑compliance. Isolation and suspensions were used where safety planning should have been. A risk assessment took close to a year; when it finally arrived, it was breached almost immediately.
The reality was starker. She was placed in a small isolation room with her abuser all day, resulting in a severe emotional breakdown. She was told to delete evidential material rather than have it preserved. After almost a year out of school, a new risk assessment was signed, keep them separated, she was timetabled back into the same class on her first day. Staff brought him to her. When she broke down, they blamed her reaction and suggested she move school. Meetings multiplied while safety dissolved.
The message to a frightened child was simple: your distress is disruption.
“‘Outstanding’ children’s services in Telford & Wrekin.” — Council news release, 12 Jul 2024
Complaints instead of Safeguarding (2022–2025)
I was told to raise a complaint instead of them convening a multi‑agency safeguarding meetings. I followed the instruction, then was blamed for it. My name was circulated with slurs; our credibility was questioned. Retaliation even landed on a sibling. It was a trap with no exit; if we didn’t raise a complaint, nothing moved; if we did, we became the problem for doing exactly what we were told.
I learned the steps: Stage this. Stage that. Upload here. Wait there. Investigations quoted staff generously and my daughter's voice missing. Findings praised training and “lessons learned” while denying failure. The complaints process became a buffer between harm and accountability. The truth lived in emails, logs and recordings—not in outcomes.
And even with DfE oversight, the pattern held. They were told to go back and do it properly after skipping whole stages of their own complaint policy, they replayed the process and skipped the harm, twice. Policies were cited, procedures were “updated,” but the core questions—what happened, who was accountable, how will it be repaired—were left unanswered. In practice, the complaints process behaved like a sovereign space where institutions did as they pleased, and survivors were invited to watch the paperwork pass by.
Even simple clarification questions were re-routed into formal complaints opened on our behalf, another way to keep us inside process and outside protection.
Meanwhile, the administration was and still is relentless. Meetings, calls, and emails came by the dozen—sometimes a dozen in a single day. For me as a single parent it became a full‑time job just to keep up: reading policies, replying before arbitrary deadlines, reporting crimes to police, re‑sending attachments that “couldn’t be opened.” The volume itself became the effect—whether intended or not—of keeping me busy while my daughter went without protection and education.
“The voices of children were not heard. Parents were frequently disbelieved, dismissed or even blamed.” — IITCSE Final Report (2022)
New badges, same practices (2024)
Leadership changed. Logos changed. Practice did not. Exams were mishandled, promises of safe escorts evaporated, and paperwork called “administrative error” did the work of real harm. A letter supporting college applications acknowledged disruption from safeguarding issues—then the disruption continued. A senior executive later admitted that our family was treated differently because we had complained. The acknowledgement arrived faster than the remedy.
“A robust approach… with key partners.” — Council CSE annual report PR. newsroom.telford.gov.uk
Reality: Partners protected each other; the survivor was routed into complaints, blamed for “using the process,” and still left without protection.
College: support becomes suspicion (Dec 2024–Mar 2025)
It began well. She was meeting targets. Attendance was improving. For the first time in years, life looked as if it might steady. Then, the only local college, the one place that should have protected her route back, decided it “wasn’t working.” That turn arrived soon after the education trust became an official strategic partner with the college. What followed was not safeguarding; it was harm.
Two “meetings” became an ambush—despite prior warnings not to do this. In December, an unscheduled meeting was sprung on her; she left in crisis, yet the letter on file read like a glowing success. In January, the promised support meeting ignored that same glowing report and returned to a narrow script: “AI use,” energy drinks, and attendance. Staff told her “it isn’t working.” A CSE lead said they were too busy for a trauma‑informed approach. When I asked why decisions had been made, I was told they were based on personal and professional opinions. Some staff said they felt attacked, even as the process itself caused harm that led to anxiety medication.
At the very moment national headlines were full of CSE failures, I wrote to say the coverage was triggering her and that she was struggling. That same morning, she was required—without warning—to sit through an off‑curriculum CSE lesson. Whether by design or neglect, the effect was predictable: distress that could be read as “behaviour,” not harm.
The risk assessment labelled her “low risk,” omitting the history that defines her daily life. Exam access collapsed into chaos—wrong dates, wrong rooms, and, in one case, an exam that did not exist. Staff said the way forward was for her to design her own reintegration plan. On paper: procedure. In reality: passive exclusion.
By March 2025, the college’s CSE lead told us they had “exhausted all avenues.” When we asked for a risk assessment to make sure she would be safe on site, we were told that if we weren’t happy we should raise a complaint. This is what on‑the‑ground CSE support looked like in 2025: exclusion by process, delivered by the CSE lead at the town’s only college. Banners, new buildings, and glowing success stories make the local news; the youngest survivors do not. They are kept quiet by procedure.
“We are proud of our multi-agency approach to safeguarding young people.” — partner PR
Reality: A hostile “support” meeting put her on anxiety medication. The CSE lead said staff were too busy for trauma-informed support; the college (while she met targets) said “it isn’t working,” had “exhausted all avenues,” and told us to raise a complaint.
Survivor‑led service without escalation (Feb–Jul 2025)
The timeline matters. In February 2025, contact began when they reached out after I shared our story in a local Facebook group. By March, both mother and daughter had completed detailed intake and GDPR forms. Despite everyone knowing she was 17, she was processed through an adult pathway and not referred into statutory CSE support. Communication shifted to WhatsApp “check-ins”, which often fell silent when it mattered.
In April, they asked for — and I sent — a 30-page policy-versus-lived-experience analysis and a 21-page college timeline to secure her return to education. First we were told counselling must wait because “college is the priority.” Months later, with nothing secured at college, counselling was reframed as something that “could disrupt other parts of life.” At her lowest, they insisted she must attend alone to discuss therapy — despite her still being a child, having no bus fare, and telling them she felt stripped of hope. Even a direct online-risk disclosure (the known perpetrator viewing her accounts again) drew no response.
By late May, the explanations conflicted: we were told a college investigation was underway (the college later confirmed none existed). Promised meetings were cancelled, then re-described as emails that went unanswered. The most crucial piece—the lived-experience document—was not forwarded to statutory services.
What began as recognition ended as paralysis. The effect was months lost, risk unmanaged, and a child still shut out of education, support and care, while professionals and lived-experience consultees debated process in messages instead of activating protection. Validation without escalation is a cul-de-sac. They failed every promise they uphold.
“Every school and post-16 has a CSE-DSL; we work together to support.” The Holly Project - March 2025
Reality: Conflicting updates between The Holly Project and the college stalled everything. Meetings booked, cancelled, disputed—while a 17-year-old was left without support or education.
Name it: Containment, not support.
Local authority: forward‑facing, backward results (Jun–Aug 2025)
I was forced again to turn to social media. I published an open letter to our ward councillor, who is also the council cabinet member for children and education. Within weeks, the local authority arrived with warm introductions and careful roles, a home visit to “look at how they can support.” The council said the survivor-led charity hadn’t passed on the documents; they said the charity had only helped me complete them, which was not true, and expected me to submit them myself. I then sent the documents directly to the service line manager and consented to it being shared with the education safeguarding lead.
The first meeting produced tidy actions: the LA would meet the college (once with them, again with us), check the police position, follow up stalking reports, and start CATE one-to-one for my daughter. I sent the college’s CSE lead’s emails showing refusal to safeguard, a pathway to complaints, and a clear message that they had “exhausted all avenues” — with the only route forward being to share our private legal claim. They also refused to engage with the survivor service already in contact. Meanwhile, meetings slipped by more than a month — timing I warned would push everything into September. I asked for scope and a follow-up before term end.
The reply came: the LA would press for actions and book a follow-up. It still sounded possible.
Then, in the meeting, the goalposts moved. Reinstatement to her course was lifted off the table; what remained was a downgrade and piecemeal exam attendance. Another year gone. The meeting they insisted she attend triggered suicidal ideation, disclosed in real time and afterwards, yet the impact was omitted from the record and from any subsequent safeguarding action. After the college discussion I was told the LA “Cannot change the options put forward by the college.”
And the route offered? Another complaint. I checked the college complaint policy and pointed out safeguarding sits outside its scope. The answer shifted again: contact the college vice principle to “clarify.” Process over protection, repeated.
That is how actions turned into administrative gravity: meetings booked, emails exchanged, with no lawful, working plan that actually supports a CSE survivor or provides a return to education.
There was no MACE (Multi-Agency Child Exploitation) meeting. No statutory CSE pathway opened with partner-agency accountability. That would have required reviewing not only errors but serious safeguarding failures. Instead, we were handed a “bespoke pathway” and told there was “no evidence of harm” while the authority held a document setting out 33 breaches of its own safeguarding policy.
We requested an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment to keep her in education and warned of funding cut-offs if the system delayed. No response arrived before the deadlines that mattered. The “plan” stayed forward-facing, drop-ins, short-notice exams, benefits advice but no retrospective review of partner failure occurred, and no functioning multi-agency plan materialised.
In Telford, “multi-agency” meant keeping her voice silent and decisions made about a survivor, not with her. The room did not listen; it decided. Telford made promises to its youngest survivors; it failed to deliver to my daughter.
Meanwhile, the only pathways actively opened to my daughter have been PIP and benefits. The irony is brutal: officials recognise that the impact of CSE and the negligence that followed, now amounts to disability, yet this recognition never appears in the senior-level decisions that would secure an EHCP and a route back into learning. Survivors pushed into mental ill health are offered benefits, not the lawful safeguarding and educational plan they are entitled to.
From the first disclosure in 2022, every safeguarding request I made was diverted into a complaints route and then we were blamed for raising complaints. Staff reframed her abuse and said they needed protection from me. It became a full circle of containment: school to trust, survivor charity to council, council back to college. Each institution protected itself; none protected the child. Three and a half years on, the pattern is unchanged: blame pushed onto us, education withheld, and our voices managed by process rather than safeguarded by duty.
After Crowther’s public pledge of survivor-centred reform and real multi-agency accountability, what we received was process over protection: no MACE, no statutory pathway, no EHCP — just a polished promise, another complaints route, and an empty seat in the classroom.
“Our approach is now monitored and reported annually…” — Cllr Lee Carter
Reality: Bespoke pathway, no voice on record; harm diverted into complaints and benefits, not safeguarding. No statutory route. No education.
Oversight and politics (Jul–Aug 2025)
I went to the MP’s open surgery in July with one ask: a trauma-informed route back into education. He said he could help. Days later, he wrote that the council told him a multi-agency meeting had already taken place “with oversight from senior leaders,” and asked me when it was and what came out of it. We had never been invited. We did not even know it had happened.
What followed was the familiar detour: the council diverted us into corporate complaints instead of a statutory safeguarding route. “Not upheld.” Signpost to more complaints. Process over protection.
We are a family in crisis. After years of asking for the bare minimum — safeguarding that works and a route back into education — we were at the edge of financial collapse, and the failure to secure education tipped us over. CAB support vanished in June. The MP promised a local referral; we were redirected to the same telephone service that had already failed us. Support became a loop; need became debt.
And the MP’s stance shifted with it: from “I can help” to “follow the complaints process.” In that gap, one of his youngest constituents was, in effect, silently removed from education and support, and pushed deeper into poverty. That is not oversight; it is abdication dressed as procedure.
He talks of community and support. But not for the young survivors failed under his council leadership — and failed again under his watch as MP. They are the exception in the rhetoric. Exempt.
Measure success by this: was a trauma-informed approach offered, and a safe route back into education delivered?
If not, review where the harm really sits: in complaints that replaced safeguarding; complaints that blew past their own timelines; complaints that blamed a victim; complaints that ignored seven recorded crimes and the daily abuse she endured. That isn’t oversight — it is institutional harm by procedure.
And when you measure “best practice” after the Crowther Inquiry, ask this: how many other CSE survivors have been processed the same way — gatekept, refused education, and their harm locked inside looped complaints and missed chances to protect?
“Victims and survivors were at [Telford’s] very heart… recommendations must not sit on the shelf.” — Home Secretary replying to Shaun Davies MP Hansard
Reality: A young survivor in Telford is absent from the record; decisions made about her, not with her. Outcomes: no education secured; harm contained in complaints, with MP oversight.
The polished story vs the lived one
Telford looks friendly from a podium. Awards shine, partnerships flourish, “survivor-led” language is quoted. The council calls its approach “a model,” citing “robust” multi-agency work and a CATE team “recognised by Ofsted as a key strength.” Tom Crowther KC is quoted by the council as saying the local approach “now stands as a model.” Full Council motions pledge to “share best practice” and support a national inquiry.
In Parliament, Telford’s MP praised survivors and stressed that recommendations must be implemented “we need action,” not reports that “sit on the shelf.” The Home Secretary agreed the strength of the Telford inquiry was that “victims and survivors were at its very heart,” with plans to ensure implementation.
Yet to a child failed under local leadership—and failed again after the local inquiry—the message lands differently. The public story says we listened; the private reality says not you. Official papers recognise her as vulnerable and accept that the impact amounts to disability; still, there is no functioning plan to rebuild her life. More than eighty professionals have handled this case. They knew. Together, they kept the truth buried under process.
“Not you. Not yet. Not now.”
What institutional pride sounds like to a child who asked for help.
How many other CSE survivors have been processed the same way, gatekept, refused education, their harm locked inside looped complaints and missed chances to protect, even as the town broadcasts progress.
“Telford’s approach… now stands as a model.” — Tom Crowther KC, quoted by Telford & Wrekin Council (19 Feb 2025)
Reality: A child failed under that very “model” remains without education, without a statutory safeguarding pathway, and without accountability.
A note to politicians and the national inquiry
Telford’s post-inquiry narrative is being fed upward as proof of reform. Our record tells a different story. Four years on: no sustained multi-agency plan, no secure route back into education, and a pattern of professional retaliation when we followed the routes we were given.
The evidence I hold will shock. It documents victim-blaming, breaches of process, and the erasure of a survivor, set out in emails, reports, meeting notes, and complaint responses. It includes police-logged serious sexual crimes, 33 breaches of Telford’s own safeguarding policy, and over 1,000 contemporaneous documents tracing a pathway the system does not want seen. Decision notes still describe a survivor in terms that belong to the past, not to a reformed system.
Her voice is missing from the metrics. She does not appear in the success stories or on the dashboards. This was not a single failure; it moved across institutions—police, school, education trusts, college, survivor service, local authority—organisations publishing strategies while avoiding accountability. CSE complaints were weaponised against the family. A direction from the DfE was effectively ignored. The result: a child pushed out of learning and into benefits—told that her impact amounts to disability while being denied the support that would help her rebuild her life.
If you want the truth in your national inquiry, put this data on the table. It will show that Telford did not keep its promise—and that hope and a future were taken from a child who asked for help. Ask the question your dashboards cannot answer: how many others have been processed the same way—gatekept, refused education, their harm locked inside looped complaints and missed chances to protect—while Telford and its “lived experience” consultees turn away from the youngest and the most vulnerable?
“Model of reform.” “Annual reporting.” “Robust multi-agency.”
Reality: No MACE. No statutory CSE pathway. No EHCP. No education. Erased.
Refusing to be buried
Speaking out is our last resort. Every other route we were told to trust — education pathways, trauma-informed support, multi-agency plans — has pushed us to the edge of collapse. My daughter’s truth sits locked in silos that no one wants to review. She deserves more than a resurrection of a local promise; she deserves her story told in full, in the hope it protects others processed the same way.
As a parent, I have lost work and the ability to work under the weight of fighting this. I don’t speak from emotion alone but from evidence: thousands of pages, dates, decisions, contradictions. It has been more than a full-time job to follow their processes while being blamed — and facing retaliation — by the very professionals who pledged to safeguard children like my daughter.
They have taken almost everything from us — except our truth.
“Our sole promise to residents is that we will always do as much as we can to tackle this horrific crime.” — Lee Carter, Leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Feb 2025.
Reality: The family of a survivor followed every official route — only to be met with silence, deflection, and complaints processes that buried harm instead of addressing it.
Telford promised its survivors a new beginning. What we got was polished language, complaint forms, and empty chairs at the tables where decisions were made. While leaders sold a model to Westminster, my daughter was left outside the room, unheard and unprotected. These are not the marks of reform; they are the fingerprints of a system that still buries the youngest and most vulnerable beneath its promises.
What the Telford inquiry condemned as the past has simply been administratively re-engineered as the present. Families are still blamed. Survivors are still contained. Complaints still replace protection.