How Telford’s Institutions Betray the Children They Fail

Three years ago today, we reported peer CSE—a 14-year-old child pleading for protection. It was the same year the Crowther Inquiry exposed Telford’s decades-long safeguarding failures. But instead of justice, we were met with silence. This is not just a story of past failures—it is a plea for help from a family Telford has turned its back on. It’s not over for us. We are still facing retaliation for daring to ask for support. This is our story of what happens in Telford—during and after Crowther.

Imagine fighting for justice for over three years—pleading for help, begging for protection—only to be met, not with support, but with hostility. Imagine watching your children lose their education, not because they did something wrong, but because they were blamed, targeted, and erased—punished simply for being victims of institutional failure.

Imagine knocking on every door—social services, safeguarding professionals, education officials—only to be met with cold indifference, bureaucratic delays, and outright refusal. Imagine being told, not just that they won’t help, but that you are the problem for trying.

The very people responsible for safeguarding my children didn’t just turn their backs—they inflicted harm. They made my children feel like burdens. They made them question their worth. They don’t just ignore cries for help—they silence them.

Instead of protecting my children, they flipped our reality. Instead of addressing the harm done to them, they blamed us for creating fear.

A senior leader of a leading Telford Education Trust  admitted in writing that staff acted differently towards my son because they feared complaints. Instead of acknowledging wrongdoing or addressing multiple incidents of victimisation, they justified his treatment by saying staff needed to “protect themselves” from accountability.

Even worse, this same trust referenced a confidential complaint about my daughter’s CSE safeguarding case—one they had no jurisdiction over—to defend their actions against my son. Rather than safeguarding my children, they used our past trauma as an excuse to justify their continued failures.

And the result?

Two children, missing from education. Two children, denied their rights. Two children, abandoned by institutions that publicly celebrate their commitment to safeguarding while failing the very children they exist to protect.

This isn’t imagination. This is our reality.

This is what it means to be failed, erased, and silenced.

This is happening right now, in 2025, in Telford—a town already exposed for some of the worst safeguarding failures in child protection history.

And yet, nothing has changed.

If anything, they’ve only become better at hiding it.

 

The First Failure: Telford’s CSE Failures Didn’t End—2022 Proved That

My daughter was just 14 years old.

She was subjected to serious, repeated abuse—a peer CSE case that the school and authorities had a duty to prevent.

Instead, they failed her at every turn.

Sexual Harassment.
Hate crimes, Death threats, stalking.
Rape.

She did everything victims are told to do—she spoke up, she sought help.

And in return, the very institutions meant to protect her denied her truth, twisted her suffering, and blamed her instead.

 

A Preventable Escalation

For months, my daughter endured escalating harassment and abuse.

In April 2022, at the height of her trauma, the school locked her in a room with her abuser.

This was before we had even made a formal complaint.
This was after months of harassment.
This was before the worst escalation of abuse.

Instead of protecting her, they trapped her in a confined space with the very person who was tormenting her.

Instead of recognising her trauma, they punished her for how she reacted.

Instead of safeguarding her, they enabled the escalation of abuse—leading to the rape in May 2022.

She suffered an extreme psychological breakdown.
She ended up in the hospital.

They knew what they were doing.
They knew the harm this would cause.
And they did it anyway.

This was not just failure.
This was systemic neglect with lasting consequences.

 

And This Is How They Justified It, Even After the Crowther Inquiry

When faced with the reality of their failure, they did not take responsibility.
They rejected police and safeguarding assessments.
They ignored the recommendations of experts.

Instead, they rewrote history to fit their own narrative—one that absolved them of responsibility.

In May 2023—one year after the Crowther Inquiry exposed how Telford’s institutions had failed victims of CSE—they were still blaming victims and downplaying abuse.

The inquiry had found that authorities failed victims by minimising abuse, shifting blame, and treating girls as complicit rather than exploited.

And yet, this is what they said about a 14-year-old girl who had endured over a year of abuse:

“I haven’t seen coercive behaviour”

“This is also a young lady who is very, very active on social media; this isn’t a young lady who is always showing us those levels of anxiety that mum talks about.”*

"She portrays quite a big and older image than she possibly should, shall we say."*

“I think she attracts unwanted attention and doesn’t quite know how to deal with that then, and that mum then views that as she’s being sexually harassed.”*

"Despite trauma considerations, students must comply with school rules. Repeated defiance disrupted support efforts."*

“She very often likes to have a boyfriend of some sort,”*

"We very much believed it to be a mutual thing."*

 

The Crowther Inquiry had already exposed how victims of CSE in Telford were ignored, blamed, and treated as responsible for their own abuse.

And yet, a year later, this was still happening.
They did not fail by accident.
They knew.
And they did it anyway.

Social Services: A Pattern of Failure, a System Designed to Ignore

February 2022 – Social services were informed of sexual harassment case, where police identified:
•    Intent to cause harm and distress.
•    Coercive control.
•    Physical harm.
•    A 14-year-old girl with two serious mental health conditions caused directly by the abuse.

Social services refused to open a case.
They refused my request for support.
They did nothing.

May 2022 – The abuse escalated to rape. 
The school’s response?
They sent my daughter back to class.
They did not tell me what had happened.

Later that same day, 2 male police officers interviewed her alone in a school office—visible to anyone passing by.
She was terrified.
She was left to face this moment with only a friend by her side.
Her abuser watching from outside.

This was at 3:30 PM.
That same day, a MASH meeting was held.

Their decision?
It did not meet the threshold for a Section 47 child protection investigation.
She had withdrawn the charges.

But the truth?
She was alone. She was scared. She was retraumatised in that interview.
She didn’t withdraw the charges.
The police collected forensic evidence the next day.

• Social services made a decision on her case before even reviewing that evidence.

The evidence collection is missing from the crime report, 
Yet we still hold the consent form.

 

A Downgraded Response. A Downgraded Life.

Instead of a child protection plan, they opened a Child in Need assessment.

It confirmed the serious harm she was enduring.
Yet, instead of protective intervention, it was downgraded.
The focus shifted to “strengthening families” to support me in enforcing rules—
as if parenting, not safeguarding, was the issue.

The abuse did not stop.

• Hate crimes
• Sexual harassment
• Threats to life
• Stalking
• Daily harassment and psychological torment

She remained under Strengthening Families support, yet nothing changed.

April 2023 – The case was closed entirely when I contacted the NSPCC and a LADO referral was made.

Social services claimed:
There had been no further abuse.
That was a lie.

The LADO refused to escalate her case, claiming it did not meet the threshold.

Since that closure, multiple referrals have been made.
Telford Family Connect refuses to help.

June 2023 – It became too much.
My daughter disclosed her intent to end her life to senior staff.
Their solution? She was told to move schools.

She never returned!

Not One Institution Failed.
They ALL did.
They ALL worked together to erase her suffering.
They ALL protected their reputations instead of protecting her.

And now, they are doing the same to my son.

My Son: Another Victim of the System’s Failure

He was targeted—not for anything he did, but because I spoke up.

• Eighteen incidents of victimisation.
• He was placed in a headlock.
• He was denied access to a school trip.
• He was offered a managed move—despite no behavioural concerns.
• They stripped him of his basic rights—including access to a toilet during break-time.

Then came the ultimate insult.
They blamed us.

 

Justifying Victimisation Through Deflection

A senior trust figure, in written correspondence, referenced a confidential complaint outside of the trust’s jurisdiction as justification for staff concerns.

This suggests that the complaint itself—not the failures it exposed—was being used to defend ongoing victimisation.

• He framed staff as the ones in need of protection.
• He dismissed my son’s experiences, claiming his perception of reality was distorted.
• He twisted my daughter’s trauma into an excuse for staff, rather than acknowledging the systemic failures that harmed both of them.

Instead of safeguarding, they gaslit and deflected.

They breached my daughter’s confidential complaint and framed it as something to fear—an excuse to justify staff actions, rather than address institutional failures.

 

The Racial Slur "Typo"

In his official response, he made a shocking typo:

• While attempting to write “the bigger picture,” the result included the racial slur “ni**er".

My children are mixed race.

But it wasn’t immediately addressed.

• The email was sent at 5:55 PM.
• It was recalled twice over two and a half hours later—at 8:40 PM.
  

Then, at just before 9 PM, he called me.

• He told me he had recalled an email due to a typo—but avoided mentioning what the typo was.
  

By then, it was too late. 
I had already seen it.

Could this have been a genuine typo? Possibly.

But the way it was handled only reinforced the deeper issue—deflection, avoidance, and a refusal to take accountability.

• He knew the impact of what was written.
• He knew why it needed to be recalled.
• Yet, he chose not to say it outright.

Within the same concerns about racial bias were dismissed.
Intentional or not, this incident fit into a much larger pattern:
A refusal to take racism, exclusion, and victimisation seriously.

 

A Complaint Process Designed to Fail

After months of fighting for accountability, we have reached Stage 4 of the trust’s complaint process.

Not because I escalated it.
Not because the process worked as intended.

But because the trust escalated it themselves—without a single investigation, without a single outcome.

• A process meant to provide accountability has been manipulated to avoid it.

A Complaint System That Ignores Its Own Rules
At every stage, procedures have been skipped, ignored, or rewritten to benefit the institution:

• No formal investigations.
• No transparent outcomes.
• No safeguarding action taken.

Instead of a structured and impartial process, the complaint system has become a self-protective mechanism—designed not to investigate failures, but to shield those responsible from scrutiny.

• Complaints were escalated without resolution.
• Key concerns were left unanswered.
• Basic procedural fairness was ignored.

But it didn’t stop there.

Instead of addressing the harm caused to my son, the trust weaponised my daughter’s complaint—a complaint that should have been protected.

• They took a safeguarding complaint and twisted it into a justification for fear.
• They breached her confidentiality.
• They distorted her truth to shield themselves.

Rather than recognising the systemic failures that harmed both of my children, they turned a victim’s trauma into a defence mechanism for the institution itself.

 

Stage 4: A Hearing Without an Investigation

Now, we face a Stage 4 Panel Hearing—a process intended to review findings, yet it is happening without a single investigation ever taking place.

This hearing will not be reviewing the outcome of an investigation—because there was no investigation.

• A process designed to ensure accountability is being used to deny it.

Instead of addressing the systemic failures that harmed my son, the trust has forced this complaint through a process designed to exhaust and deter.

This is not procedural oversight.
This is institutional strategy.

 

What This Means for My Son
While the trust protects itself, my son remains:

• Out of education.
• Without justice.
• Another child failed by a broken system.

Instead of recognising the pattern of victimisation, they rewrote reality to protect their own interests.

This is not just negligence. This is active harm.

 

When Education Becomes Another Betrayal

A Fresh Start That Was Never Meant to Last

Returning to education was never going to be easy for my daughter.

She had every barrier imaginable stacked against her.

• Her education record was flawed.
• Her past was erased and ignored.
• Her trauma had been treated as an inconvenience, rather than something to be understood.

But she refused to be defined by what happened to her.
She wanted to make a difference.
She wanted to use her experience to help others like her.

Health and Social Care felt like a natural choice—a field where she could be the support that she never had.

For four months, she was thriving.

• Her December 2024 review confirmed she was making good progress and meeting targets.

It should have been the fresh start she deserved.
But in November 2024; everything changed.

A Confidential Complaint Used Against Us

At the top of this blog, I detailed how the Learning Community Trust (LCT) breached a confidential safeguarding complaint about my daughter’s past CSE case—one they had no jurisdiction over.

• This was not just a data breach.
• This was the most vulnerable, painful moment of my daughter’s life—used as a justification for victimising my son.

That hit all of us hard.

A confidential safeguarding complaint—a record that should have ensured accountability and protection—was instead used to protect staff and justify institutional failures.

One month later, the same trust entered into a partnership with Telford College.

At the time, we didn’t know about this collaboration.

• We only found out later, through public information.
• But we felt the shift immediately.

A once-thriving education—a fresh start—was turned into the same professional traumas she faced over two years ago.

• Staff became distant, colder.
• Support was withdrawn.
• Behavioural scrutiny increased.
• My emails raising concerns were ignored

On November 6, in a recorded meeting, I shared with her tutors the breach and the impact it had on her.

• They were aware.
• They knew her mental health was dipping. I told them.

Instead of support there was a shift in staff approach.

• A sudden increase in scrutiny—on attendance, on minor issues.
• A drug search—by a college staff member who attended a trust-college meeting days earlier.
• A shift in tone—more calls, more demands for disciplinary meetings, more escalations.

By December 2024, the change was undeniable.

• Support meetings were no longer about support.
• Disciplinary processes were escalated.
• The focus was shifting—from her progress to her removal.

Instead of safeguarding, they retraumatised her.
Instead of responding to my concerns, they tightened the pressure on her instead.

Twice, she broke down. Twice, they let her go home—no intervention, no safeguarding, no additional support.

They held ambushed professional meetings without my knowledge, telling me they were “informal.”

They put her under college counselling, yet at the same time, they became the source of her harm.

The Final Betrayal: A Meeting Designed for Exclusion

A 'support' meeting was called—with senior safeguarding staff, tutors, and staff from Health and Social Care. Five professionals.

These are professionals responsible for training the next generation of safeguarding and care workers.

They teach students how to protect the vulnerable.
They train future professionals on recognising trauma and responding with care.

Yet, when faced with a real victim struggling with mental health difficulties—backed by a fit note—they:

• Belittled her experience.
• Refused to listen.
• Responded with hostility instead of protection.
• More concerned protecting staff actions than understanding impact.
• Said staff are too busy for a trauma informed approach.
• Focused entirely on minor infractions.
• They were hostile, rolling eyes when we talked.

This was not a safeguarding discussion. This was a decision to exclude.

When I challenged them, one staff member said she felt “attacked” simply because I spoke the truth.

Then, they gave their final professional and personal verdict:

 ❝College isn’t working for her.❞

When questioned why they became agitated and shut down the meeting and escorted us out the building

—
as if we had done something wrong.

 

The Evidence of Psychological Injury

That meeting was recorded.
The psychological harm they caused is preserved in their own system.

• They knew what they were doing.
• And they documented it.

The meeting was not 'support'—it caused real harm.

After the meeting, my daughter was prescribed anxiety medication to cope with the trauma.

Instead of supporting her, they pushed her into a mental health crisis.

 

Institutional Neglect Disguised as Procedure

Since that meeting:

• Eight messages requesting work—ignored.
• Eight deliberate acts of exclusion.
• Tutors continue posting work for others—but not for her.

Since the meeting, I have:

• Informed the college of the harm caused.
• Requested clarification on why they said ‘college isn’t working’.
  

Their response?

• A risk assessment—designed to exclude.
• As for the harm caused? "Raise a complaint."
• Tutors not responding? "Raise a complaint."

They have a duty to report harm caused by staff.
Yet again, those meant to protect have failed their duty.

Just cold, hard procedure.
And even then, they hold the right to make the final decision on reasonable adjustments.

This is deliberate academic sabotage.

A System That Erases the Victims It Fails

We don’t know why the college has taken this stance.

• She was excelling.
• She was finally putting her life back together.
• And they knew this.

Was this a strategic decision upon their new partnership, where her trauma was once again used in defence?

Or were there staff who simply did not want her there?

What we do know is this:

• She was traumatised in that meeting.
• She was harmed instead of protected.
• And instead of supporting her, they pushed us into yet another complaint.

Like the trust before them, they chose cold process over safeguarding.

• Instead of upholding their duty to protect, they shifted the burden onto us.
• Instead of acknowledging their harm, they dismissed it.
• Instead of doing the right thing, they did what was easiest for them.

Twice, my daughter has been forced out of education—not for what she did, but for what was done to her.

Because this is what happens when safeguarding is just a policy, not a practice.

The Pattern is Clear: Silence, Retaliation, and Institutional Protection

Telford has been here before.

It started with CSE.

It started with my daughter—a child who came forward, who sought protection, who did everything victims are told to do.

She reported the abuse.
She was ignored.
She was blamed.

And when I fought for justice, we were punished.

The Crowther Inquiry exposed the horrific extent of institutional failures in protecting children from abuse.

 It revealed that:

• Authorities ignored or dismissed clear signs of abuse.
• Victims were disbelieved and blamed for their own suffering.
• Families who fought for justice were targeted, isolated, and silenced.
• Agencies covered up failures to protect reputations—not children.
  

That report should have been a turning point.

Instead, it became a manual for how to cover up abuse more effectively.

They haven’t learned lessons.

•    Then: Victims were excluded from school rather than supported.
•    Now: My daughter and son have been forced out of education—three times in three years.

•    Then: Schools failed to protect children from sexual exploitation.
•    Now: My daughter’s abuse has been twisted into an excuse to victimise her and her brother further.

•    Then: Parents who demanded accountability were painted as troublemakers.
•    Now: I am treated as a threat for asking for nothing more than safety and fairness.

•    Then: Victims were told their trauma wasn’t real.
•    Now: A school, a leading Telford education trust, and the college have turned a survivor’s trauma into a justification for exclusion and erasure.

The only thing that has changed is their strategy.

They no longer just fail victims, they erase them.

This started with CSE.
It continued with retaliation for speaking out.
And it has ended with erasure.

This is not incompetence.
This is not ignorance.

A systemic approach that ensures those who question failures are left unheard.

The Crowther Inquiry forced them to acknowledge the truth once.
Now, they are ensuring that no one will ever be able to do it again.

This is Telford.
The town where victims are not just failed-
They are denied their right to education.

• Their futures stolen by those who have something to hide.
• And if they dare to speak out, they are punished for it.
  

What Happens Next?

Three years. 
Three years of fighting to protect my children. 
Three years of lies, failures, and harm at the hands of those who were meant to help.

I believed that going to the police would bring safety.
I believed that safeguarding teams would intervene.
I believed that institutions would protect my children, not themselves.

Instead, it destroyed us. 
We have lost everything.

A single-parent family with a history of domestic abuse and trauma.
Children already vulnerable, already carrying the weight of past failures.
An exhausted mother who refused to stay silent, and was punished for it.

They knew our history.
They knew we had already survived abuse.
They knew we had no safety net.

And maybe, they hoped this would break us.

So, they dragged this out. For years.
They refused to follow procedures meant to protect children.
They stonewalled me, ignored me, and waited for me to give up.
They pushed my children out of education, knowing we had nowhere else to go.

This wasn’t just failure. Their actions caused direct harm to my children.

They took my daughter’s future.
They took my son’s right to an education.
They took my livelihood, my stability, our quality of life.

All because I dared to fight for them.

Telford, Where is Your Change?

Telford promised change.
They promised protection.
They promised accountability.

Where is that change?
Where is the justice for children like mine?
How many other families have been failed?

How many parents have been pushed to breaking point—not because they were wrong, but because they refused to stay silent?

This isn’t just my family’s fight.
This is a fight for every child silenced by a system that refuses to learn.

They have taken everything from us.
But they will NOT take our voices.

📌 Telford, you failed my children.
📌 But you will not erase them.

🚨 Enough is enough.

 

*All statements in this blog are based on documented evidence, including professional reports, police records, and direct communications with safeguarding institutions. This account seeks to highlight institutional failures and systemic safeguarding concerns in Telford. Any references to individuals or organisations are made in the context of public interest and accountability.