Telford child sex exploitation: Wellington calls foul on coverage of abuse cases
Wellington Town Council today said it is "grossly unfair" that national coverage of child sexual exploitation has focused on their town, rather than Telford as a whole.
The town council said some coverage of the scandal had only used images of Wellington, and that it created a false perception of the town.
Its comments come as an online petition calling for an independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation has reached 30,000 signatures.
Karen Roper, town clerk, said: "The view was that this has happened and we can't deny it but it's not just here, and it seemed unfair to just show Wellington rather than elsewhere as well.
"Others seem to be saying Telford and using images of Telford and other areas.
"The problem is when it is just the images of Wellington. It's an unfair account."
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The town council tweeted that members were upset with the coverage.
It wrote: "Wellington Town Council and its members are concerned that all of the national current news reporting of the CSE issue within Telford is concentrating on the town of Wellington, which is deemed to be grossly unfair and creates a false perception of the Town."
A change.org petition has reached 30,000 signatures. The petition was set up by Holly Archer, a pseudonym of one of the victims of the Telford ring.
The petition says: "Telford has been described as having the worst child grooming scandal ever seen.
"There has been evidence and proof of children being groomed and exploited for at least 40 years, which is expected to have created 1,000 victims throughout that period.
"Being covered by the national inquiry is not adequate, Telford needs its own independent inquiry into CSE, people need to be held accountable for not acting and protecting vulnerable people and children."
