Telford CSE investigator ‘fed up’ with political debate

“People were scared to deal with things. They forgot that there is a victim that is being raped, whose family is being threatened, that they’re scared,” Mr Edwards said.

“They forgot all about that. It became politics and people used it as a political weapon.

“It was being talked about, people knew that these cases were out there, but then it would be buried afterwards.”

The Telford inquiry itself heard that police had failed to properly target south Asian men over child sex crimes because it would have been “too politically incorrect”.

More recent updates from the inquiry chair Tom Crowther have been much more positive of the changes introduced by police, the council and local NHS services.

But at the start of Operation Chalice, Mr Edwards he said he had felt he was “fighting the system”.

“I was supported by my chief officers. They were very, very good,” he said.

“There were certain other officers maybe at a senior rank that didn’t agree with it and there were certain agencies that didn’t agree that actually this was a problem.

“But for those officers on the ground that could see it, we recognised that this was something that needed to be dealt with.”