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Social services chief is one of three politicians exposed as
paedophiles as Telford child sex grooming scandal grows
By PHOEBE SOUTHWORTH FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:00 EDT, 22 April 2018 | UPDATED: 13:46 EDT, 23 April 2018
A social services chief is among three politicians exposed as paedophiles as the Telford grooming scandal continues to spiral.
The shocking revelation comes just a week after authorities in the Shropshire town voted to commission an independent inquiry into child abuse after years of inaction.
Up to 1,000 children are feared to have been groomed and abused by predominantly Asian paedophile gangs.
Victim Lucy Lowe, 16, was murdered by her abuser who set fire to her house in 2000. The blaze also killed her sister and mother.
She had been made pregnant by the same man when she was 14.
Now it has emerged that former county councillor Graham Bould groomed a 15-year-old boy in the early 1980s after meeting him at a church group.
The 60-year-old is the third politician to be exposed as a convicted child sex offender in the West Midlands town.
Bould chaired Shropshire County Council's social services department from 1993 to 1998. He admitted he became attracted to the boy he abused when they shared a sauna after a game of squash.
Bould was arrested in October 2000 and admitted two indecent assaults on the boy. He stood down after 18 years as a councillor. But he avoided a jail sentence and was handed a 12-month community rehabilitation order at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 2001.
Who does the rehab, Bould or the community?
Victim Lucy Lowe, 16, who died with her sister and mother after their house was set alight by her abuser in 2000
Anglican vicar and former county councillor Rev Michael Keen, 78, assaulted the same boy, also during the 1980s. He had previously sat on the West Mercia police force's board.
Keen was jailed for 15 months in July 2001 for two indecent assaults following a trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court. The clergyman, who was ordained in 1973, no longer lives in Telford.
In a childhood diary, the boy described Keen as 'aggressive and a manipulator' and believes he colluded with Bould to stop him reporting the abuse, the Mirror report.
'I believed Bould was a friend, probably my best friend at the time, but he did not care about me. I was just an object of lust to him,' he said after Bould's conviction.
Scarred by two decades of depression, the victim broke down in the witness box during Keen's trial as he recounted his ordeal.
The third abuser, parish councillor Graham White, 75, took indecent images of a 14-year-old girl.
In 2004 White admitted four counts of taking indecent photographs of a minor.
He was given a three-year rehabilitation order, ordered to complete a sex offenders programme and had his name added to the Sex Offenders Register for five years.
Telford in Shropshire, West Midlands, which has been at the centre of a grooming scandal after it emerged up to 1,000 children were groomed and abused by predominantly Asian paedophile gangs
But it is feared Shropshire County Council and the police failed to investigate the men's behaviour.
Local MP Lucy Allan told The Mirror: 'I hope that as part of its work the inquiry will examine the culture of the council. We have seen in other towns, where child sexual exploitation has been prevalent, that the culture of the council led to inaction and silence over many years.'
Lucy's uncle Ed Lowe told The Mirror: 'It's mindblowing. It's disgraceful. We always wanted to know why social services didn't get involved in dealing with Lucy's abuse. Now we have even more questions.'
Council paperwork says social workers during the late 1990s didn't 'understand' the problem, according to The Mirror.
While Keen moved away, Bould had until recently served as the clerk of Sheriffhales Parish Council in Shropshire. Advertising himself as a community organiser and fundraiser, he was photographed three years ago with then Telford MP David Wright.
None of these stories have anything to do with the Pakistani paedo ring that operated freely in Telford. I agree with MP Allan that the relationship between these men and the lack of investigation into the paedo ring has to be explored and exposed.
‘Not convicting enough rapists’: BoJo says UK needs to ‘systemically look’
at handling of rape cases after Sarah Everard murder
3 Oct, 2021 15:07
Britian's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks as he appears as a guest on the Andrew Marr Show © Reuters
In the wake of the sentencing of police officer Wayne Couzens for Everard’s abduction, rape and murder, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated on Sunday that the British legal system was not convicting enough rapists.
During an appearance on the BBC’s ‘The Andrew Marr Show’, Johnson said that, although Everard’s murderer was a serving police officer at the time of the crime, the British should nonetheless “trust” and “have confidence in our police.”
“I think, up and down the country, there will be literally hundreds of thousands of wonderful policemen and women who will be utterly sickened by what happened, by the murder of Sarah Everard,” he said, adding that the case had doubtless “triggered the feelings of huge numbers of people about what is going on in the handling of crimes of sexual and domestic violence, and also rape, and the way we deal with those crimes.”
Johnson argued that, while stranger-murder cases were on the decline, rape prosecutions were still taking too long, “and we’re not convicting enough rapists.”
“We need to deal with it. People feel it – they know instinctively that something is going wrong,” the prime minister said. He affirmed that his government needed to look not just at the abhorrent circumstances of Everard’s faked arrest and subsequent murder, but also “systemically” at “the whole handling of rape, domestic violence, sexual violence, and female complaints about harassment altogether.”
When asked by Marr why the prosecution of rapists and sexual abusers was taking so long, Johnson said there were “delays taking place at every stage in the process,” with some of those delays being due to the legal “complexities” concerning the use of mobile-phone evidence. “But, in the end, that is no excuse. We have to have these complaints properly dealt with,” he concluded.
While this is good news in that the justice system may be stream-lined to be more effective, it's disappointing that neither Marr nor Johnson mentioned the biggest elephant in the room - Pakistani grooming gangs. Everything else are just little toy elephants in comparison.
Couzens was sentenced to a whole-life sentence last week, after he admitted to the abduction, rape and murder of Everard in March as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, South London. He had used his police handcuffs and cited Covid-19 laws to falsely arrest Everard before driving her to a wooded area in Kent, where she was killed.
Lord Justice Fulford ruled that Couzens – who had been working as a diplomatic protection officer at the US Embassy in London – had “long planned to carry out a violent sexual assault on a yet-to-be-selected victim,” and noted that he had taken several measures in preparation for such an attack, including hiring a car.
Despite being a police officer since 2002, Couzens had a history of inappropriate sexual behaviour, and had indecently exposed himself to a McDonald’s employee just weeks before he murdered Everard. He had even been nicknamed “The Rapist” by former colleagues, and was known for having an interest in extreme pornography.
Met Police chief orders review into ‘standards and culture’ in the force
after Wayne Couzens convicted of kidnap, rape & murder
4 Oct, 2021 15:48
The Metropolitan Police commissioner has ordered a review into her force’s “standards and culture”, after Wayne Couzens was given a whole-life order for kidnap, rape and murder – crimes he committed while a serving police officer.
Speaking on Monday, Cressida Dick refused to resign after Couzens was convicted last week of false arrest, kidnap, rape and murder.
“People are entitled to their opinion, but I’ve got a job to do and I’m getting on with it,” Dick stated, adding that it was her role to restore public trust in London’s police force. She said this would be achieved by “bringing in an independent person to review our standards and culture.”
The “fully transparent” report will review how officers in Britain’s largest force treat each other and engage with members of the public. “Our leadership, our processes, our systems, our people, our training – everything will be looked at,” the commissioner told the media.
I wonder how they will avoid digging into the Pakistani grooming scandal?
She said the results of the inquiry would be made available directly to her, but any recommendation for changes would be made public.
Is that what you would call "fully transparent"?
Dick admitted that public trust had been damaged by Couzens. “We depend on the trust of the public. We police by consent and I know that public trust has been damaged. People are rightly gravely concerned about what they’ve seen,” she said, adding that the events were “dreadful” and her colleagues were “furious” about the way the force had been dragged into disrepute.
Public trust has been far more damaged by the Pakistani grooming scandal responsible for tens of thousands of rapes, gang rapes, assaults, and general destruction of the lives of young British girls. But this one rape and murder is worth opening a major inquiry. Is this what they call an end-around?
However, the commissioner also contended that there had been vast improvements in the way officers conducted themselves since she first joined the force 40 years ago, particularly with regard to sexist attitudes and behaviour.
Dick was speaking after former firearms officer Couzens was awarded a rare whole-life tariff on Thursday, meaning he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. He was found guilty of falsely arresting, kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard on March 3. Everard was walking home from a friend’s house in South London when she was abducted by Couzens, who used his police handcuffs on detaining her under false pretences.
Earlier on Monday, another Met officer, David Carrick, appeared in St Albans Magistrates’ Court, accused of raping a woman he met on the dating app Tinder. The court heard that Carrick – who was from the same unit as Couzens and is currently suspended from duty – “emphatically denies” he attacked the woman after they went out for drinks together.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct has also opened a probe into five serving and former officers known to Couzens. Alarming messages of a “discriminatory and/or inappropriate nature” shared between Couzens and these officers were uncovered during the Everard investigation.
The commissioner has faced numerous calls to resign in recent months, but has the support of the government. She was due to relinquish her position in April, but her contract has been extended until 2024.
Almost 1,000 UK cops investigated for sharing offensive material
& even explicit photos on social media since 2015 – reports
4 Oct, 2021 14:06
© Reuters / Hannah McKay
Nearly a thousand police officers and staffers from several forces across the UK have reportedly been investigated since 2015 after allegedly sharing abusive social media content, including sexist, racist, and homophobic material.
Despite the severity of the alleged offences, the majority – including several senior members – received only disciplinary action, according to an investigation by the Daily Mail. But the paper noted that the actual figure was likely to be far higher, since only 32 of the 44 police forces in England, Wales, and Scotland responded to its Freedom of Information requests.
According to the report, only a small fraction – 53 individuals – of at least 999 police force officers and employees accused by colleagues or members of the public over the past six years are no longer on the job. Nearly three quarters of the allegations were reportedly judged to be serious enough to warrant some type of disciplinary action.
Hundreds were reported for allegedly posting disturbing material on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, while others were accused of sending explicit photos to colleagues, and even sharing sexual content with underage and vulnerable victims.
The Met recorded the highest number of allegations, registering 277 complaints against its personnel, despite only providing the newspaper with data for the past year. The UK’s largest police force has come in for increased scrutiny following the conviction of former Met officer Wayne Couzens for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford, the standards spokesman for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, told the paper that the body was “aware of rare cases” where inappropriate material had been shared, but noted that only a “very small number of staff think this is acceptable.”
The figures come in the wake of revelations that Couzens had exchanged degrading content with colleagues on WhatsApp before he attacked Everard in March. The serving police officers – apparently including three from the Met Police – who shared messages with Couzens are now under criminal investigation.
Former Met Police Detective Superintendent Paige Kimberley recently accused UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick of ignoring her reports about a “vulgar and sexist” WhatsApp group apparently similar to the one used by Couzens.
Kimberly had said the group was “aggressive and inappropriate” and included graphic images which displayed “very misogynistic and sexist” attitudes towards women. She also claimed to have raised her concerns of a “flourishing sexist environment” in the force with Cressida Dick in March.
In July, a total of 12 misconduct or gross-misconduct notices were handed to serving police officers by the Independent Officer for Police Conduct in relation to the investigation on Couzens. Three officers received gross-misconduct notices after sharing an “inappropriate graphic” via social media before manning the cordon on the scene of the search for Everard.
The police watchdog had also issued another notice for gross misconduct and an additional six notices for misconduct to officers who allegedly “breached standards of professional behaviour” by sharing details related to Couzens’ prosecution in private messages.
Meanwhile, a recent investigation by the iNews outlet found that a total of 771 Met Police officers and staff have faced sexual misconduct allegations over the past 11 years. Over the same period, 163 Met officers were apparently arrested for various sexual offences – with 38 convicted in court.
However, the news outlet reported last week that only 83 of the accused officers have been dismissed since 2010 – citing data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, from January 1, 2010 to May 31, 2021. The sexual misconduct allegations reportedly range from sexual harassment to sexual assault, rape, and using a position of power for sexual gain.
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