Sorry excuses

It’s four years since the Sunday Mirror’s investigation laid bare the jaw-dropping scale of child abuse in Telford.

And still the details shock. As many as 1,000 girls were raped and abused over a period of decades. Victims were treated as “common prostitutes” – and rather than ringing alarm bells, an uptick in teen pregnancies was dismissed as a public health issue.

And today yet more failures by those in authority can be revealed – which may have allowed the evil gangs to continue their campaign of abuse for years.

A cache of evidence sat gathering dust in a police vault for a decade.

And when a hero cop finally began to take the case seriously, he claims he was told not to “rock the boat”.

But DCI Alan Edwards stuck to his guns, dismissing the “nervousness about race” that had kept the investigation on ice.

The very least victims of this shameful episode deserve is an apology.

And no amount of money can re-write the past – but compensation from those who got so much, so wrong and for so long – would be a start.