One of the ringleaders of the Telford grooming gang scandal - exposed by the Mirror - has been cleared for parole halfway through his third jail sentence for sexual offences. But one of his victims has told the Mirror she wants the Justice Secretary to intervene and ask the Parole Board to reconsider its decision. Sultan was found guilty in 2019 of child rape and three counts of indecent assault and sentenced to eight years.
The trial was the result of Operation Vapour, launched by West Mercia Police in 2018 after the Sunday Mirror revealed that up to 1,000 girls had been abused in the Shropshire town over four decades. An independent inquiry commissioned by Telford council went on to back our findings.
Kate, not her real name, was raped by Sultan who threatened to “kick her head in” if she refused. She said: “It is scary, when you think of the number of convictions he has got. It puts him as a high risk offender. He is a serial rapist. He is a dangerous person. I will ask them to reconsider. I feel I have a duty to keep the public safe and I don’t think he is a safe person. I am not convinced the authorities will do a good job of that. I don’t feel he has been in prison long enough for the crimes he has committed.”.
Sultan was jailed in 2019 alongside three others for sexually abusing a vulnerable girl who was "passed around like a piece of meat", forced to perform sex acts in a churchyard and raped above a shop. We revealed the previous year how another victim was lured into the gang’s grooming network by Sultan, who had sold her phone number to other men in Telford.
