A survivor of Telford’s grooming gangs has spoken out about Elon Musk’s decision to wade in on the issue on social media, saying it has left her feeling “sick” and “tearful”.
The X owner has tweeted more than 40 times about UK grooming gangs in the past few weeks, calling for a national inquiry, a fresh general election and for Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, to be jailed.
Musk, a key adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, has accused Sir Keir of failing to properly prosecute rape gangs while director of public prosecutions (DPP), and has repeatedly retweeted Reform UK and Conservative MPs calling for a national inquiry.
But Starmer has hit back at the accusations, saying “Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and wide as possible are not interested in the victims, they’re interested in themselves”.
Speaking to The Mirror, Holly Archer, which is not her real name, concurred with the prime minister and appealed to Musk to butt out of the issue.
She said: “I feel like our voices, all of our hard work, has been twisted and our experiences have been exploited for who knows what reason? Is it for politics or radical racist reasons?
“I feel really proud of what we have done but for the first time today I sat down and cried about not feeling we have done enough.”
Archer’s abuse began aged 14 when she was introduced to perpetrators by boys her own age.
She said: “Over the next four years, I was raped on a daily basis, sometimes by nine men a night. I had two abortions and my ordeal left me so broken I attempted suicide.
It took me a long time to accept I was a victim of child sexual exploitation but when I did I became determined that no child should suffer the hell I had.”
Holly and other survivors have spent the last two years working with Telford Council to transform its approach to child sexual exploitation and have influenced national policy at the Home Office.
The chair of the Telford inquiry Tom Crowther KC praised this “brave and revolutionary” decision. It had not been one of his 47 recommendations but it had been “key” to delivering them.
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