Child abuse figures, missing years – and Labour’s selective concern

Recent Freedom of Information responses raise an uncomfortable question about how child abuse data in Sandwell is recorded, retained, and reported.

They also raise a second question — why Labour politicians are willing to talk about “child abuse” in general terms, but avoid naming Child Sexual Exploitation when the evidence demands it.

This is not about sensationalism.
It is about numbers, definitions, omissions, and political choices.

What the police have confirmed

Following an FOI request to West Midlands Police, the force has disclosed police-recorded child-abuse-related crime data for Sandwell covering 2021–2024.

The data includes:

• Thousands of recorded offences relating to cruelty and neglect of children
• Hundreds of sexual offences each year where the victim was aged under 16
• Large numbers of violent offences flagged with a child-abuse marker
• Thousands of identified victims under the age of 18

These figures are not interpretation.
They are police data, disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The missing years Labour would rather not talk about

The same FOI response states that no equivalent police data is available prior to 2021, due to “system changes/issues”.

That means the years 2012–2020 — including the period in which 6,226 child abuse allegations were publicly reported — are now outside the scope of police disclosure.

No refusal notice.
No legal exemption.
Just a data gap.

That gap matters, because Labour politicians have repeatedly referenced safeguarding in Sandwell while avoiding serious scrutiny of the historical record.

The 6,226 figure – loudly cited, quietly unexamined

In 2017, official information was used to state that 6,226 child abuse allegations were referred in Sandwell between 2012 and 2016.

That figure did not come from campaigners.
It did not come from social media.
It came from official sources.

Yet today:

• There is no publicly accessible methodology
• No police data continuity for that period
• No clear explanation of how that figure aligns with current disclosures

Labour is happy to invoke safeguarding language — but not to interrogate safeguarding evidence.

Where Child Sexual Exploitation disappears from Labour’s narrative

This matters most when it comes to Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE).

Police data for 2021–2024 shows hundreds of sexual offences against children every single year in Sandwell. These are not abstract harms. They are not historic footnotes. They are live safeguarding risks.

And yet, at the most recent full council meeting of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, a Labour-led motion on child safeguarding did not explicitly mention CSE at all.

That omission is not accidental language drift.
It is a political choice.

Labour councillors chose:

• to speak in broad, comfortable terms about “child abuse”, while
• avoiding the specific form of abuse that has historically exposed institutional failure across the country.

This is where the hypocrisy lies.

Why this is political hypocrisy, not semantics

Labour nationally is quick to reference historic CSE scandals — usually when they involve someone else, somewhere else, at another time.

But locally, when presented with:

• police-recorded evidence of ongoing sexual abuse of children, and
• a clear opportunity to name CSE explicitly in a safeguarding motion,

Labour chose silence.

No explicit commitment.
No explicit scrutiny.
No explicit acknowledgement.

That is not leadership.
It is risk management.

General words do not protect children

CSE is not a footnote to safeguarding. It is one of its most dangerous and complex failures.

When councils refuse to name it explicitly, they:

• dilute accountability
• weaken scrutiny
• and signal political discomfort rather than safeguarding resolve

You cannot claim to take child abuse seriously while avoiding the form of abuse that most demands political courage.

The questions Labour must now answer

No allegations are being made here.
But Labour cannot avoid these questions:

• Why was CSE excluded from the safeguarding motion?
• How does Labour reconcile that omission with police data showing ongoing sexual abuse of children?
• How can the public trust safeguarding oversight when historic data is missing and present-day risks are selectively framed?

Final word

This is not about attacking frontline workers.
It is not about undermining safeguarding professionals.

It is about political honesty.

When Labour talks about safeguarding, it wants the credit — but not the discomfort.
When the data becomes awkward, the language becomes vague.
When CSE demands to be named, it is quietly left out.

Children deserve better than!