A TELFORD grooming survivor has accused police of trying to “scare her into silence” after speaking out about her ordeal.

Samantha Smith claims she received an “interrogation” by West Mercia Police on her doorstep following her appearance on GB News last week.

Samantha spoke out on the Mark Steyn Show last Monday and criticised the police’s handling of the scandal.

Forty-eight hours later Ms Smith was visited by officers at her home.

Revealing what happened in a new interview with Mark Steyn, she told GB News on Monday: “It felt like I was a criminal being interrogated on my own front doorstep. A part of me thought I was going to be arrested.”

The officers told Ms Smith they had knocked on the doors of all of her old addresses before eventually finding her.

She added: “I felt pressured to agree to a police interview, although they gave me very little information about the subject of their inquiry. I wondered why they couldn’t have just given me a call or sent me an email.”

Ms Smith has dealt with West Mercia Police in the past for her own case of child sexual abuse but the constabulary declared no further action in 2020.

In 2018, the Daily Mirror reported that up to 1,000 girls had been groomed in Telford with some even being murdered and incidents dating back to the 1970s.

However, in response to the claims, Telford’s then police chief, Superintendent Tom Harding, said the reports were “sensationalised” and that the “child sexual exploitation will be taking place all over the country, and Telford is not different to anywhere else.”

Local MP Lucy Allen demanded a public enquiry into grooming in Telford which is due to be released tomorrow after a number of delays.

She has stated it’s likely to contain similar failures revealed in other reports which include local councils and constabularies denying the scale of the problem: “All too often those in power, cannot see that the culture and attitude of their own organisations play a huge role in the failure to identify these horrendous crimes and failure to support victims”.

Commenting on what West Mercia Constabulary’s attitude towards child sex crimes, Samatha added: “Women and girls were ignored for decades by WMP, it’s ironic that they are pretending to care about the victims now…The problem to them seems to be less that child sex crimes are going on in Telford, but more that people are speaking out about them”.

Having been failed by the force in the past she feels “they’re only proactive when their reputation is on the line”.

A West Mercia Police spokesperson said: “We are absolutely committed to ensuring anyone who has information about child sexual exploitation has the opportunity to be able to speak to us about this, the information we receive from our local communities is absolutely crucial in helping us tackle the issue.

“When we become aware that someone may be able to help in our efforts to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect people from harm we will proactively reach out to them. We recognise that not everyone will want to speak to the police, however, we want to ensure they are aware we will listen to them if they do.”