Shahmeel Khan’s victim – a teenager at the time she was raped – welcomes the decision to keep him locked up, 14 years after he was jailed in a huge Telford grooming gang investigation
A rape victim has told of her relief after hearing her sex gang attacker must stay locked up despite finishing his sentence.
Shahmeel Khan, 37, has been inside for 14 years for repeatedly raping an A-level student and armed robbery. The teenager was one of over 1,000 girls exploited by mainly Asian paedophiles in Telford, Shropshire, in a scandal exposed by the Sunday Mirror.
Last night she said a decision to block Khan’s move to an open prison was a “huge weight off my shoulders”. Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood vetoed a Parole Board recommendation because of public safety fears and his drug abuse.
After reading the Parole Board report on Khan, victim Kate Elysia said: “I couldn’t see anything that showed he understood his sexual offences. I was also really unimpressed that two witnesses had suggested he wasn’t safe to be released but that he should be in open conditions so that he could be ‘tested’.
“So they are literally ready to gamble with his risk of sex offending. I thought that was disgraceful, dangerous risk-taking on their part. I’ve always remained aware of how dangerous that man was, those risks don’t go away.”
Khan was convicted under West Mercia Police ’s Operation Chalice which led to a handful of convictions of Telford sex gang members before being wound up to save money. In 2018 we exposed his father Shahzad ‘Keith’ Khan as a paedophile who abused girls in the town over four decades.
The Parole Board recommended Khan junior’s transfer to open conditions in April after hearing from two witnesses who suggested the move despite concerns about his drug intake because he was “unlikely to abscond”. April’s review was the third by the Parole Board since 2015, meaning he has spent another 10 years inside for public protection since he was first eligible for release.
At the time of his offending, Khan was said to be violent, controlling and “unable to manage strong emotions”. Khan had been moved to an open prison in June 2021 but “was returned to the closed estate after one month due to concerns about comments to a member of staff”.
Kate – not her real name – helped police jail him and other abusers and has written a book called The Patchwork Girl which is due out in January. But she revealed that she no longer has the right to be told about Khan’s future release because he has now served the 10 years he received for raping her.
The Probation Service told her: “Unfortunately, once the sentence relating to you has ended, we do not have a legal basis under which the Probation Service’s Victim Contact Scheme can continue to provide you with information for SK. I therefore regret to inform you that this means our contact, regarding SK, will end on 18 June.”
Kate said: “No rights really angered me. No right to stable mental health. No right to a normal life without having to look over my shoulder. No right to feeling safe in my home or community. It’s not just about right it’s about risk. Risk to me. Risk to my family. Risk to my children. Risk to the public. If they control what information I am allowed to know legally then the law has put him, the dangerous offender, the one in control.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “Public protection is our number one priority which is why the Lord Chancellor has blocked Shahmeel Khan’s transfer to an open prison.” A government review last week found that child victims of rape gangs in towns like Telford were let down by the system for decades.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced a national inquiry which is due to take around three years. More than 1,000 dropped child sex abuse cases are expected to be re-investigated by police.
