Children as young as 11 'sexually abused in High Street mini-marts'

Children as young as 11 are being sexually abused in High Street mini-marts after being groomed with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, a council worker has claimed.

They said reports of the abuse have been raised multiple times between 2016 and 2025 in briefings with members of a child sexual exploitation safeguarding group at Dudley Council in the West Midlands.

And intelligence briefings between 2019 and 2024 saw concerns that children were at risk after being offered drugs, alcohol and cigarettes at mini-marts - with some then being ferried to other locations.

Trading Standards officers said raids at some shops revealed pull-out beds, while a 13-year-old girl was reportedly attacked by a worker who attempted to remove her clothes and drag her to a room above the shop. 

In June 2024, a report was made of an attempt to 'lure a child to a flat' after they were given free cigarettes.

By December 2024, concerns were raised by Trading Standards that children as young as 11 were being 'taken in one pop-up shop to an unknown location via vehicle to collect cigarettes and vapes'.

According to Dudley Trading Standards intelligence, authorities had concerns over child sexual exploitation linked to 11 shops and shopworkers across the borough, the BBC reports.

These include premises in Lye, Stourbridge, Brierley Hill and Dudley itself.

A report from 2023 stated: 'These crime groups in Dudley have links to CSE, drug offences, modern day slavery, and have illegal immigrants working on the premises.' 

By 2024, Trading Standards said that workers in one Stourbridge mini-mart were 'now selling drugs and giving away these illegal goods to children in return for sexual favours'.

Five years previously, a separate case saw a mini-mart worker claim to have offered free cigarettes to schoolgirls for kisses, and sexually assaulted a female PCSO in Wales.

A separate law enforcement source told the corporation they were informed last year that children aged 13-15 were being given vapes from shop workers in return for sex, while raids at some premises revealed 'pull-out beds'.

Along Dudley High Street, the raids by Trading Standards revealed the beds and piles of make-up, while officers who entered the flats above found 'used condoms everywhere', officer Kuldeep Maan said.

One former female mini-mart worker described entering a different shop to buy cigarettes, only to be sexually assaulted.

She said the man attempted to drag her into the toilets in an incident shortly after the pandemic.

Aged 21 at the time, she said she screamed and managed to escape - only to later be propositioned by other workers for sex.

She also said the mother of a 13-year-old girl had told her how her daughter had been attacked at a West Midlands mini-mart.

'She went to buy something… they tried to drag her upstairs,' she said.

'[The man was] touching her up, kissing her, trying to rip her clothes off and everything… she managed to run away.'

Trading Standards are said to be looking at more than 40 people in relation to claims of criminality and child sexual exploitation, including one man who is currently under investigation for rape. 

Meanwhile at one shop alone in Brierly Hill, there were 118 logs of criminal activity including child sexual exploitation. 

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According to the BBC, a spokesperson for West Midlands Police initially said there was 'no evidence to substantiate these claims of child sexual exploitation (CSE) connected to shops in Dudley'.

The force later provided a different statement which removed this and said officers would 'always act on any information we receive'. 

A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: 'We have a robust partnership approach to CSE [child sexual exploitation] and safeguarding in the borough and across the wider West Midlands.

'CSE is a serious crime, so we will always act on any information we receive.

'We regularly meet with partners to discuss any concerns and share any fresh intelligence.

'We have specially trained CSE co-ordinators who act on information and intelligence support a coordinated response. If there are any concerns we always encourage these to be reported so we can investigate further and mitigate any risk.'