WE HAD DRIVEN SLOWLY DOWN THE STREET looking for the house which belonged to one of Telford’s most notorious sex-grooming gang rapists. Based on what my sources had told me, it was probably the house with a flourish of Arabic calligraphy painted near the roofline. I’d got out to have a look on foot while my cameraman and producer parked further up the hilly road and readied the camera. That’s when I noticed the two South Asian men in a car watching me.
Soldiers call their behaviour “dicking”. It’s a term which comes from Northern Ireland, where it was normal for the IRA to have people watching before an attack, giving a signal when the right moment comes. They inched their car around corners to keep an eye on us as we moved about the estate. The man in the passenger seat kept a phone to his ear. There was definitely something off about them.
I decided to take the bull by the horns. I was on my own but there were only two of them and I suspected their menacing glares were unlikely to be matched by threats. I had to hope that whoever was on the other end of that phone
