Katie Hopkins took to Twitter on Sunday to comment on the likelihood that soon-to-be princess Meghan Markle will become pregnant shortly after marrying Prince Harry - but chose to do so in a typically controversial manner.
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Her Telford hashtag was a reference to claims that hundreds of girls may have been sexually abused by grooming gangs in the Shropshire town.
This week, the town's MP, Lucy Allan, told the BBC she had been 'inundated' with reports after speaking to Parliament about the issue.
Hopkins' comments were heavily criticised, particularly as they were posted on Child Sexual Exploitation Awareness Day.
Conservative MP Lucy Allan asked Hopkins to take down the tweet, labelling it 'vile' and saying that it showed a lack of 'respect for victims'.
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Hopkins replied, saying, "Be outraged @lucyallan - I don't give a damn what 'day' you say it is. It's another day where our daughters are gang raped by majority Pakistani men. Get off @Twitter Get us out patrolling streets, walking our girls home, educating children. We are all complicit. #TelfordGirls."
When taken to task by a Telford resident, Hopkins claimed the town's citizens had not done enough to prevent sexual abuse in their town, criticising them for being 'on TWITTER'.
In fact, Hopkins' post has caused so much controversy that people have even started a petition to have the media motormouth banned from Twitter.
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Last year, the Guardian reported that cases of child sexual abuse in the UK had risen by almost a third, according to NSPCC figured. However, the charity stressed that the statistics showed a greater willingness among the public to report sexual abuse, which would likely have been ignored or suppressed in previous generations.
Last year, the NSPCC and the Professor Richard Wortley of the Jill Dando Institute issued a plan-based approach to preventing child sexual abuse.
It included 'working with offenders' once they'd been caught or reducing the likelihood of offences by working with 'at risk-groups' to minimise the likelihood of offending.
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It also recommended situational prevention, highlighting abuse of football players by coaches and how to introduced better 'protocols' to prevent abuse.
Furthermore, Wortley's guidelines noted that many cases of child sexual abuse take place in the home and highlighted signs that parents can learn to ensure their children are in a safe environment.
And while he noted that historic concept of child sexual abusers as a 'predatory subsection of the community,' Wortley noted that abuse also happens in areas of society 'we view as normal' and recommended we look at locations where we see 'repeat offending' throughout society.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Social Media, Twitter, Katie Hopkins, Meghan Markle
