diff --git a/phpBB/docs/CHANGELOG.html b/phpBB/docs/CHANGELOG.html
index a92ed8124d..9cef67cd72 100644
--- a/phpBB/docs/CHANGELOG.html
+++ b/phpBB/docs/CHANGELOG.html
@@ -219,6 +219,7 @@ p a {
 		<li>[Fix] Consider viewonline permission when viewing friends/foes (Bug #12955)</li>
 		<li>[Fix] Added proper unicode support to ban reasons (Bug #12947)</li>
 		<li>[Fix] The forum/topic sync code now recognizes other ways that the latest post in a topic can be expressed (Bug #12947) - patch provided by APTX</li>
+		<li>[Fix] Topic deletion via the user post deletion mechanism did not take into account statistics for forums that hold shadow topics (Bug #12981)</li>
 
 	</ul>
 
diff --git a/phpBB/includes/functions_posting.php b/phpBB/includes/functions_posting.php
index 0f15f5b604..21b2677483 100644
--- a/phpBB/includes/functions_posting.php
+++ b/phpBB/includes/functions_posting.php
@@ -1315,6 +1315,29 @@ function delete_post($forum_id, $topic_id, $post_id, &$data)
 
 	$db->sql_transaction('begin');
 
+	// we must make sure to update forums that contain the shadow'd topic
+	if ($post_mode == 'delete_topic')
+	{
+		$shadow_forum_ids = array();
+
+		$sql = 'SELECT forum_id
+			FROM ' . TOPICS_TABLE . '
+			WHERE ' . $db->sql_in_set('topic_moved_id', $topic_id);
+		$result = $db->sql_query($sql);
+		while ($row = $db->sql_fetchrow($result))
+		{
+			if (!isset($shadow_forum_ids[(int) $row['forum_id']]))
+			{
+				$shadow_forum_ids[(int) $row['forum_id']] = 1;
+			}
+			else
+			{
+				$shadow_forum_ids[(int) $row['forum_id']]++;
+			}
+		}
+		$db->sql_freeresult($result);
+	}
+
 	if (!delete_posts('post_id', array($post_id), false, false))
 	{
 		// Try to delete topic, we may had an previous error causing inconsistency
@@ -1332,6 +1355,15 @@ function delete_post($forum_id, $topic_id, $post_id, &$data)
 	switch ($post_mode)
 	{
 		case 'delete_topic':
+
+			foreach ($shadow_forum_ids as $updated_forum => $topic_count)
+			{
+				// counting is fun! we only have to do sizeof($forum_ids) number of queries,
+				// even if the topic is moved back to where its shadow lives (we count how many times it is in a forum)
+				$db->sql_query('UPDATE ' . FORUMS_TABLE . ' SET forum_topics_real = forum_topics_real - ' . $topic_count . ', forum_topics = forum_topics - ' . $topic_count . ' WHERE forum_id = ' . $updated_forum);
+				update_post_information('forum', $updated_forum);
+			}
+
 			delete_topics('topic_id', array($topic_id), false);
 
 			if ($data['topic_type'] != POST_GLOBAL)