North Wales child abuse scandal

The North Wales child abuse scandal was the subject of a three-year, £13 million investigation into the physical and sexual abuse of children in care homes in the counties of Clwyd and Gwynedd, in North Wales, including the Bryn Estyn children's home at Wrexham, between 1974 and 1990. The report into the scandal, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, which was published in 2000, resulted in changes in policy in England and Wales into how authorities deal with children in care, and to the settling of 140 compensation claims on behalf of victims of abuse.

In November 2012, new allegations led to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announcing that a senior independent figure, later named as Mrs Justice Julia Macur, would examine the conduct and remit of the Waterhouse Inquiry. In addition, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced a new police inquiry into how the original allegations were dealt with, as well as investigating any new allegations. The broadcasting of false allegations on Newsnight on 2 November led to the resignation of the Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, eight days later.

Background

In common with local government practise of the time, the two major councils in North Wales - Clwyd and Gwynedd - had a series of council owned alongside privately owned and operated childrens homes, to provide rsidential childrens care in line with the guidelines provided by both the Welsh Office and Westinster Government. Homes and facilities in the region included:

• Clwyd
  • Council owned: Bryn Estyn; Cartrefle; Little Acton Assessment Centre; Bersham Hall; Chevet Hey; Park House; Upper Downing; South Meadow; Ysgol Talfryn
  • Privately owned: Bryn Alyn; Ystrad Hall School; Clwyd Hall School; Gatewen Hall; Tanllwyfan
• Gwynedd
  • Council owned: Queens Park ; Ty'r Felin; Ty Newydd; Cartref Bontnewydd
  • Privately owned: Do'l Rhyd School and Ysgol Hengwrt
• NHS facilities: Gwynfa Residential Unit (Psychiatric hospital for children)

Initial reports of abuse

From 1974 to 1990, a series of incidents of child abuse occured within the North Wales childrens homes. Initial reports which did not appear in public included:

• 1979: Intternal investigation of reports against Gary Cooke and Graham Stephens) in 1979.
• September 1986: Residents of Ysgol Hengwrt, to the council. These reports eventually were raised to the Welsh Office's attention
• 1988: The then Spastics Society against the care regieme of Hengwrt Hall, to the council

Alison Taylor: allegations, dismissal and publication

In the mid-1980's Alison Taylor, a residential care worker and then manager of a childrens home in Gwynedd, began hearing stories from children coming to her home from across Clwyd and Gwynedd about a series of child sexual and abuse incidents in various care homes. On investigation, she found that several reports of these incidents had been made by both care and social workers, but that no proecdural or disciplinary action had so far been taken as a result.

Taylor made a series of allegations against senior social care professionals working for the authority, from the head of childrens services Nefyn Dodd and downwards, which she raised with her superiors at the council, but again no action was taken. Taylor then reprted her allegation to North Wales Police in 1986. The council responded to her allegation by suspending Taylor, alleging that there had been a "breakdown in communications" between Taylor and her colleagues.

On two subsequent occasions, the council offered Taylor a financial termination agreement, subject to her signing a confidentiality agreement. After refusing to sign the confidentiality agreement, taylor was dismissed. With the help of her Trade Union, Taylor took the council to an industrial tribunal, which was quickly closed after the parties came to an out of court financial settlement. Taylor accepted the agreement in September 1989, which did not included an associated confidentiality agreement.

In the later Waterhouse Inquiry, Sir Ronald Waterhosue publicly and in his subsequent report completely vindicated Taylor.

Initial public investigations

After agreement had been reached with the council, Taylor went to the local, Welsh and UK national media with her allegations. In these reports, Taylor made further allegations about Bryn Estyn care home in Wrexham, which had been run until its closure in 1984 by Clwyd County Council.

In 1990, an investigation was undertaken by Detective Inspector Cronin of North Wales Police into allegations of sexual abuse at Cartrefle. Later reports found that Cronin undertook a thorougher investigation to the best of his efforts, but that the investiagtion was restricted by a lack of co-operation by Childrens Services and Social Services. Cronin's report, which found insufficent evidence to undertake a successful prosecution, was subsequently submitted to the council and became known as the Cartrefle Report.

Taylor continued her media campaign, discovering that more than ten reports of child abuse had been made to both councils before she had raised her concerns. Approached by other former and current residents and care workers with additional allegations, in 1991 Taylor compiled a dossier of allegations from over 100 young people which she submitted to North Wales Police, and copied to the council and Welsh Office. Only the police took any action, but were again not given co-operation by the council's social services team.

Prompted by the Welsh Office and with the support of local politicians, the newly appointed Director of Social Services in Clwyd found several instances of previous allegations uncovered by previous council investigations, which had either not been properly investigated or where reports calling for action had been ignored.

The wider matter of child sexual abuse was then referred jointly by both councils to North Wales Police who undertook an inquiry in 1993, taking some 2,600 witness statements, and 300 cases subsequently sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. As a result, seven people were prosecuted and convicted. Six residential social workers were prosecuted for abuse, three of whom had worked at Bryn Estyn. The former deputy head of Bryn Estyn, Peter Howarth, was jailed for 10 years in 1994 for sexually abusing teenage boys; he died in 1997.

Jillings Report

There were then allegations that members of the police force had themselves colluded in covering up allegations. In March 1994 Clwyd County Council commissioned a further inquiry, the Jillings Report, undertaken by a panel headed by John Jillings, a former director of social services with Derbyshire County Council. The panel of Jillings, Professor Jane Tunstall and Gerrilyn Smith met with considerable opposition:

• The then newly appointed North Wales chief constable refused to meet them or help with access to the police major-incident database. This resulted in the need to collect 70 duplicate and additional witness statements, obtained by local councillors and MPs, who included Ann Clwyd the MP for Cynon Valley since 1984.
• 130 boxes of material handed over by the council to the police were not made available to the panel.
• The council did not allow the inquiry to place a notice in the local press seeking information. "This was considered to be unacceptable to the insurers", says the final report.

The Jillings Report stated that allegations involving famous names and paedophile rings were beyond its remit, and something best addressed at a potential later public inquiry. It found a child care system in which physical and sexual violence were common, from beatings and bullying, to indecent assault and rape. Children who complained of abuse were not believed, or were punished for making false allegations. The report stated that the number of children who were abused is not clear, but estimates range up to 200; in the early 1990s, around 150 had sought compensation. At least 12 former residents were found to have died from unnatural causes. The report states that some staff linked to abuse may have been allowed to resign or retire early. The report concludes that its panel members had considered quitting before publication, due to: "...the considerable constraints placed upon us." The final report's appendices included limited copies of the key witness statements taken by North Wales Police during their earlier investigation.

The final report was not published because of concerns over libel, and legal advice and concerns from the council's insurers, Municipal Mutual Insurance, which warned that the report would encourage court cases and compensation claims. The report also states that Municipal Mutual suggested that the then chair of the council's social services committee, Malcolm King, be sacked if he spoke out. In November 2012, King commented:

Because it was suppressed, the lessons of the Jillings report were not learned. It was the exchange of financial safety for the safety of real people. It was one of the most shameful parts of recent history.

It was assumed until November 2012 that all publicly held copies of the Jillings Report had been destroyed, and hence it could not be published. In light of the re-emergence of the scandal that month, one of the few legally held remaining copies was sent to the Children's Commissioner for Wales, Keith Towler.

In November 2012, Anne Clwyd MP called for the legal archive copy of the report to be published, claiming that she was shown a copy in 1994: "I would say please get the Jillings report published because it shows... rape, bestiality, violent assaults and torture, and the effects on those young boys at that time cannot be under-estimated." BBC Wales subsequently spoke to Jillings about Ms Clwyd's claim of bestiality, but Jillings said his report did not unearth any such claims. Jillings also commented that public figures were not among names given by victims, and that: "The people the investigation focussed on, because these were the people that the children spoke to us about, were staff members." Jillings commented to other media:

What we found was horrific and on a significant scale. If the events in children's homes in North Wales were to be translated into a film, Oliver Twist would seem relatively benign. The scale of what happened, and how it was allowed, are a disgrace, and stain on the history of child care in this country.

In November 2012 Flintshire County Council uncovered a copy of the Jillings Report in their archive. The six north Wales councils are now taking legal advice about whether it can be made available under Freedom of Information legislation.

The Waterhouse Inquiry

In 1996, the then Secretary of State for Wales, William Hague, ordered a Tribunal of Inquiry into allegations of hundreds of cases of child abuse in care homes in former county council areas of Clwyd and Gwynedd between 1974 and 1990. Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, a retired High Court judge, was appointed to head the inquiry.

The inquiry began in January 1997. The tribunal sat for 203 days, and heard evidence from more than 650 people. More than 80 people, many of whom were care staff or teachers, were named as child abusers in statements to the inquiry. It was stated to be "the biggest investigation ever held in Britain into allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children who passed through the care system". It ended in 1998 and its findings were published in February 2000, as Lost In Care. The report concluded that widespread sexual abuse of boys, as well as physical abuse and the unacceptable use of force, had occurred in children's homes in Clwyd, and named and criticised almost 200 people, for either abusing children or failing to offer them sufficient protection. It said:

"The evidence before us has disclosed that for many children who were consigned to Bryn Estyn, in the 10 or so years of its existence as a community home, it was a form of purgatory or worse from which they emerged more damaged than when they had entered and for whom the future had become even more bleak."

Although it identified 28 alleged perpetrators, none were named in the report. It found no evidence "to establish that there was a wide-ranging conspiracy involving prominent persons and others with the objective of sexual activity with children in care", but did recognise the existence of a paedophile ring in the Wrexham and Chester area.

The Inquiry made 72 recommendations for changes, constituting a massive overhaul of the way in which children in care are dealt with by local councils, social services and the police. After the report was published, 140 compensation claims were settled on behalf of victims, and a Children's Commissioner for Wales was appointed as a result of one of its recommendations.

The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt

In 2005, the cultural historian Richard Webster published a book, The Secret of Bryn Estyn: The Making of a Modern Witch Hunt, which investigated the scandal. It was highly critical of the Waterhouse Inquiry, argued that abuse scandals could be phenomena created by public hysteria, and reported a number of cases of apparently innocent care workers imprisoned as a consequence of false and unsubstantiated accusations elicited by police trawling operations. Webster also questioned whether some of those claiming abuse had been motivated by the prospect of financial reward. Wrexham Council refused permission for a conference, arranged by Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (F.A.C.T.), a support group, to be held at Bryn Estyn - now renamed the Erlas Centre - in 2005; Webster was to have been the main speaker.

Further allegations and investigations in 2012

On 2 November 2012, following the revelations in the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal, the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight aired an item about the scandal in which one of those who had suffered abuse in the 1980s, Steve Messham, made further allegations that there had been a much wider circle of abusers, including businessmen, members of the police and senior politicians, extending beyond the immediate area to London and beyond. He called for a further investigation to be carried out. The Children's Commissioner for Wales, Keith Towler, supported the call for an inquiry, stating that the remit of the Waterhouse Inquiry had been too narrow.

On 5 November 2012 the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that any new allegations of abuse would be investigated, and announced that a "senior independent figure", later named as Mrs Justice Julia Macur, would be appointed to look urgently into the terms of the original inquiry and whether it was properly constituted. Tom Watson MP called for a wider ranging inquiry, and referred to allegations of abuse by a former Cabinet minister. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, said that "... we should look to make sure that the work that was done in relation to the Waterhouse inquiry did cover everything that it needed to cover." She announced on 6 November that Keith Bristow, the head of the National Crime Agency, would lead an investigation into how old claims of abuse were handled, and at fresh allegations. The investigation would involve the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), and would report by April 2013. The Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, called for a single, overarching public inquiry to be held in order to examine all the recent allegations of child abuse, including those relating to the Jimmy Savile scandal, a call which was supported by former minister Tim Loughton and by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. On 7 November, Ann Clwyd MP called for the 1994 Jillings report to be published.

On 6 November, Channel 4 News reported that Sir Peter Morrison, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher and MP for Chester, who died in 1995, had been 'seen' driving a boy away from the Bryn Estyn home. The Conservative Party said that they were investigating the claims. The Guardian reported that references made to the alleged involvement of another prominent Conservative politician may have been the result of confusion over the identities of two people sharing the same surname. Lord McAlpine subsequently released a statement denying the allegations and describing them as 'seriously defamatory'. A week after the Newsnight programme, on 9 November, the BBC apologised "unreservedly" for its broadcast, after Steve Messham apologised for the mistaken identity. The Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, stated that he had been unaware of the content of the report before it was broadcast, and after further criticism in the media resigned on 10 November.

See also

• Institutional abuse
• BBC controversies

External links

• Department of Health: Report of the Waterhouse Inquiry, Lost in care - links to National Archives browsable webpage copy of report.
• Wrexham Council: a brief chronology of Bryn Estyn, Wrexham, now known as Erlas Centre