Category Archives: sexual abuse

The net begins to close on the Westminster paedophile ring

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As the child  sex abuse inquiry starts to take soundings from survivors a very serious development has happened for those who hoped to keep the Westminster paedophile ring dead and buried forever.

A brave survivor who has never talked to the police decided to take his courage in his hands and talk to the Met about his horrendous experiences in Dolphin Square where sexual abuse of young boys is alleged to have been combined with sadistic practices.

The survivor who has been given the name ” Nick” to protect his identity. The full story by my colleagues on Exaro was published last weekend in both the Sunday People. You can both read it in full and hear an interview with  him by editor Mark Watts  and my colleague Mark Conrad on the Exaro website.

Suffice to say they have been rumours of dark events at Dolphin Square, used for years as London flats for MPs of all parties but no one has ever testified to the police on what they alleged had happened to them.

He told Exaro that officers “are very serious” about investigating his allegations that two former Conservative MPs – including an ex-cabinet minister – and other VIPs sexually abused him as a boy at Dolphin Square and other locations.

Nick told of how the two well-known politicians raped and physically beat him after he was forced to drink alcohol. He recalled that he was taken to Dolphin Square around 10 times, from the age 11, over a period of two to three years either side of 1980.

Interestingly he also recognised the address that used to be Elm Guest House in Barnes – where the criminal investigation Operation Fernbridge began- as he place where other boys were dropped off – even though he was never abused there. This suggests there is a connection between the notorious guest house and Dolphin Square.

He is not the only person who has made allegations to Exaro about Dolphin Square but there are also other boys who must still be alive today who may also know  what happened to them there.

Given that there is now an inquiry with a remit to look at how well police investigations are conducted it is to be hoped that this time the Met will be given the time and resources to thoroughly investigate the matter. Just as Theresa May, the home secretary, has described the child abuse inquiry as a ” once in a generation ” opportunity to lay this matters to rest it is to be hoped that senior people in the Met will take their cue from her and decide they have a ” once in a generation ” opportunity to investigate  and clear up a matter that has been the subject of Westminster rumour and speculation for decades.

Child Sex Abuse Inquiry Debacle: Why it is important where we go next

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Today (mon) home secretary Theresa May, will face a barrage of criticism in Parliament for her office’s failure to twice find a suitable person to chair the much needed historic child sex abuse inquiry

Losing not one chair but  two – Baroness Butler Sloss and Fiona Woolf – because of potential conflicts of interest in a matter of weeks smacks of real incompetence by a department that should know better. it also caused severe embarrassment both to the people appointed and to the home secretary herself.

But I hope today is seen not just as an opportunity for ” yah boo” politics between Labour and the Tories but for a more reflective discussion of how we got here and what is needed to put it right.

What cannot be denied is that the home secretary did not entirely fulfil what she promised the ” magnificent seven ” MPs requested in drawing up the panel. True she did take on board their request for survivors on the panel – appointing two – Graham Wilmer, who runs the Lantern Project and Sharon Evans,  a former TV  presenter who runs a children’s charity.

But there – as far as I can find out – been no through consultation over the appointment of the two chairs of the panel involving the MPs – and there has also, to my surprise, been no internal consultation inside the home office. Frankly they should also have asked survivors groups BEFORE not AFTER the appointments.

It is probably not well-known but the home office has its own very small unit which can advise on the setting up of independent panels, who is appointed to them, and can interview suitable people to sit on them – or at least advise newly appointed secretaries to inquiries set up by other ministries on how to get going.

I understand this body was never consulted yet it can claim a track record of success. Its biggest achievement has been the Hillsborough Inquiry into the tragic deaths of Liverpool fans where it got a chairman, now the former bishop of Liverpool, to preside. None of those families of the fans would now say it didn’t get to the bottom of a grave injustice hidden for years.

Yet child abuse survivors might be surprised to know that it got the information without any statutory powers by ruthlessly pursuing the evidence and cajoling reluctant authorities to hand over  the information, including stuff that is now landing the South Yorkshire Constabulary in dire trouble.

It did have one duty  – and only one duty – to tell the families who lost loved ones at Hillsborough Stadium first what it had found out. Once it had done this it published everything as fact – and set up of a train of events – now being shown by the inquest into Hillsborough.

It is also responsible for the current Daniel Morgan murder inquiry – where I suspect but do not know the same tussle is probably going on now.

Now many of the survivors seem to want a statutory inquiry which can compel people to attend, give information,  force people to confess to crimes, with grand public hearings and a very detailed terms of reference. Be careful what you wish for.

Superficially it sounds great but there are drawbacks to this approach. Terms of reference need to be nebulous rather than specific so the panel cannot be stopped following the facts wherever it takes them – and given the wide sweep of institutions involved it needs to go to places we may not have even thought about.

Second yes statutory power sound great but there is one drawback – I am told it allows lawyers representing anybody or organisation accused by survivors to demand the status of ” an interested party”. That means anything you tell them could go straight back to their lawyers before the inquiry even reports.

If it is non statutory there is no obligation whatever to tell them anything – and their lawyers have no right to find out.

If it follows what happened in Hillsborough and in Daniel Morgan – the families are centre stage. In this case, it means the survivors are centre stage – the panel is obliged to you, you are not obliged to the panel. This means you will know first what the findings are – not the armed forces, the security services, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the councils, the police, schools or any other body that allowed you to be abused.

Finally I hope the panel can tell you whether they have obtained a freezing  or preservation order on all documents listing evidence or allegations of child sexual abuse. Whitehall permanent secretaries have a superb meeting and network facility – and could send out letters now banning the destruction of all documents. I would expect the Church of England – after Archbishop Welby’s words last week to do the same.

And as for a chair – whoever is appointed faces the risk of ” guilty by association ” if they worked in any organisation because of the widespread nature of child sexual abuse. It just depends on how guilty the association is and the Home Office needs to do a  better job of finding this out.

The Archbishop admits it: sexual abuse rampant in Britain

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Today my colleague Tim Wood reveals the full details of a recent private letter from Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to Marilyn Hawes,the Hertfordshire mother of three boys sexually abused at a Church of England school more than a decade ago.

The contents will confirm what everybody connected with following the child sexual abuse scandal as it has been developing, knows – that child sexual abuse has been rampant, as he puts it, across institutions in Britain.

As Tim discloses in his article on the Exaro website and in the Sunday Times the Archbishop – who is known to see this as a major problem in society – does not mince his words.

“It is now clear that in a huge number of institutions and localities, the abuse of children and vulnerable adults has been rampant. That is not in any way mitigation or excuse for the church, but is why I have been, with Paul Butler,( The Bishop of Durham) pushing for the public inquiry that the government has promised.”

“It is also clear that there is a very significant legacy of unacknowledged cases in the Church of England. We are taking all necessary steps to face these.”

The mother’s tale is very familiar to many – first denial, then being shunned, and  then receiving a brush off at the top of the Church of England until now. At least the perpetrator in  this case, a music teacher, was caught and jailed.

The tragedy of this case comes as Theresa May, the home secretary, has reluctantly finally agreed to set up an overarching child sex abuse inquiry into historic and current abuse.

Unfortunately just as something good was about to happen – after heroic efforts by MPs of almost all parties – the inquiry has now become mired in a row over the appointment of its chair, Fiona Woolf, the Mayor of the City of London. Her links with Leon Brittan, who is likely to be one of the witnesses because of documents detailing VIP abuse disappearing in the past and under his watch as home secretary in the 1980s, appear not to have been properly investigated.

Normally people could celebrate the government tasking some action to find out what has been a hidden scandal in this country for decades. But they can’t until this mess over the inquiry is sorted out.

 

 

 

Is the Church of England getting the message on child sex abuse survivors?

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Justin Welby: Is the church getting the message?

Justin Welby: Is the church getting the message?

Whisper it not too loudly but is the Church of England finally getting the message that it needs to fundamentally change its attitude to child sex abuse survivors?

Nearly two years ago the then new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby,issued warm words and an apology for all the harm the church had done to people by its priests. He was also pressing before the government finally agreed for an overarching inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Now there are going to be new laws to ensure that training of everyone from a vicar to a bishop in safeguarding, the scrapping of time limits in bringing child sex abuse cases and looking at the funding of help for survivors.

As I report on the Exaro website

The CoE is also to change canon law to make bishops accountable for the safeguarding of children in their diocese for the first time since it broke away from the Roman Catholic church during the reign of King Henry VIII. The changes mark what one expert called a wholesale “re-writing” of the CoE’s policy towards safeguarding children in the wake of scandals over paedophile priests.

One spokesman from the Church said :“These measures are part of wider approach by the church based on what the survivors of sexual abuse want us to do. The whole impetus is on tackling the problem from the survivor’s point of view.”

All this is good progress in the right direction. But much will depend how it is enacted. Often directives from the top are not implemented by people on the ground. People must make sure that they are or otherwise it will not work and we could do without more public relations exercises.

The Church of England’s approach is not being replicated by the Roman Catholics as the recent stories about the Salesian Order revealed- with the appalling Salesian response to further examples of historic child sex abuse exposed by the police after Graham Wilmer, a survivor and now a member of the independent panel into child sexual abuse revealed them in his new book The Devil’s Advocate.

The next few months will be  telling for the Church and the independent inquiry.

 

Banned by the British courts: A VIP’s book on how he was sexually abused

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In an era when child sexual abuse is literally coming out of the closet, an extraordinary decision has been taken by a British court to ban a book from an eminent performing artist on how he survived abuse as a child.

A judge has upheld an injunction bought by the man’s son to avoid publication on the grounds it would cause psychological damage to his son if the public knew about his father’s early life at school.

I am indebted to the excellent Inforrm blog for this story.You can read the full report by Dan Tench, a lawyer from Olswang, here.

The book was described in court as Inforrm reports as bringing together these terrible experiences “in an artistic and insightful way” and to be in “striking prose” and, it was said, contained “an important message of encouragement to those who have suffered similar abuse to speak about their past”.

But the man had a son by a marriage now dissolved.  That son lived abroad (in a country quaintly termed “Ruritania” in the judgment) with his mother.  The son suffered from a combination of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger’s, Dysgraphia and Dyspraxia.  Two psychologists said that the publication of the book revealing such details of his father would be likely to “exert a catastrophic effect on [his] self-esteem and to cause him enduring psychological harm”.

The injunction was granted by Lady Justice Arden using a bizarre piece of English law. As Dan Tench reports that:

“the publication of the book would be contrary to the tort of intentionally inflicting mental suffering as originally established in Wilkinson v Downton [1897] QB 57.  Amazingly, this ground was sufficient for the boy to secure his injunction.

Wilkinson v Downton is a legal curiosity well-known to legal students.  In it, a man as a practical joke had told a woman that her husband had had a serious accident.  She had responded badly to the information and had suffered nervous shock.  She was entitled to recover compensation for the psychological damage.  It appears to remain good law, albeit rather rarely used.”

To fit the bill Lady Justice Arden decided this should apply if the claim was true rather than false and that because of the internet the boy could read it. As she put it : “the relevant information was disseminated to the world at large, provided there was a risk that it would be received by the boy (he was said to be “computer savvy” and may read it via the Internet). ”

Finally the argument was used, among others, that the boy might visit London and be able to see a copy of the book.

Dan Tench concludes “The judgement is perhaps best seen as simply a rogue decision which hopefully will be quickly put out of its misery by the Supreme Court.  But if not, we have a precedent binding on the courts of first instance and the Court of Appeal which will cause all manner of difficulties.”

I would go much further. To my mind to ban a book using case law based on practical jokers to stop someone writing about child sexual abuse is a sick joke in itself. I hope this outrageous ban is lifted as soon as possible.

Update: Today the Telegraph reports that a group of eminent authors including William Boyd and sir Tom Stoppard have objected to the ban.

 

Met Police chief moved out of child sex abuse investigation

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Detective Chief Inspector Paul Settle, the head of the paedophile unit, has been taken off  Operation Fernbridge, the  historic sex abuse investigation centred on Elm Guest House in Barnes and the London borough of Richmond’s children’s services.

A report by  my colleagues on Exaro news reveals that this appears to be part of a  shake up of police operations in the badly staffed paedophile unit which has now seen the number of officers investigating cases rise from seven to twenty two.

Reports suggest he is on sick leave as the operation has come under pressure after two MPs complained about the way it had handled one case and also how much information it gave to the Crown prosecution Service over another case. These two disclosures on Exaro led in the latter case to the reinstatement of charges against one of the people facing a trial next February on alleged sexual abuse in Richmond.

A detective sergeant in the paedophile unit, which is based in the Empress State Building in Earl’s Court, west London, has taken over the Met’s investigations into historical allegations against MPs and other VIPs. These include ‘Operation Fernbridge’, which was sparked by Exaro and began nearly two years ago – amid strict secrecy – with an investigation into activities at Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London.

The investigations also cover ‘Operation Cayacos’, which is looking into claims of a paedophile ring linked to politicians after Tom Watson, Labour MP, raised the issue in Parliament.

All these changes suggest the Met is facing a tough time handling these cases at the moment.

Before Settle was appointed to the paedophile unit, he had been a staff officer to John Yates, who oversaw one of the operations revisiting the murder of private investigator, Daniel Morgan and headed the “cash for honours” investigation into the Labour administration under Tony Blair.

Settle, then a detective sergeant, was also an investigating officer on  Operation Abelard II, which probed the axe murder of Daniel Morgan. The handling of the murder case by the police and press is now being investigated by an independent panel set up by the Home Office.

The Met are declining to comment about the move of Settle from the paedophile unit investigation.

 

” Oh my God” – Gove’s reaction to the prolific paedophile Salesian priest

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Michael Gove: shock and awe at revelation at school he declined inquiry

Michael Gove: shock and awe at revelation at school he declined inquiry

Graham Wilmer’s new book The Devil’s Advocate reveals an amazing tussle he had with the Department for Education over trying to get them to consider an inquiry into the running of the Salesian schools as the Met Police Operation Torva was uncovering growing evidence of pedophilia in their order.

A report on the Exaro website reveals the full details of a row between the ministry and Graham Wilmer, who is now a member of Theresa May’s independent panel into national child sexual abuse.

Wilmer says that he “had written several times” to Gove to investigate the Salesian order, which runs several schools in the UK. Wilmer is director of the Lantern Project, a charity that supports CSA victims.

Wilmer writes, “He [Gove] did not respond initially, but one of his officials did, telling me that, while she was ‘saddened to hear what had happened to me’, they were not going to investigate because ‘it was too long ago.’

Eventually he got a letter from Edward Timpson, the children’s minister saying:

“Departmental officials have written to Mr Wilmer a number of times to explain that the secretary of state’s powers in this area are extremely limited.

“The investigation of allegations of abuse is a matter for the local police force, and it is not within the secretary of state’s powers to run a parallel investigation.

“I think that it would also, legal issues aside, be counter-productive and unhelpful. We need to see the outcome of any police investigation before concluding that the department can or should take action.”

Well as my previous blog discloses we now have a finding from the police exposing Father Terence O’Brien, being a prolific paedophile over many years.

So taking the opportunity of being at the Conservative conference I bumped into Michael Gove in a hotel corridor. I put it to him that the police investigation was now completed and they had discovered a prolific paedophile at the Salesian college in Battersea who died in the year 2000

Gove’s reaction was ” Oh my God” but before I could question him further he was hustled away by his minders who informed me he was already late for a meeting.

I have a feeling that this will not be the end of the story. the ministry claims it has few powers to investigate schools and was obviously not keen to do so.

This sounds very much like a matter that will have to be taken up by the inquiry.

Exposed: The sick priest who posed as a psychotherapist to abuse children

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Psychotherapists are key people to help disturbed people and child sex abuse victims. There is probably no viler misuse of the profession than to masquerade as one to sexually abuse children.

Yet this is what Father Terence O’Brien did again and again at one of the country’s top Roman Catholic Salesian schools in Battersea, south London according to a  Met police investigation report obtained by Exaro.

The details are available in a new book The Devil’s Advocate: Child Abuse and the Men in Black by Graham Wilmer, a sex abuse victim, who runs the Lantern Project in the Wirral to help survivors and is now a member of the new national inquiry into child sexual abuse set up by Theresa May, the home secretary. You can buy his book here and all the profits go to fund his project.

He describes O’Brien as the Salesian order equivalent  to Jimmy Savile- a prolific paedophile- who died in 2000 but got away with it for years. You read the full story on the Exaro website.

But to give  you an idea of just how vile he is – here is an extract from the police report ( look away now if you are of a sensitive disposition) :

“Fr. O’Brien was a prolific paedophile, who would subject children to strip naked and be massaged, masturbated and physically penetrated, under the pretext that they were being rid of bad spirits that made them behave badly. The children were brought to Fr O’Brien by their parents in the belief that he was a child psychotherapist, and could treat them for their behaviour.

“This abuse was practised on children on a weekly basis, sometimes for years. The victims were instructed never to inform anyone of their treatment, or it would not work.

“Fr O’Brien was not a psychotherapist at all, yet he was allowed to practice his trade upon the grounds of the Salesian school without question, on a regular basis.”

Now you might have thought the Salesian order which runs this reputable school would want to make amends for such damning police findings. But this is their response:

“Fr O’Brien did not at any time work from or in the Salesian College in Battersea . He did occupy Salesian property in Battersea but this was not on the school site nor was it part of the school. At no time did he conduct any of his practice from any Salesian school.

 “Fr O’Brien is a subject of Operation Torva, the inquiry being carried out by the Metropolitan Police. We are cooperating fully with the police in their inquiry and unable to comment further beyond saying that there were no allegations concerning Fr O’Brien until the late 1980s and 1990s and allegations were dealt with by the police.

  “In accordance with the Safeguarding policy of the Catholic Church, we do not investigate any allegation of offences against Children. These are passed to the Police.

 The Salesians will, of course, cooperate fully with the forthcoming government inquiry if they are required to do so.”

After further checks I am told the house actually adjoined the school. So the main concern of the Salesians is that Father O’Brien employed as a priest and teacher by the Salesians used a house next door to the school to carry out these vile acts on pupils and children ( both boys and girls) . So it is all right as  it didn’t happen technically  to be on school premises. And they won’t co-operate with the inquiry unless required.

If ever there was a need for this new national inquiry – this is it. Their attitude to this is both sickening and perverse.

 

Grant Shapps Tories defend the man who gave Jimmy Savile the keys to Broadmoor

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While  Tory chairman Grant Shapps presides over the party conference in Birmingham – attacking Tory defector to UKIP Mark Reckless- an extraordinary event is going on in his own constituency, Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

John Dean, the leader of the Tory Welwyn Hatfield council and a prominent member of his constituency party is on record defending Alan Franey, his deputy leader of the authority – better known now as the former general manager of Broadmoor who gave Jimmy Savile free range in the facility. Franey had known Savile for 20 years.

Political Scrapbook which broke the story on the net have given me permission to reproduce the tale disclosed originally by the Welwyn Hatfield Times but surprisingly not put on the internet.

Mr Franey is definitely a big cheese in the Tories with a Cabinet job controlling the authority’s spending and a close relationship with Hertfordshire police. It beggars belief that nothing has been done about this given the disclosures following Savile’s exposure as a paedophile  – and I am told he  will survive the no confidence motion  tabled by Labour because of the huge majority the Tories enjoy on the council.

This is Political Scrapbook’s report:

A political ally of Tory chairman Grant Shapps is under pressure to resign over allegations linking him to the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal.  The relationship between Savile and Alan Franey — now the deputy leader of Shapps’ local council and a police and crime panel member — was the subject of harsh scrutiny by an official NHS investigation.

The Welwyn Hatfield Times reports that Cllr Franey will now face a no confidence vote from colleagues on Monday.

With paedophile Savile enjoying unfettered access to Broadmoor Hospital in the 1980s,a running partner, Cllr Franey, was appointed as the general manager of the facility in 1988 — apparently at the insistence of Savile. Witnesses told investigators about closeness between the pair, with Franey asking for “the godfather” when he regularly rang Stoke Mandeville hospital to speak with the TV presenter.

Franey — who strongly denies any wrongdoing and claims he has been made a “scapegoat”, is mentioned no less than 86 times in the official report into the Broadmoor abuse.

According to the report, Savile was fond of invoking his relationship with Franey and other “people in high places” in conversation with hospital staff.  Interviewees also told the inquiry that Franey was “seen as having authorised” Savile’s “unrestricted access to secure and clinical areas of the hospital”.

One health executive told investigators that Franey had told him Savile had “a little secret … a liking for young girls, the younger the better”, a claim strongly denied by Cllr Franey, who also denies that any complaints about Savile reached him.

The report raises allegations about Franey’s personal conduct, such as concurrent affairs with female staff, which may have given Savile and others leverage over the health chief. Again, Franey denies the claims:

“Widespread stories about [Cllr Franey’s] personal conduct circulated within the hospital and outside it, damaging his stature and credibility and hampering his ability to lead improvement”

The report then cites a particular incident in which a nurse was sacked for having “had a sexual relationship with a female patient”:

“she lodged an industrial tribunal case, at which she threatened to make public embarrassing revelations about the hospital’s management. Documents from the time show that this was believed to include allegations about Franey’s personal conduct, involving herself and other members of staff.

But investigators couldn’t find anyone who could explain why the nurse withdrew her claim, suggesting that “an irregular payment” may have been made and noting that the nurse“was, like Savile, a close associate of Franey’s”.

 

Survivors speak: Fiona Woolf must declare how well she knows Leon Brittan

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The remarkably busy Lord Mayor of London, Fiona Woolf, needs to come clean about her links to former home secretary Leon Brittan, according to a number of child abuse survivors who have contacted Exaro.

They want the newly appointed chairman of the inquiry – who is yet to chair her first meeting –  to explain exactly how much contact she had with the Brittans.

A report by my colleagues Mark Conrad and Tim  Wood  on Exaro highlights the concern by survivors -particularly among those involved in an alleged Westminster paedophile ring.

Two witnesses who gave accounts to Exaro of how MPs and other VIPs sexually abused them and other children at a series of parties at Dolphin Square, a residential block close to Parliament, expressed deep unease about Woolf’s appointment.

One said: “I would like to see a full and transparent statement from Fiona Woolf as to her links, and why survivors should have confidence in her ability to chair this inquiry.”

The concern about Brittan centres round the disappearance of a dossier submitted to him by former Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Dickens, allegedly naming VIP paedophiles.

Once again this seems to emphasise the need for Fiona Woolf to clear matters up  so that survivors have confidence in the inquiry.