Tag Archives: corruption

Damning inquiry report reveals 40 years of horrendous child sexual abuse and racism by Lambeth Council in London

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Lambeth Town Hall

The independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse today published its worst ever findings of the scale of child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom. It looks like large numbers of paedophiles got away with the mass sexual abuse of children.

An investigation into Lambeth Council’s children in care revealed that over 700 children had alleged they had been sexually abused and treated as worthless by council staff. And this is certainly an underestimate. The scandal continued from the 1960s right through to the late 1990s.

The report which only looked at five of the council’s closed homes makes incredibly grim reading. The report said:

Cruelty and sexual abuse ” hard to comprehend”

“It is hard to comprehend the cruelty and sexual abuse inflicted on children in the care of Lambeth Council over many years, by staff, by foster carers and their families, and by volunteers in residential settings. With one or two exceptions, a succession of elected members and senior professionals ought to have been held accountable for allowing this to happen, either by their active commission or complicit omission. Lambeth Council was only able to identify one senior Council employee, over the course of 40 years, who was disciplined for their part in this catalogue of sexual abuse.”

It goes on: “By June 2020, Lambeth Council was aware of 705 former residents of three children’s homes in this investigation (Shirley Oaks, South Vale and Angell Road) who have made complaints of sexual abuse. The biggest of these homes – Shirley Oaks – was the subject of allegations against 177 members of staff or individuals connected with the home, involving at least 529 former residents. It was closed in 1983.

“Frontline staff employed to care for these most vulnerable children frequently failed to take action when they knew about sexual abuse. In so many cases they showed little warmth or compassion towards the child victims, who were left to cope with the trauma of their abuse on their own. 

Hostile and abusive treatment of black children

…”There were many black children in Lambeth Council’s care. In Shirley Oaks in 1980, 57 percent of children in its care were black. During 1990 and 1991, 85 percent of children who lived at South Vale were black. Racism was evident in their hostile and abusive treatment by some staff.

” Shirley Oaks and South Vale were brutal places where violence and sexual assault were allowed to flourish. Angell Road systematically exposed children (including those under the age of five years) to sexual abuse. 

“Nor did foster care routinely provide a safe alternative for children in care. For many years, foster carers were not adequately vetted by the Council and were not the subject of criminal record checks.”

Some of the cases described are horrendous.

Children screaming at night while they were raped

“LA-A307 was taken to Shirley Oaks at the age of nine. He described hearing other children screaming at night and he himself routinely experienced violence and sexual assault, including being photographed whilst being raped.

LA-A147 was in the care of Lambeth Council in the 1990s and 2000s, from the age of three. Over ten years, she was placed in nine children’s homes and with four sets of foster carers. She described being raped by a foster carer’s teenage son at the age of nine, and was also frequently sexually abused by older men she met whilst in care. By the age of 13, she had developed a drug addiction and was “selling herself” to fund it.

LA-A2 was found dead in a bathroom at Shirley Oaks in 1977. Lambeth Council did not inform the coroner that he had alleged being sexually abused by Donald Hosegood, his ‘house father’. In the course of Hosegood’s employment at Shirley Oaks, six out of eight children looked after by him and his wife alleged sexual abuse by him.

LA-A7 described sexual abuse by three male members of staff, including two from South Vale. Two of them separately photographed him at their private homes when he was either naked or wearing only his underwear. One of them, Leslie Paul, was convicted of indecent assaults against LA-A7.”

Only six perpetrators prosecuted

Extraordinarily just SIX people have been successfully prosecuted by the police, meaning that hundreds of people must have got away with the vile sexual abuse of children.

All this took place against a background of fraud, corruption, racism, nepotism by both staff and some councillors. Those who tried to stop it were intimidated and threatened. The report shows even two chief executives, Herman Ouseley and Henry Gilby were the subject of intimidation.

Lord Ouseley – staff bugged his home and office when he was chief executive and his family was threatened

“Lord Ouseley described how both his office and home were ‘bugged’ at the instigation of one of his own staff. He also received threats to his family. Mr Gilby’s office was the subject of a serious arson attack. His home and office were broken into and computer records were stolen during a time when he was attempting to deal with corrupt practices. Dame Heather Rabbatts was Chief Executive from 1995 to 2000. She described how she inherited a Council with a culture of “fear and sexism and racism”. No witness identified which individuals or groups were the driving force behind this vicious and regressive culture, but there was little doubt that a succession of leading elected members were mainly responsible, aided and abetted in some instances by self-serving senior officials.”

The inquiry has decided to ask the Met Police to investigate whether there are grounds for a criminal investigation into Lambeth Council’s actions when providing information to the coroner about the circumstances surrounding LA-A2’s death.

Richard Scorer, specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who is representing the sister of a teenage boy who killed himself in a care home after making allegations of abuse against staff member Donald Hosegood, told Mail On Line: ‘It is clear from today’s report that Lambeth Council deliberately withheld information from the coroner in order to give the impression that our client’s brother was happy in care.”

All in all this report shows why it was necessary to have a full scale inquiry into child sexual abuse – which despite naysayers trying to deny the extent of the problem – was obviously rampant in some parts of the country. The council has apologised .The real tragedy is that so many people have got away with it leaving their victims with broken lives.

Bribery and Corruption at Number 10? Labour’s former Lord Chancellor demands an investigation

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Lord Falconer: pic credit: parliament.uk

When someone as distinguished as Lord Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor, writes to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Met Police chief, and the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, people should take sit up and take notice.

The extraordinary story that senior people in Downing Street and the Conservative Party were prepared to either bribe people with peerages or offer other inducements such as jobs, presumably funded by the taxpayer to stand down in a general election is almost unbelievable.

Not since David Lloyd George, a former Liberal PM, was involved in handing out peerages has this ever happened in British politics. And if anything this is almost Trumpian in its excess – only that the Prime Minister would not get impeached in this country if he allowed it.

I am not surprised that Downing Street and the Conservative Party is desperately trying to deny it happened – as they would know it was a criminal offence.

I am reproducing the letter in full here:

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW

15 November 2019

Dear Director and Dame Cressida,

I wish to raise with you as a matter of urgency a number of recent reports in which senior figures in the Brexit Party have alleged that some of their candidates had been approached by the Conservative Party in an effort to persuade them to withdraw their candidacies from the upcoming General Election.

On 14 November the Leader of the Brexit Party, Nigel Farage MEP, tweeted that “Boris Johnson’s Chief Strategic Adviser Sir Edward Lister is calling our candidates and offering them jobs if they withdraw”.[i]

The following day Mr Farage said that candidates from his party had come “under intimidation” from the Conservative Party, and added that “officials from Number 10 ringing up candidates and offering them jobs if they stand down.”

Mr Farage also claimed that he, along with eight “senior figures” in his party, were offered peerages.[ii] Meanwhile, it was reported on Thursday that one Brexit Party candidate, Anne Widecombe, was told she would be part of the government’s post-election Brexit negotiating team if she stood down, according to senior Brexit party officials.[ii

Today, Ms Widdecombe has given an interview to the BBC confirming that she had received multiple phone calls from a figure in No. 10 attempting to persuade her to stand down and offering inducements to do so:

“I was rung up twice by somebody at No 10.The first time it was really about how I had a moral obligation to stand down. It was all that kind of stuff. The second time it was to say that if I did stand down, I would be offered ‘a role in the negotiations’.” Anne Widdecombe, BBC News, 15 November 2019

On the 11 November, Mr Farage announced that his party would not stand candidates in 317 seats won by the Conservatives in 2017, but would be standing candidates in all other seats in Great Britain. However, since then at least two Brexit Party candidates have withdrawn from seats which the Conservative Party did not win in 2017.[iv]

I believe these allegations raise serious questions about the integrity of the upcoming General Election, and in particular whether senior individuals at CCHQ or No. 10 have breached two sections of the Representation of the People Act 1983 namely:

s.107: Any person who corruptly induces or procures any other person to withdraw from being a candidate at an election, in consideration of any payment or promise of payment, and any person withdrawing in pursuance of the inducement or procurement, shall be guilty of an illegal payment. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2

And/or s. 113 (2): (2) A person shall be guilty of bribery if he, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf— (c) makes any such gift or procurement [gives money or procured an office] as mentioned above to or for any person in order to induce that person to procure, or endeavour to procure, the return of any person at an election or the vote of any voter,or if upon or in consequence of any such gift or procurement as mentioned above he procures or engages, promises or endeavours to procure the return of any person at an election or the vote of any voter. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/15-16/72

Given that ‘payment’ is defined in s.118 of the 1983 Act as meaning “any pecuniary or other reward”, this would indicate that s. 107 is wide enough to cover promises of the kind alleged to have been made in this case. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2/section/118

I also bring to your attention s.1 (2) of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, which states: If any person gives, or agrees or proposes to give, or offers to any person any gift, money or valuable consideration as an inducement or reward for procuring or assisting or endeavouring to procure the grant of a dignity or title of honour to any person, or otherwise in connection with such a grant, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/15-16/72

Furthermore, as breaches of the 1983 Act may have taken place, pursuant to s. 181 of the 1983 Act, I am formally requesting that the Director of Public Prosecutions do institute the necessary investigations and commence such prosecutions as he sees fit. Finally, as a senior civil servant has been named in these allegations, I am also sending a copy of this letter to the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Mark Sedwill.

Sincerely, Lord Falconer

Footnotes: Nigel Farage, Twitter, 14 November 2019, https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1195010065947869186?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Et weetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1195010065947869186&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com% 2Fpolitics%2F2019%2Fnov%2F14%2Fnigel-farage-says-he-is-unlikely-to-vote-for-any-party-in-election

Sky News, 15 November 2019, https://news.sky.com/story/general-election-farage-claims-no-10- offered-brexit-party-candidates-jobs-to-stand-down-11861383

Guardian, 14 November 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/14/nigel-farage-sayshe-is-unlikely-to-vote-for-any-party-in-election

Express, 15 November 2019, https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1204603/nigel-farage-newsbrexit-party-general-election-2019-news-Rupert-Lowe

One really has to ask what lengths will these people go to ” fix ” the election result.

A Romanian scandal that threatens press freedom that the UK could stop in its tracks

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alexander-adamascue

Alexander Adamescu: Facing extradition from the UK using the European Arrest Warrant

CROSS POSTED ON BYLINE.COM

Romania is not particularly high profile. It is  best known for Bram Stoker’s Dracula stories and the infamous  rule of Communist President Nicolae Ceaușescu overthrown and killed in a revolution in 1989.

Now it is seen as a NATO ally, a democracy with free elections and in European Union circles as being tough on corruption.

But beneath the surface there is growing evidence that Romania is about to go the same way as Hungary and Turkey with a crackdown on the freedom of the press, arbitrary arrests and flouting the rule of law.

The issue is becoming deeply personal – and this blog has decided to take up the issue – over the plight of a German businessman who with his father owns Romania’s oldest newspaper, Romania Libra. The paper  has been a thorn in the side 0f successive  governments by exposing corruption  and political intrigue. I have written both a news story and a large  feature in Tribune this week on the case.

Alexander Adamescu currently lives in St John’s Wood in London. His father Dan is in hospital in Romania while serving a prison sentence for corruption based on the uncorroborated evidence of one person that he tried to bribe an official. His son is now – two years later -facing a similar charge after a flimsy examination of the evidence in a 30 minute hearing called at two hours notice in his absence.

The Romanians are  using the European Arrest Warrant – which faces only a very limited challenge in the British courts- to try and extradite him to Romania and this spring there will be a court hearing.

Alexander Adamescu has applied for political asylum to Theresa May, has asked the all party Romania committee to take up his case in Parliament and appealed to the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn as a backbencher took up his father’s case in 2014 and was heavily critical of Romania’s judicial process. So far British politicians have not acted.

In the last year there have been more sinister developments – reminiscent of Russia’s secret service – affecting his family. He believes his wife, Adrianna, was the subject of a bungled kidnapping  outside his St John’s Wood flat this March.

As she got out of her car and approached her flat two masked men attacked her and tried to drag her to a waiting car.

She said: “They were both wearing bandanas and gloves. They drove in a Mini Cooper with fake number plates – as I was later told by the police – and didn’t steal anything from me despite the fact that I was wearing diamond earrings, and had my car keys in my hands.”

“When they approached me, I threw myself to the ground, and fought with them until my neighbour Kymone Hansson, hearing my screaming and came running out to me. At the same time, a cab driver with a passenger in the back seat pulled over next to me and called the police. That was the moment I was saved. The two men ran to their car and quickly drove away”.

The Met Police were able to trace the car but not the people and the case has been left on file.

Later there was a second incident which can be directly attributed to the Romanian authorities. Adrianna was returning from Bucharest and was stopped at the airport before she could board the plane. The authorities said her four year son could not leave the country because he was Romanian (he was born in the UK). As he is four they could not detain him so she quickly left the airport with him and drove across the border to Bulgaria and returned from there to the UK.

The issue of prison conditions in Romania- where nearly 500 people have died over the last five years often due to the lack of medical treatment –  has already been challenged in the High Court in London by the international human rights lawyer, Ben Emmerson ( who also represented Alexander Livenenko’s widow in the recent public inquiry into his poisoning by plutonium). He has taken up the cases of other people being extradited by the Romanians and the prison.

Romania’s cramped and unsanitary prison conditions mean that pre-trial detention has also become a kind of punishment. Prison standards are so bad that between 1998 and 2015, the European Court of Human Rights found Romania guilty of 178 violations of Article 3 of the ECHR prohibiting inhuman or degrading treatment. The court recorded 27 violations in 2015.

.Serious questions about the role of the independent judiciary, the misuse of the European Arrest Warrant and the freedom of an independent press to investigate the government are all at stake. Even the role of major accounting firms working in Romania like KPMG have been questioned.

Journalists on the paper have published an open letter accusing KPMG of aiding and abetting members of the Romanian government to rig insolvency hearings to destroy and silence their newspaper, infringing on the publication’s fundamental rights to freedom of expression.

“There is no doubt about it – this is a case of privatized censorship. KPMG has been used as a front by certain members of the Romanian government to take over control or shut us down,” said Sabin Orcan, chief editor of România Liberă.  “Our publication has survived more than 140 years of the worst types of oppression, including during the Soviet period. But who knew it would be the accountants who would deliver the death blow to freedom of the press in Romania?”

KPMG, to be fair, did find problems with the insurance company that bankrolled the paper, but recommended changes that amounted to a rescue plan for the company. The government vetoed the plan which shows where they stand.

All this suggests that the British government should act to stop this move. Given that it is committed to leaving the EU it should be possible to overrule this action or grant him political asylum.

 

 

 

 

No Corruption Please – We’re British: Cameron and the Westland Choppergate scandal

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David Cameron meeting the Indian PM on his " successful" business trip

David Cameron meeting the Indian PM on his ” successful” business trip

My ex Guardian and Exaro colleague David Pallister has been assiduously  following the latest  Agusta Westland scandal which led the Indian government to cancel an order  for 12 helicopters to ferry Indian VIPs after allegations of corruption.

His latest article on the Exaro website reveals that proceedings investigating alleged corruption involving a middleman and another British businessman  and Indian  officials are continuing in both India and Italy.

My grouse is not with the pace of investigations in India or Italy into what the Indian press have dubbed the ” choppergate scandal” but the British government’s attitude to what is going on.

David Cameron in 2013 visited India with 100 business people to pledge that he wanted India to be a “partner of choice”  with Britain. As you can hear here Mr Cameron praised Westland to the skies and said any  corruption problems about the order were of course a matter for the Indians and the Italians. Nudge, nudge, it’s those bloody foreigners you know.

.To quote: “AgustaWestland is an excellent company, with highly skilled workers who make brilliant helicopters. Britain has … some of the toughest laws in the world, so people know if they do business with British companies, they have protections.”

How odd it must have seemed to the Indians that one of the people under investigation in the corruption scandal was British.

Now the Indians have requested more information from the British for a criminal investigation. We know this because the Indian Parliament has recorded this in a written answer to MPs.

“MEA (ministry of external affairs ) has also been requested to take up the matter with the government of the UK, as well as requesting its co-operation in verifying the allegations, and helping us by providing relevant information relating to the alleged involvement of a middleman and/or of any Indian individual/entity.”

Roll on this year and nothing much has happened. So I chose the appearance of  Guardian despising Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, at a press gallery lunch in Parliament to ask  him what was happening.

His reply was that he was ” unaware of any request” and repeated the Cameron line.

“I am not aware of any request from the Indian Ministry of Defence for help about this, but I will check to see whether this is correct.”

He added: “As I understand, the court case ( In Italy – at the Agusta end) is about recovering money [by AgustaWestland] after the contract was cancelled by the Indian government.”

Bloody foreigners again. His ” check ” meant according to his top special adviser that he was still sticking to the story. But he helpfully added that Vince Cable’s Business, Innovation and Skills department may know more. Guess what they parroted the same line that it was a problem between the company and the Indians. Yes those bloody foreigners  are at it again. It was becoming obvious we were not helping the Indians get to the bottom of it  at all.

This rather arrogant and even Imperial attitude towards corruption as a problem for others might be rather comic if it  did not have serious repercussions for British workers and jobs. The cancelled helicopters were being assembled in Yeovil at the time.

The latest news as reported by the Times of India is that the Indian government has won its case to get most of its money back and the Indians are considering whether to put the British company on a blacklist for future orders.

So what Cameron hailed as a wonderful business trip to boost British jobs and exports could end up with one of the Britain’s  more successful exporters being blacklisted by one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Well done, Dave!

All Hail the Anti Corruption App

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Offered a dodgy deal in Dubai ?  Given an expensive Rolex as a present?   Pressurised to give a backhander to get your visa stamped? Taken out to a very expensive meal?

All these dilemmas might well face business people working to secure a contract abroad – or even now possibly in a few cases in the UK.

 Bribery  and corruption according to the  Institute of Business Ethics  is the top ethical concern now  for 80 per cent of major FTSE companies who might well be worried their staff could be tempted by an offer they can’t refuse.

Interestingly company action seems to have been boosted by the implementation of the Bribery Act in 2012 which makes it an offence for a commercial company to allow their employees to bribe other people on their behalf.
Companies are expected to have procedures in place and The Institute of Business Ethics neat solution is a free App which can be  put on any business phone – offering instant advice on what to do when you are put in a difficult position.

The App offers sane advice on how to handle the situation – including a sensible warning to pay up if you are threatened with violence- and report the incident later. Life in a foreign country is too precious to risk for the sake of a few pounds.

Details of the app and the toolkit on the Institute of Business Ethics website. 

IBE’s Director, Philippa Foster Back CBE OBE, says “Any one, at any level, in any organisation, can be offered a bribe. The SayNo Toolkit supports staff by giving them clear and easily accessible guidance about what can or cannot be accepted. Not only will the App provide an adequate procedure to combat bribery, it could also help to minimise the risks of corruption taking place.”

 

Two criticisms can be made.about the effectiveness of the new app. What happens if the firm itself – through either its legal or human resources department – turns a blind eye to what is happening.
The toolkit does not suggest going elsewhere or reporting it say to Public Concern at Work a charity which also can handle such issues and can help businesses manage such problems. The second is that it is not clear whether an individual employee could order one of these free apps if his or her firm does not go along with the scheme – which means people miss out on a valuable guide.
However the Institute of Business Ethics, a non profit making company, should be congratulated for a clever idea that might just help cut down bribery and corruption before it starts.