State cover-up of high level paedophile ring

For the last 18 months a Public Tribunal has heard damning evidence of how a number of children's homes supplied a paedophile ring over a 20 year period. Hundreds of children were subjected to physical and sexual abuse by those who were entrusted with their welfare.

Care workers also acted as go-betweens for a paedophile ring that extends into the topmost layers of society. Policemen, church ministers, local authority executives, senior businessmen and politicians, including someone believed to be a leading supporter of Margaret Thatcher, have been identified.

The present Public Tribunal into the case is meant to be one of the most powerful investigative mechanisms of the British government, having similar powers to the High Court. It can subpoena witnesses and requisition documents. Over the last 75 years only 10 have ever been organised and never before to investigate child abuse. It is supposed to be open to public scrutiny.

The reality is different. Not only has it met in the inauspicious surroundings of a former council chamber in a rural backwater near Chester, but measures have been taken to prevent the proceedings from being covered fully in the national media.

It was assumed that the inquiry could be given full coverage by the media under the laws of privilege which enable the press and TV to name names from court cases and public hearings without fear of libel action. Instead the presiding chairman, Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, ruled that the media could not report the name of any of the accused unless they had previously been convicted of similar offences. He later extended this ruling to grant anonymity to one man who died 16 years ago and to another who has twice been convicted of sexually assaulting boys from a North Wales home.

In the event the press has been virtually absent from the proceedings. There would have been no significant national coverage of this major scandal, if not for the work of a single journalist, Nick Davies of The Guardian. He has expressed bewilderment at the apparent lack of interest shown, but under conditions where hysterical reporting of any sexual crime is de-rigeur, a government D-notice suggests itself.

Waterhouse has also indicated that the final report will not find the "public figure" culpable of any crimes, even though he has been identified by six victims. He stated that whilst a number of the abusers will be named, those of the two policemen will be omitted, even though one of them has already been convicted of sexual offences against children.

The Public Tribunal, rather than bringing to a conclusion a squalid cover-up of terrible atrocities visited upon children by those in authority, is a juridical conclusion of this high-level white-wash.

Harrowing evidence

The evidence submitted by the victims has been harrowing. So far 39 children's homes in North Wales have been implicated. Nearly 300 people have given evidence as victims of abuse. Some 148 individuals have been identified as abusers. Key aspects of the evidence submitted include:

n John Allen, a convicted paedophile, ran a complex of homes in London and North Wales that supplied children to wealthy outsiders. Currently serving a six year sentence, Allen has picked up £500,000 from the shares in the homes he established.

n At the Bryn Alyn home, two senior officials have already been convicted of systematic sexual abuse of children in their care. Another, Paul Wilson, was convicted of violent attacks on children but given a suspended sentence. He was accused of physical assault on 66 occasions by 66 different boys.

n A room at the Crest Hotel in Wrexham was regularly hired out on Sunday evenings to VIP's who were ensured a steady supply of children for their sexual gratification.

n Over a dozen victims who complained of abuse by the paedophile ring have met suspicious deaths. Two brothers who were abused by Allen were trying to blackmail him. In April 1992 one of them died in a house fire in Brighton. The other died soon afterwards in mysterious circumstances.

The abuse was so systematic that one witness needed almost a week to recount his experiences. He claimed to have been abused by 49 different people. At the age of 11, he attended army cadets where two of the instructors, both policemen, raped him repeatedly. At an army cadet weekend camp he was raped by another instructor.

Far from social services providing a haven from such abuse, it became the means through which he was exposed to even worse physical and mental torment. At his first home he was indecently assaulted by the superintendent, groped by one housemaster, beaten by another, half-drowned by a senior housemaster and slapped by a policemen he tried to complain to.

At his second home, aged 15, he was abused by those in charge of the centre and offered up to wealthy outsiders. He described one of these as "a powerful public figure". After this man took him to an outhouse and orally and anally raped him, he was told, "Just remember who I am."

At the age of 16, he ran away from the Wrexham home, but ended up in the custody of one of the army cadet instructors who had raped him. This man introduced him to a group of 20 associates, who took turns to abuse him. Amongst the culprits identified were two jewellers, a director of a major company, a local authority executive, a Roman Catholic priest and another social worker. Many of those identified have subsequently been convicted of sexual crimes against children.

Throughout the testimony, the man pointed to proof of collusion between the perpetrators of this abuse and the children's homes. The deputy headmaster of the home would give him permission to go into town and the head of the paedophile ring would be waiting for him outside in a car. One of the Wrexham abusers complained that he did not have easy access to the boy, so one of the social workers who had molested him ensured that he was moved into the man's home.

The most revealing evidence is that regarding one of the paedophiles, who it was hinted at was one of Mrs Thatcher's most prominent supporters. When the police finally arrested 17 suspects during an inquiry in 1991 the victim claims, "For some unknown reason, he was not arrested like anybody else. He was allowed to walk round the North Wales Police headquarters and he was allowed to vindicate himself from anything, as if he was the boss... I tried to tell the police of many instances not just relating to him and I was told at the time, and I will never forget it as long as I live, that they were not interested in that."

The tribunal was informed that the North Wales police had in fact recommended that the man be prosecuted, but this was blocked by the Crown Prosecution Service in London -- which took over the case from its local branch.

The testimony of many of the victims substantiates the claim of collusion. Those who turned to the police or other social workers for help were met with indifference or outright hostility. A total of 27 separate police inquiries failed to produce anything substantial.

When the police finally launched a major inquiry in 1991, they secured the conviction of only four of the care workers and concluded that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring. A total of 13 reports by social services went unpublished. Clwyd County Council commissioned an independent inquiry and then ruled that its report could not be published.

A perverse manifestation of social inequality

The evidence uncovered at the Public Tribunal and the attempt to conceal this from the public domain poses many searching questions that go beyond the corruption and degeneracy of the individuals involved. Nick Davies sought to explain the preconditions for the successful operation of a paedophile ring in his Guardian articles. He wrote that, "Power is the fabric of a paedophile ring, essential first to subjugate the children, whose passivity is necessary for the adult's indulgence; and second, where possible to neutralise the authorities who might otherwise frustrate its activities."

This raises the question of how it is that the perpetrators of such bestial crimes were able to act with impunity for almost two decades? This was not simply a case of children being abducted off street corners by members of the criminal underworld. It involved a branch of the welfare state, which was meant to act as a protector of the most vulnerable being converted into a franchise to supply these children to satisfy the depraved impulses of a social layer in the highest echelons of society. This can only be explained as a social phenomenon -- a perverse manifestation of the growth of social inequality.

During the 20 year period covered by these outrages, inequality was celebrated and wealth became the sole measurement of the value of an individual and their standing within society. Those amongst the growing ranks of the poor and unemployed were turned into pariahs, who have now been relegated to the almost sub-human status of a so-called "underclass". Every person who amassed profits during this period is far from being an abuser of children, but the class arrogance which this has called forth certainly played a part in both shaping and enabling the brutal actions of the perpetrators. As one of the victims stated in the conclusion to their testimony: "The way I see it, I was a slave, I was sold."

The scandal is also a tragic manifestation of the terminal decline of the welfare state. For years welfare provision was decried as a hand-out to the work shy and malingerers and an unwarranted infringement on the profits of big business. Local authorities were too busy implementing the austerity measures demanded by central government to respond to genuine concerns expressed about the quality of service being provided to the most needy. During the 1980s deregulation made the child welfare system more open to abuse. Amongst the paedophiles who ran or worked in these homes, were people whose previous training was in everything from catering to accountancy, not social work.

And what of the cries for help by the victims? Why were these so systematically rebuffed? The answer lies in the complete marginalisation of the poor. In an environment where money was revered and the state apparatus was called on to rule through more repressive measures, the word of a child from a dysfunctional family counts for nothing against that of such "pillars of the community" as a local policeman or a successful businessman.

Whilst the government has changed, the social policy remains the same. Blair's Labour government employs soundbites about "social inclusion", but it is committed to completing the destruction of the welfare state which the Tories couldn't finish.

The voices of the abused will only be heard when the blanket of secrecy which has muffled them is lifted. For this to be achieved requires a fundamental change in the present political atmosphere and a flowering of critical social thought amongst broad masses of working people.

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