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Background

  7.01  Bryn Estyn Hall is a large and rather forbidding mansion, which was built in 1904, in the style of an Elizabethan manor house, by a successful Wrexham brewer to replace a previous house. It lies in ample grounds, which earlier formed part of the large Erlas Hall estate on the outskirts of Wrexham, and which were landscaped when the new house was built but are now very neglected. The property probably remained in private hands until the second world war when, after a short period as an ordnance depot, it became, in 1942, an approved school for boys from Merseyside and further afield. Since 1989 it has been used for other educational and local government purposes and it is now known as Erlas Centre.

7.02  As an approved school, Bryn Estyn remained the responsibility of the Home Office until 1 October 1973, when it became a local authority community home with education on the premises. Responsibility for it passed to the former Denbighshire County Council until 1 April 1974 when the new Clwyd County Council took over. During its period as an approved school Bryn Estyn had a rather chequered history. According to Granville Bernard (Matt) Arnold, who became Headmaster of the school with effect from 1 May 1973, the first Headmaster, James Bennett, remained in the school until 1967 but the regime was criticised as rigid, authoritarian and punitive for both staff and boys.

  7.03  His successor, David Ursell, had no formal qualifications in teaching or child care; he was a dynamic person but suffered from diabetes and associated depression. Members of staff complained eventually of Ursell's alleged excessive use of physical force to boys at the school in breach of Rule 38 of the Approved School Rules 1933, as amended in 1949, and the managers appointed a committee of inquiry to investigate the allegations. The upshot of the committee's hearings and a subsequent appeal to the managers in May 1971 was that Ursell resigned and an interregnum followed until his successor, Peter Burton, was appointed. The latter was a young man and, in the autumn of 1971, he set about reversing his predecessor's policies but he too antagonised members of the staff. He was anxious to establish a favourable reputation for Bryn Estyn and (according to Arnold) was prepared to admit "rejects" from anywhere, but he met an untimely death in October or November 1972, when he, his wife and child and his deputy were killed in a motor car accident.

  7.04  Thus, Arnold took over as Headmaster[66] just five months before Bryn Estyn changed its status and after a further hiatus of seven months, during which Brynley Goldswain had acted as Headmaster. Arnold came to Bryn Estyn with excellent references. He was then nearly 44 years old (born on 14 June 1929) and had already held senior teaching positions in approved schools for almost 13 years, firstly as Deputy Headmaster of Carlton School, Bedford, for 22 months, and then successively as Headmaster of Richmond Hill School in Yorkshire and Axwell Park School in County Durham, at which latter school his wife had been Matron. He held a teacher's certificate from the University of Wales (1952), a certificate in religious knowledge from Westminster College, London (1953) and was to receive, in September 1973, from Newcastle University, the Senior Certificate in Residential Child Care and the Diploma in Advanced Educational Studies (Residential). In 1976 he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Education but we do not know how this came about.

  7.05  One Director of Social Services who supplied a reference in January 1973 for Arnold in connection with his Bryn Estyn application described him as "one of the finest Headmasters of approved schools I have come across" and another said this:

"Mr Arnold is a voluble and excitable Welshman, but he has a capacity for deep and serious thought into the problems of boys as groups and individuals. He has a flair for casework and much experience of it. He has an ability to animate people to create loyalty from them and to push through new ideas. At the same time he is a most unstuffy person, he is informal in his relationships and prefers to build a very relaxed sort of atmosphere where people get on well with other people and the whole school really does allow good person to person influences."

  7.06  There was, however, a warning note (as it now appears, with hindsight) in the last paragraph of the latter reference, which said:

"Mr Arnold will explain to you his own feelings that he should now leave Tyneside and if possible return to an environment nearer his home. We have discussed this at great length and I fully understand his feelings that he should return. He has had family difficulties over the past few years and he is conscious that this has temporarily drained him of some of his tremendous energy and positive outlook. I am absolutely confident that when the health of his wife is improved and he is back nearer home he will again demonstrate that he has the ideas, the drive and the methods that make any Community School into a thoroughly outward looking and therapeutic environment."

  7.07  In the event Arnold remained Principal (as he became styled) of Bryn Estyn until almost the end of its days as a community home, although he did apply in 1977 for an appointment as Social Work Education Adviser to the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work. He retired at the end of July 1984 because of the impending closure but was appointed to the Clwyd Panel of Guardian Ad Litem and Reporting Officers in January 1985. To our regret, Arnold, who was still alive when the major police investigation took place, died on 9 June 1994 and had only been asked to make a short statement to the police. We have not, therefore, had the benefit of any evidence from him about his period as Principal of Bryn Estyn, except that contained in his regular reports to Clwyd County Council's Management Committee for the community homes of Bryn Estyn, Little Acton and Bersham Hall[67], which met quarterly and for which we have copies of the agendas, minutes and accompanying reports from 10 December 1975 to 20 July 1984.

  7.08  Arnold's widow survives but her health did not improve significantly at Bryn Estyn; she has been in poor health for many years and she did not play any active role in the affairs of the community home. We have received in evidence, however, a short statement from their son, Matthew Arnold, who was born in or about 1963, and lived at Bryn Estyn until about the end of the 1970s. In that statement he describes his happy recollections of participating in activities with Bryn Estyn residents and says that he never saw any boys being hit or abused.

  7.09  The reports that Arnold submitted to the Management Committee were quite full and have provided helpful background for us. As one would expect, they presented an optimistic picture, at least until the closure of the home loomed, and they contained few hints of allegations against staff. In the first of those reports[68] before us Arnold defined the school's philosophy thus:

"1.  Each child has a right to be different.

2.   Each child has the right to hope for tolerant forgiveness, or overlooking of past foolishness, errors, humiliations or minor sins - in short, the Christian notion of the possibility of redemption.

3.Each child has the right to make a fresh start."

  Very sadly, however, the evidence before us has disclosed that for many children who were consigned to Bryn Estyn, in the ten 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[69].

Organisation and structure as a community home with education on the premises

  7.10  As we have indicated in paragraph 4.02(3), Bryn Estyn was intended, according to the 1971 Regional Plan, to accommodate up to 49 boys in the intermediate and senior age ranges (13 to 17 years). When Arnold arrived in May 1973 there were about 30 resident boys. By late 1975, when he presented his first report to the new Management Committee, the number had increased to about 60 and the average length of stay was said to be 13 months. The capacity of the home was then considered to be 64, of whom 15 were to be accommodated in Cedar House, a unit for boys of working age, and the rest in the main building. It was administered by Clwyd County Council in accordance with the Regional Plan for Wales and the accommodation was available to all the new Welsh and some neighbouring English local authorities. On 8 November 1975 only 23 boys from Clwyd were in residence. The others were made up of 21 from South Wales, seven from Mid Wales, six from Gwynedd, two from Cheshire and one from Merseyside. This pattern continued until a late stage in the community home's existence.

  7.11  The establishment of Bryn Estyn at that time in 1975 comprised 44 members of staff led by the Principal, a Deputy Principal and an Assistant Principal. They included eight teachers, 18 houseparents (of whom seven were senior housemasters) and two nightcare officers. The Deputy Principal and Head of Education was Brynley Goldswain, who had been at the approved school since 1969, but he left on 30 April 1976 to take an appointment at Red Bank, another former approved school. He was succeeded as Deputy Principal but not as Head of Education in July 1976 by Peter Howarth, who had followed Arnold from Axwell Park School to Bryn Estyn in November 1973 to take up the post of Assistant Principal. He remained Deputy Principal until he retired at the same time as Arnold on 31 July 1984. From the summer of 1976 Arnold left much of the day to day responsibility for running Bryn Estyn to Howarth, except during two periods when the latter was incapacitated, firstly, from about August 1978 to about May 1979 and, secondly, from December 1981 to July 1982. Arnold himself was ill and unable to work from the summer of 1979 until late March 1980. A second Deputy Principal (Education), Maurice Matthews, was appointed with effect from 1 June 1977 and he remained responsible for education at Bryn Estyn until 16 September 1984, a fortnight before it closed.

  7.12  During the remainder of the 1970s the number of boys accommodated at Bryn Estyn gradually diminished and its role changed, in part, because it took over some of the assessment functions of Little Acton and also received boys on remand; from 1980 it took over all the assessment functions in respect of boys (girls were assessed at Bersham Hall) and some staff were transferred from Bersham Hall to Bryn Estyn[70]. On 26 January 1980, there were only 33 boys in residence at Bryn Estyn, including one on remand, but the average number in residence for the preceding three months was said to have been 41.8. From June 1979 to May 1980 throughput figures were 75 admissions, and 91 discharges or transfers on a mean population of 42.6 boys. At about this time the longest period of residence was reported as 21 months.

  7.13  The working boys' unit in Cedar House withered quite soon. A major reason for this was the difficulty of finding suitable employment during a period of recession and economic stringency. In April 1977 the function of Cedar House was changed to that of a unit for immature younger boys and then in or about September 1978 this unit was transferred to a new 12 bed purpose built house, near the main building, which was named Clwyd House and retained its function, with a reducing number of residents, until the last year of Bryn Estyn's existence. Cedar House was subsequently used in part as a library. Bryn Estyn's functions, however, still included a responsibility to provide appropriate work experience for those resident boys who were past school leaving age.

  7.14  Various methods of organising the boys resident in the main building into units with which they could identify were tried. In his first report to the Management Committee at the end of 1975 Arnold said that there was no formal house structure within the school. Each residential social worker had responsibility for a group of boys. The aim was to match a child to a person rather than try to create 'emotional units'; and each social worker had, for each child in his care, a responsibility for fostering the child's welfare in many areas. By the late 1970s, however, it seems that a house system was put into operation in the main building. At one point there was an attempt to operate four houses but in the end there were two houses, Caradog and Glyndwr, the older boys being assigned to the latter. The house system appears to have continued until a late stage, when reducing numbers rendered it obsolete.

  7.15  The Secure Unit at Bryn Estyn was an eight-bedded unit, which had been planned as part of a more extensive development programme for the home approved in 1975 but only implemented to a small extent. It was intended to be under the direction of Arnold and Howarth but with a staff of its own of 12, including a warden. After some delays it was eventually ready for opening in November 1979 and Howarth (in Arnold's absence whilst sick) reported that the Welsh Office had granted permission for this[71]. For a time four members of the care staff under Leonard Stritch shared their working periods between the unit and the main school and it appears to have been used intermittently to restrict or restrain recalcitrant residents, particularly glue sniffers, for short periods with, at best, dubious legal authority. Arnold's view was that, despite many seminars and courses, secure units, in general, had "grown without an initial philosophy"[72]. In May 1980 he said rather enigmatically "The Secure Unit is being used on a very limited level: but this has already taught us that what is easy in conceptual thought is entirely different in practice"[73].

  7.16  The teaching staff at Bryn Estyn had a formidable and largely thankless task, bearing in mind the continuous flow of pupils in and out of their classes. A substantial proportion of the residents were in need of remedial education (in 1975[74] Arnold estimated the average retardation to be three years at the age of 13 years) and many of the students with brighter potential were quite severely disturbed. Discipline was difficult to maintain; there were few clear guidelines; and most teachers put in extra hours acting as substitute care workers because of staff shortages. There were further difficulties because of the lack of basic equipment and books and the unwillingness of Clwyd's Education Authority to assume responsibility for education in the community home. The shortcomings in the provision of education were so grave that we deal with them separately in Chapter 11[75]. In the circumstances considerable emphasis was placed at Bryn Estyn on outdoor activities, in which some members of staff played a very active role.

  7.17  Arnold's periodic reports to the Management Committee recorded the success of these outdoor activities whenever possible. Understandably, they were much more successful in the 1970s than later, when the future of the home became uncertain. The five-a-side football team, for example, won a Liverpool Daily Post competition in 1975 and a football XI had, at one time, a regular programme of fixtures. Boys were permitted to attend local youth clubs, leisure centres and a boxing club regularly and their table tennis team played in a youth club league when a youth club was established in Bryn Estyn itself.

  7.18  The sports field was used for cricket, baseball and athletics, for which there was an annual sports day. There was an outdoor swimming pool and a gymnasium in the main building; a number of boys gained certificates and badges in gymnastics. Emphasis was laid also on 'outward bound' activities in the form of week-end trips for camping, hiking, rock-climbing and canoeing. A Christmas fair and concert were held and if talent permitted an eisteddfod on St David's Day. Members of the youth club also achieved success in various art competitions.

  7.19  All this involved considerable dedication on the part of some members of the staff and Arnold reported in September 1978[76] that the staff generally had raised £800 for the welfare of the boys: it was used to buy a new electric organ and table tennis table and also to fund outings and extra pocket money for the boys.

7.20  Whilst Arnold's reports generally were quite bland in tone, they did contain some pointers to the underlying disciplinary and other difficulties at Bryn Estyn. In his first report[77] he referred to the problem of "long term" children faced with the certainty of change of field social worker: a family of three brothers, who could not have any home leave, had known seven social workers in three years and a recent resident of Cedar House had known 11 different placements in 15 years. Glue sniffing and drinking were recurring causes for concern, particularly during travel when beginning or returning from leave. The rate of absconding was perturbingly and persistently high, although there were fewer references to this as Arnold's tenure continued. He did complain, however, that children were being detained unnecessarily long at Bryn Estyn because of the reluctance of social workers to permit them to return to the community. In October 1976 and on several subsequent occasions, Arnold drew attention to a growing group of 'hard core homeless' within the school, who had lost hope for themselves and seemed unable to re-create any thoughts for their future or plans towards adulthood: it was from this group that sheer self-destruction emerged, infecting others[78].

  7.21  As early as April 1976 Arnold drew attention to what he called "the increasing number of threats of violence issued to the staff members by boys"[79]. In February 1979 came the first reference to an allegation by a boy against a member of staff, neither of whom was named. Arnold's comment was "the complaint is of the common assault nature and if proven, will not provide dramatic headlines. One is constantly aware of the vulnerability of staff working in Social Services, both within an establishment and in the field. It requires firm decision and a willingness to gamble to survive"[80]. This rather enigmatic comment did not, however, provoke any recorded response by the Management Committee in their minutes.

  7.22  In October 1981 Arnold said "We are going through a particularly bad period at the moment: some of the older boys are testing the limits of tolerance to the utmost, staff are reacting with commendable restraint but there must be a break somewhere soon. It is not therefore surprising that I am finding myself dealing with a stream of complaints against staff from ill-disposed children, who seek to create dissension by allegation. We have a group of some four older boys attempting to create their own hierarchy, bullying smaller boys and threatening staff. . . I imagine it will be some months yet before we settle to a more responsive climate"[81].

  7.23  In July 1982 Arnold reported increased anxiety caused by the considerable amount of internal damage within the campus caused by younger residents, contrasting with the earlier 1970-1974 period when boys had caused considerable damage in the local community whilst Bryn Estyn itself had remained untouched[82]. To illustrate the staff's disciplinary problems he presented a striking account of a particular week-end at Bryn Estyn entitled "Anatomy of a weekend". It is reproduced as Appendix 10 to this report with letters of the alphabet substituted for the names of children identified in the original document.

  7.24  From 1982 onwards Bryn Estyn was overshadowed by uncertainty about its future role. The number of residents had declined to an average of under 30, although this was augmented by a fluctuating number of boys on remand or for assessment. On 15 November 1983 Clwyd House was amalgamated with the main school. By January 1984, the year that saw the demise of the regional planning arrangements, the average total number of placements was down to 22.6 and the average number of boys on remand or for assessment was 5.1. At that point the Social Services Committee resolved that the number of places should be further reduced to match local needs by l October 1984 with a view to moving the "unit" off site as soon as suitable accommodation could be found. Finally, following the retirements of Arnold and Howarth on 31 July 1984, Clwyd House only, with Stritch in charge, was used to house the remaining residents for the last three months of Bryn Estyn's existence as a community home.

Footnotes:

66   Subsequently the holder of the post became styled Principal - see para 7.07.

67   Terms of reference of Committee (see minutes of the meeting on 20 October 1976).

68   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 10 December 1975.

69   See paras 11.49 to 11.58.

70   See paras 12.45, 13.02 and 13.09.

71   See paras 11.07 to 11.25.

72   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 11 May 1979.

73   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 16 May 1980.

74   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 10 December 1975.

75   See paras 11.26 to 11.41 and 11.47.

76   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 8 September 1978.

77   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 10 December 1975.

78   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 20 October 1976.

79   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 14 April 1976.

80   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 16 February 1979.

81   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 19 October 1981.

82   Report to Management Committee for the meeting on 30 July 1982.