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Stephen Roderick Norris

  8.23  Stephen Norris was born on 25 February 1936 so that he was 38 years old when he became a joint houseparent with his wife June on 1 March 1974 at Cedar House, Bryn Estyn. After national service followed by a decade of employment in such jobs as labourer, coach driver and insurance agent, he had become, in January 1970, a houseparent at Greystone Heath Approved School, Penketh, near Warrington. His wife, who was seven years younger than him, had been employed with him as a joint houseparent from January 1970, following their marriage in the 1960s, and both underwent a nationally recognised pre-qualifying course of training in residential work whilst they were at Greystone Heath. Their applications, which were supported by good references, were dated 12 December 1973 and they were interviewed at Bryn Estyn, by a panel (which included an Assistant Director of Social Services) on 16 January 1974, when they were offered the joint post.

  8.24  There is a slight mystery about the circumstances of the appointment. Norris recollects being invited to visit Bryn Estyn, where he and his wife stayed the night, from Greystone Heath. They were shown around and then introduced to Arnold, whereupon Arnold told them that a full meeting of the planning committee was taking place in the board room and that he wondered if they would agree to be interviewed for a job at Bryn Estyn, which he would make beneficial for them (it involved an increase in salary of about £300 per annum). This may well be correct because a letter to their referees dated 18 January 1974 stated that they had already been offered "an informal interview" and it is quite possible that their application forms were back-dated. However, we have not received any evidence of prior knowledge by Arnold or Howarth of either Norris. Moreover, although no check was made at the time of Mr Norris' police records, such a check would not have revealed anything because he did not have any convictions, as far as we are aware, until October 1990[86]. No evidence has been submitted to the Tribunal to suggest that he had been guilty of misconduct at Greystone Heath, although he knew there some colleagues, such as Jack Bennett[87] and Alan Langshaw[88], who were later convicted of sexual offences.

  8.25  Margaret Norris was not implicated in any way in her husband's subsequent offences and we have not received any complaint about her. She served as a joint houseparent with her husband at Cedar House, living in flat No 1, until April 1977, when Cedar House ceased to be a working boys' unit and became a unit for younger boys. Mr Norris had meanwhile obtained the CRCCYP qualification in December 1976, after a year's course at Salford College of Technology. From September 1977 to June 1979 Margaret Norris trained successfully for the CQSW at the North East Wales Institute for Higher Education (Cartrefle College). She was then appointed to one of three senior RCCO posts at Bryn Estyn, at the same time as John Rayfield and Robert Jones, a post which she held until 26 February 1984, when she was appointed a social worker in the Clwyd Social Services Department working from Mold (after serving temporarily in 1983 as a study supervisor for CSS students). She continued to be employed by Clwyd as a social worker in various capacities until she retired on health grounds on 31 March 1993, six months before her 50th birthday, and she died in November 1996.

  8.26  Norris himself was appointed a senior houseparent at Bryn Estyn, replacing Nefyn Dodd, following an interview on 21 December 1977 by a panel comprising Arnold, Howarth and Geoffrey Wyatt, Principal Officer, Residential and Day Care Services. He had previously made an unsuccessful application for an equivalent post in February that year. It seems that he remained in the flat at Cedar House with his wife and their two children until they moved to Clwyd House in or about September 1978 on his appointment as head of that unit without further interview. Mrs Norris was not, however, employed at Clwyd House. She and her husband lived at Clwyd House until 31 March 1981, when they moved to a house of their own in Wrexham. Norris had already acquired a smallholding, known as Talwrn Farm, Moel-y-Parc, Afonwen, which he was engaged in restoring and they moved finally to that address in or about September 1982. He remained in charge of Clwyd House until it was amalgamated with the main school in November 1983. He continued at Bryn Estyn then, more or less in limbo, until 8 July 1984, when he was redeployed as a supernumerary RCCO to Cartrefle Community Home, Broughton, in anticipation of the early retirement of the Officer-in-Charge there, Olivia Browell.

  8.27  The history of Stephen Norris at Cartrefle and afterwards is related in Chapter 15 of this report. It was his sexual offences there that first came to light. He was suspended from duty on 18 June 1990 and convicted, on his own pleas of guilty, on 5 October 1990 when he was sentenced in the Crown Court at Chester by the Honourable Mr Justice Pill to a total of three and a half years' imprisonment[89]. The major police investigation then ensued and, before he had served fully his Cartrefle sentences, Norris was charged with numerous offences committed at Bryn Estyn. As we have said in paragraph 8.02, 13 of the sexual abuse complainants whose testimony was received in evidence by us alleged actual sexual offences by him against them at Bryn Estyn. All of these allegations related to the period when Norris was in charge of Clwyd House but many of the offences were alleged to have been committed at his smallholding.

  8.28  Norris pleaded guilty on 11 November 1993 in the Crown Court at Knutsford to three offences of buggery, one of attempted buggery and three indecent assaults involving six former Bryn Estyn boys. The Bryn Estyn indictment against Norris contained ten other counts, to which Norris pleaded not guilty. They contained two allegations of buggery, seven of indecent assault and one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm involving nine boys, three of whom were named in the counts to which he had pleaded guilty. Norris was sentenced to a total of seven years' imprisonment and the Court ordered that the other ten counts should remain on the Court file on the usual terms[90].

  8.29  We heard the evidence of a representative selection of the victims named in the indictment (nine in all, eight of sexual abuse) and from three other former residents of Bryn Estyn who alleged sexual offences against them by Norris. The evidence before us indicates that Norris was a coarse man of poor general education who should never have been placed in charge of a unit providing for the needs of immature and disturbed young boys. At least eight of them and some of the members of staff spoke of his apparent obsession with sexual matters and his habitual practice of making inappropriate sexual comments about, for example, the size of boys' genitalia and their potential sexual capacity. A recurring complaint was that Norris would be present in the shower block precincts when boys were taking a shower; he would observe them, comment upon them as already said, and would frequently wash boys' private parts on the pretext that the state of their foreskins required this. Subsequently graver forms of assault would occur there and elsewhere. The offences of indecent assault were committed in the shower blocks, often in bedrooms at Clwyd House and at Norris' smallholding where and when the opportunity occurred.

  8.30  Norris' technique generally was to befriend selected boys by offering sympathy and understanding. One victim of Norris' admitted buggery offences described how, after a few months' residence in Clwyd House, when the victim was just 13 years old, he was invited to visit Norris' 'farm'. En route he was bought alcohol at a public house. On leaving there he was taken to a cottage near the smallholding, which was being looked after by Norris for the owners, and there his jeans were removed. Norris touched him all over his body, oral sex took place and he was buggered. Norris told him to keep his mouth shut and that no one would have any reason to believe him if he did complain. On other occasions buggery occurred at the smallholding. Norris would make a bed up downstairs for the boy if his wife was away and would then visit him during the night; if she was there, the witness would be put to sleep in a caravan and Norris would visit him there.

  8.31  When he gave evidence to the Tribunal, Norris admitted committing offences at Bryn Estyn from 1980 onwards but his admissions did not go beyond what was implicit in his pleas of guilty in the Crown Court. He denied threatening any child but he said that he did require a "101 per cent assurance" from a child that he would not tell anyone. The offences occurred in the shower or bathroom and in a child's bedroom on occasions. Another member of staff was very seldom on the premises at the time because he chose occasions when he was the only member of staff on duty. One boy victim would not know that any other was being abused. Norris disliked Howarth and had as little as possible to do with him but he was "totally and utterly" unaware that Howarth was sexually abusing children, although he was aware of the flat list, on which residents of Clwyd House were rarely included.

  8.32  One recent statement by an alleged victim that was read to us did contain allegations that Norris took him twice to a large house near Chester where he was buggered by both Norris and the occupier and shown pornographic films involving children. This witness alleged also that Norris had arranged for him to be picked up by a man and taken to a house in Chirk where he was sexually assaulted: he resisted the attack and his assailant gave up eventually, after which he was driven home by the driver who had taken him there. This statement included an allegation that both Howarth and Norris tried to get him to recruit boys for sexual purposes. These allegations are, however, unique to the witness, who is now under psychiatric care, and we have not received any supporting evidence or additional detail to enable us to pursue further enquiries. We are unable, therefore, to find that there is any adequate evidence to support the allegations.

  8.33  We are sure that Norris' sexual abuse of residents of Clwyd House went well beyond his own admissions and, subject to the qualification in the preceding paragraph, we have no reason to doubt the veracity of the evidence of most of the witnesses who alleged abuse by him. The abuse certainly began soon after he became responsible for Clwyd House and continued throughout the period during which he retained that responsibility. Nevertheless, we have not received any evidence of contemporary complaints by victims or witnesses of Norris' sexual abuse and there is no basis for a finding that other members of the staff at Bryn Estyn knew about it during the period when it was occurring.

  8.34  Although some members of the staff were less than frank in their evidence about their attitude to Stephen Norris when he was their colleague, we are satisfied that many of them disliked him because of the coarseness of his thoughts and conversation and regarded him as unsuitable for the appointment that he held, having regard to his lack of education and insensitivity. Like Howarth, he was a solitary man and, like Howarth also, he bears an overwhelming responsibility for disfiguring the lives of so many children in his care in pursuit of his own sexual gratification.

Allegations of sexual abuse against other members of the staff

  8.35  We are aware of sexual complaints against 14 other members of the staff at Bryn Estyn during the period under review but, in our judgment, they do not add significantly to the general picture of sexual abuse at Bryn Estyn for reasons that we explain here.

  8.36  The complaints were made by one complainant only against one member of the staff only except in respect of David Gwyn Birch, Paul Bicker Wilson and Frederick Rutter.

  8.37  In the case of David Gwyn Birch there were two complainants. He was employed as an RCCO at Bryn Estyn from 21 May 1979 until June 1984, after which he was employed in 1984 on a supply basis mainly at Park House, Prestatyn, before returning to work in the Wrexham area at Chevet Hey from 1 November 1984 until 1988. He was only 21 years old when he was appointed to Bryn Estyn but he had worked as a youth leader in the Holywell area and in camps in the USA and he had a distinguished record as a swimmer and as a junior rugby football player, both at international level.

  8.38  As we have said in paragraph 2.35(5), David Birch was acquitted on 12 January 1995 of the sexual offences alleged against him by those two complainants and we have neither heard any additional evidence nor received any additional complaint to cast doubt upon the correctness of those verdicts.

  8.39  The position in relation to Paul Bicker Wilson is slightly more complicated but the result for our purposes is the same. His detailed history is dealt with more appropriately later in the next chapter[91]. The main sexual complaints against Wilson were made by two alleged victims and were the subject of three counts of indecent assault on which Wilson was tried in the Crown Court at Chester and acquitted by the jury on 8 July 1994[92]. One of the counts was laid against Wilson jointly with Howarth, who was tried at the same time on that and other counts against him alone; and Howarth too was acquitted of the joint charge. We heard the evidence of both alleged Wilson victims but no additional evidence that would justify us in disagreeing with the jury's verdict has been produced.

  8.40  The three counts on which Wilson was tried were based upon the stronger evidence against him of sexual misconduct and we do not consider that anything of substance could be added by five other complainants under this head who referred to other alleged incidents. Two of them spoke only of physical rather than sexual assaults and another two described acts intended to humiliate them rather than with a sexual motive. Finally, another potential witness, who had made a complaint against Wilson in 1978, could not now be traced and had been uncertain in later statements to the police about important detail. In the absence of any corroboration of this last incident, therefore, no jury would have been likely to convict Wilson in respect of it.

  8.41   Frederick Rutter, who is currently serving sentences totalling 12 years' imprisonment imposed on 30 July 1991[93], was employed at Bryn Estyn as a temporary RCCO from 5 July 1982 to 19 November 1983, before moving on to other work as a care assistant in Clwyd. He was in his middle 30s when at Bryn Estyn and had earlier served in the army for seven years, for two years as a probationer constable in the North Wales Police and as a storekeeper at a steel works before becoming a housefather at Gatewen Hall School, prior to its acquisition by the Bryn Alyn Community[94]. His later convictions all related to a period long after he left Bryn Estyn and were of heterosexual offences of rape and indecent assault whereas the two sexual complaints against him were of minor indecent assaults on separate isolated occasions.

  8.42  The first of these complainants alleged that on an occasion in the laundry room, Rutter had put him over his legs and slapped him for denying knowledge of something (the witness could not specify what). The witness' allegation was that, in the course of the slapping, Rutter paused several times with his hand on the boy's bottom and gripped his buttocks. Another non-sexual allegation by this witness against Rutter was, however, demonstrated to be very unreliable because of its alleged date and, in any event, his account of the laundry room incident as an assault with an indecent motive was not persuasive. As for the other sexual complainant against Rutter, his known statements to the police and the Tribunal were read but only the latter referred to sexual abuse by Rutter without specifying its nature. That abuse was alleged to have been spelt out in a statement to the police made by the witness when he was in Swansea prison, of which the police say that they have no record. Moreover, the witness alleged that the sexual abuse occurred in 1977/1978, long before Rutter joined the staff of Bryn Estyn. In these circumstances we have no acceptable evidence that Rutter sexually abused any of the Bryn Estyn resident children.

  8.43  The remaining sexual complaints are isolated single complaints against ten other members of the Bryn Estyn staff, all of which have been denied vigorously. They vary in nature from grave to comparatively minor and in likelihood from quite possible to highly unlikely. They are not to be dismissed out of hand; a small number were complaints of heterosexual abuse; and two involved a known and a probable homosexual acting independently of each other. However, they were not the subject of complaint at the time and we have not found any contemporary documentation or other corroboration to support them. Moreover, there is no pattern underlying them to suggest systematic abuse: in general, they are alleged to have been isolated incidents. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult for an individual to defend himself or herself now against single allegations of misconduct after the lapse of many years and criminal proceedings in respect of any of them would almost certainly be held to be an abuse of process now.

  8.44  We have looked also for evidence of sexual abuse by resident boys upon each other, bearing in mind that an abused person may himself become an abuser. There has been a small amount of evidence of this but the complaints about it that have reached us have been remarkably few, having regard to the long period at Bryn Estyn that we have reviewed and the nature of the institution. Moreover, in most of the complaints of this kind the perpetrator has not been identified. We would not be justified, therefore, in finding that the scale of inter-resident sexual abuse at Bryn Estyn was greater than in other residential establishments in which pubescent boys are segregated.

Conclusions

  8.45  It follows that, in our judgment, the scale of sexual abuse at Bryn Estyn and its highly damaging impact on the resident boys should be assessed mainly on the basis of what has been comprehensively proved against Howarth and Norris. The allegations against Gordon Anglesea, which centre upon Bryn Estyn, are dealt with separately in the next chapter, because he was neither resident there nor a member of the staff.

  8.46  The picture that we have given of a community home with education on the premises in which two of the most senior members of staff were habitually engaged in major sexual abuse of many of the young residents without detection is truly appalling and no further words from us are needed to underline the gravity of our findings. Unhappily, however, it is not the complete picture because we heard other evidence suggesting that there was a pervasive culture at Bryn Estyn of immature and unhealthy attitudes to sexuality, which were very unhelpful to teenage boys whose developing sexuality needed handling with sensitivity.

  8.47  This lesser form of abuse obviously does not command the same critical attention as the direct physical activities of Howarth and Norris but we have no doubt that its effect was insidious. We heard repeatedly, for example, of the use of foul language with sexual connotations by Norris and, to a lesser extent, by Wilson. There was evidence also of the availability of pornographic videos held by one or two members of the staff: videos that were shown to a small selection of boys in staff accommodation (portrayed as "fun") and on one admitted occasion to a wider audience of boys in the main building itself. Similarly, we heard of pornographic magazines and other sexual material kept in staff accommodation.

  8.48  There is no sharp distinction between personal and professional behaviour when some staff live on site in a community home; and staff have to be aware of the importance of providing appropriate role models for the children in their care when they are, in effect, in loco parentis. Thus, in the environment that we have described, it is not surprising that some of the admitted bullying amongst boys had sexual overtones and that some boys emerged with wholly inappropriate attitudes to their sexuality.

Footnotes:

83   See para 7.11

84   See para 2.35(3).

85   See para 10.85.

86   See paras 2.07(7) and 2.35(2)

87   Convicted at Liverpool Crown Court on 26 November 1984 of five counts of indecent assaults on boys under 16 years for which he received nine months' imprisonment suspended for two years.

88   Convicted at Chester Crown Court on 25 November 1994 of nine offences of buggery, 18 of indecent assault, two of gross indecency and two of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for which he received a total of ten years' imprisonment.

89   See para 2.07(7).

90   See para 2.35(2).

91   See paras 10.04 to 10.39.

92   See para 2.35(3).

93   See para 2.07(8).

94   See para 4.24.