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Introduction

  16.01  Cherry Hill is a large house, standing in its own grounds in Borras Park Road, a well established residential area on the outskirts of Wrexham. It was opened by Denbighshire County Council on 1 January 1971 as a community home for up to 11 children of school age and over (usually teenagers). It came under the aegis of Clwyd County Council from 1 April 1974 and its capacity was said to be for up to 12 children in the 1979 Regional Plan. Later, the age range of children accommodated was widened to include youngsters from seven years old but the number of children there declined to eight. Residents in the home attended local schools (but the home was able to accommodate children with learning difficulties) and were encouraged to play a part in the local community.

  16.02  This community home remains open and it is now managed by the Children Looked After Team Manager of Wrexham County Borough Council, which took over responsibility for the home on 1 April 1996. It is now described as a six bedded unit for young people between the ages of 14 and 17 years, most of whom present different forms of challenges. According to the Council, it placed particular emphasis during 1997 on developing and strengthening its services at Cherry Hill: an outside consultant has been engaged and"a dedicated programme of training for staff" provided.

  16.03  We have not received directly any complaints of child abuse at Cherry Hill and it would not have been necessary to devote a separate chapter to it but for events that occurred there in the aftermath of the disclosures of Norris' abuse at Cartrefle. These events have not been the subject of oral evidence before us, because of their nature, but the documentary evidence has been sufficient to enable us to summarise what occurred and to draw attention to the defects in the procedures that were followed.

  16.04  According to a police report dated 24 July 1990, there were nine boys, in the age range of nine to 16 years, resident at Cartrefle at the time of Norris' suspension. Of these, two disclosed that they had been sexually abused by Norris and were transferred immediately, on 20 June 1990, one to Cherry Hill and the other to Gladwyn. Two other boys, who were brothers, were transferred shortly afterwards to Llwyn Onn[248]. One of them alleged much later that he had been raped by Norris and the other said for the first time in 1992 that he had witnessed sexual abuse at Cartrefle. The other five Cartrefle residents, one of whom subsequently, in 1996, alleged that he had been sexually abused by Norris, remained at Cartrefle and received the limited "counselling" that we have referred to in paragraphs 15.15 to 15.17.

  16.05  Without going into unnecessary detail about the subsequent movements of the four boys transferred from Cartrefle, the evidence indicates that two of them were at Cherry Hill in 1992. One of the two brothers arrived there on 8 January 1992 (probably from Llwyn Onn); the other boy had gone to Cherry Hill in 1990 for only five days, then to Tapley Avenue for a month, followed by Pentre Saeson (part of the Bryn Alyn Community) for nearly two years before returning to Cherry Hill in May 1992. Whilst at Pentre Saeson the other brother had been co-resident with this last mentioned boy from 11 September 1991.

The nature of the problem

  16.06  It seems that a child protection conference on 5 November 1992 recorded that an investigation was taking place into a boy's admission that he had "done things" with other boys at Cherry Hill; and the minutes of a meeting held at Cherry Hill on 25 March 1993 disclosed the outcome of that investigation. It revealed that three boys (A, B and C) at the Children's Centre (as it was now known) were actively engaged in sexual activity between each other and that one of the trio (B) was the ex-Cartrefle boy who had returned to Cherry Hill in May 1992. Moreover, another member of the trio (A) had disclosed sexual involvement with a fourth and a fifth boy (D and E), who had both left Cherry Hill. A had also been seen touching a boy's penis in the public swimming baths and had received a caution for exposing himself to B. D was known to have a history of sexual abuse and had been "linked with a local paedophile ring". C had made allegations of sexual involvement with two males but there was uncertainty about his credibility on the subject.

The process of investigation and the lack of remedial action

  16.07  Very little progress had been made in dealing with this problem or series of problems by the date of the meeting in March 1993 and the decisions taken then lacked any sense of urgency. Further information was to be sought; "Longer term aims and goals regarding specific work with the boys would be open for further discussion"; and the staff group were to start to work immediately with Linda Butler, described as "Principal Child Therapist", who was attached to the Division's Child and Family Services. She provided on 17 June 1993 a report in which she outlined possible treatment needs for A, B and C and training for the Cherry Hill staff but pointed out that it was important to remember the needs of the other young people involved in the situation. She warned also of the high cost in terms of time and resources of the work that she recommended but emphasised that the costs of not doing it would be "higher in terms of future life for the young people, the level of risk they present to others, the increased difficulty in breaking patterns of behaviour the more established they became and costs to future victims".

  16.08  Meanwhile, the Officers-in-Charge of Cherry Hill and Gladwyn had expressed to the Director of Social Services, John Jevons, their grave concern about the procedure that was being adopted to investigate the allegations. They thought that the Department's Child Protection procedures were not being followed and that insufficient urgency was being shown. On 25 May 1993, therefore, Jevons wrote a memorandum to the Child Protection Co-ordinator (David H Davies) and the Assistant Child Protection Officer (Paul Richards) requesting them to carry out an investigation into the history of the alleged incidents going back to November 1992 and how they were dealt with within the home, within the child protection team and amongst departmental managers. The Director required advice also as to whether there were grounds for concern about how the matters had been handled, whether other action was necessary to protect children and whether there were lessons for all to be learnt from what had happened; and the Director stressed the urgency of the second matter on which he sought advice.

  16.09  Unhappily, the response to this memorandum was far from satisfactory. On 18 June 1993 Paul Richards replied to the effect that certain practical matters had been recommended to secure the protection of the children but that finance was required and the cost was being investigated. Richards did not feel that any further investigation by him would provide further useful information: in his view the matter ought to be dealt with within the Division. Richards had two concerns that, he thought, should be addressed. The first was the perceived lack of communication between teams and of feedback to the home. The second was that the investigation had taken too long. Other comments by him were that a strategy meeting (including the police) should have been held at the very beginning and that it would be prudent for case conferences to be held so that any decisions as to abuse and protection would be the responsibility of an inter-agency group and not just the Social Services Department.

  16.10  David Davies, who had left the investigations to Paul Richards, followed up ten days later with a memorandum of his own to the Director, in which he made a number of indecisive comments and posed a number of questions, not all of which were very pertinent to the particular problem that was being investigated. Examples are:

(i)  Providing treatment is difficult and the outcome is uncertain.

(ii)The emphasis on containment and vigilance, with limited therapy, may place staff in increasingly confrontational roles.

(iii)There had been six child protection conferences arising from Cherry Hill children complaining about physical restraint between October 1989 and June 1993.

(iv)Is there a case for a policy that allegations against staff should always be independently investigated by another division?

(v)  I am not clear whether the current enquiry is an assessment of the problems in order to plan therapeutic service or is social services carrying out its duty to investigate under Section 47 of the Children Act 1989?

  16.11  The Director's response to Paul Richards' memorandum preceded this last memorandum and made no comment on the finance required for therapeutic treatment of the children involved. The Director said, in his own memorandum of 25 June 1993 to the Divisional Director (South), that he accepted the advice that there was little point in continuing to investigate the matter from the centre. He said also that he had been unable to discuss with Paul Richards the latter's view as to the wisdom of sharing his report in full with the individuals whom he had interviewed because of Richards' absence on leave. The Divisional Director (South) was left to address the two concerns identified in Paul Richards' report, namely, communication between teams and the delay in progressing the investigation after the initial report coupled with the failure to convene case conferences.

  16.12  The Divisional Director (South), Glynn Ridge, was "bemused" about the communication issues because he thought that there had not been any failures in this area. By 3 August 1993 he understood that case conferences had been convened and that they would ensure that the up-to-date information would be received and that the need for any protection measures or further investigation would be identified. However, the Division's Team Manager for Child Protection, John Roberts, was much less sanguine. In his response to the Divisional Director dated 11 August 1993, Roberts made the following points about communication between teams:

"There have been problems of communication in the way this matter was initially handled which subsequently developed into problems of interpretation and unwillingness to reach any consensus view on resolving issues raised. Strategy meetings which have taken place have been plagued by polarised views which, not having been clearly resolved, have been perpetuated outside of the meetings. I have no doubt that practitioners involved in work with the boys concerned have been "caught in the cross fire" and their effectiveness lessened as a result."

  16.13  Roberts accepted that case conferences for each child involved should have been held at an early stage and that the reasons why this had not been achieved needed to be closely examined. But he added:

"As matters have evolved, I am not unhappy that conferences were delayed on these particular boys for there was/is a real danger that arbitrary decisions may be made in distinguishing between 'victim' and 'perpetrator'. Even now, with conflicting statements the matter is still open to professional interpretation and far from being clear cut, with no obvious criteria such as the use of 'force', 'coercion' or 'inducements' we are left with subjective interpretation of the individual's power of influence over others.

Regardless of any conference decision, we are still left with a serious problem in Cherryhill (sic). The sexual activity which has come to light is both totally inappropriate and illegal and all of the boys concerned need extensive input to reduce future risk to themselves and others. The major decision ought to be whether this is done on a group basis within Cherryhill or whether they should be split-up in an attempt to break the pattern and treated as individuals. If they remain at Cherryhill equally attention should be given to functioning and culture of Cherryhill as well as individual work with these boys. If they are split-up, intensive preparation would be required to ensure that similar patterns do not emerge in that placement."

  16.14  That memorandum indicates that much remained to be done in August 1993, nine months after the problem had first been recognised. In our judgment Roberts summarised clearly the issues that had to be addressed but we do not have any direct evidence as to how matters progressed thereafter. This history was the subject of critical comment by the Jillings Independent Panel, which carried out its own investigations between March 1994 and December 1995, and we have before us a copy of a memorandum from Brian Stickels, Children's Services Manager for the South Division dated 5 January 1996, in which he provides responses to some of the Panel's criticisms. It is sufficient for our purposes to quote his response to the second criticism with which he dealt, namely, "Given past experiences of abuses within the children's residential sector in Clwyd, the Independent Panel feels that the organisational response to this situation was less than satisfactory".

  16.15  Stickels wrote:

"The 'abuses' involved inappropriate sexual activity between male residents at Cherry Hill, no adults were involved or implicated. The disclosure of information was piecemeal and over a six to nine month period before the pattern and extent of behaviour began to emerge. From February '93 it became clear that it was a major group management issue, involving a significant number of previous and existing residents, from that point the following action was taken:

(i)  Multi-Agency Planning Group established, Chaired by the Child and Family Social Work Manager (South Division), which included membership from NW Police and Health. Met throughout 1993 - completed its work January 1994.

(ii)All matters thoroughly investigated and Child Protection Conferences convened. Police involved and consulted throughout and decided with CPS against prosecutions.

(iii)Assessment of risk and intervention plans for all children carried out with the assistance of an independent Consultant with many years experience of work with young people who are sexually aggressive.

. . .

(v)  Staffing levels enhanced and support provided to Care Staff to increase levels of awareness and vigilance.

(vi)A block imposed on all male admissions to Cherry Hill from March '93 to October '94.

(vii)All parents kept fully informed of concerns, information shared and joint action agreed.

(viii)All children offered health counselling and support."

  16.16  In our judgment, however, this response obscures Clwyd's failure to tackle the central problems referred to in the Roberts' memorandum of August 1993. Moreover, it was merely a repetition of what the Independent Panel had already been told. Thus, (iii) corresponds with what Jevons described as the situation "as of February 1993". On (v), the Panel had already commented, "We have been told that this support, provided by two specialist workers, was considered by residential staff to be the most useful input of all that was offered. It was, however, time limited due to financial constraints. The input of one of these workers was withdrawn after two sessions, the reason for which is unclear". As to (vi), as the Panel pointed out, Paul Richards said in his June 1993 memorandum that the block on admissions would not have provided any respite because Cherry Hill was full. The Panel had already criticised (vii) and (viii) also, saying that staff had told them of delays of up to six weeks in informing some parents and commenting on the counselling "Health counselling is indeed vitally important for all young people in residential care. However, it cannot be considered sufficient to impact on sexual offending behaviour".

Conclusions

  16.17  Although we have some sympathy with Clwyd Social Services Department because nationally there was little by way of professional experience or practice guidance to assist in addressing such a situation, there were serious deficiencies in the Department's response to the serious problem that had arisen at Cherry Hill. In the end, technical procedural considerations are far less important than the actual effectiveness of the steps taken to protect from further harm the children involved and from future harm other children who might subsequently be affected.

  16.18  In our judgment the main relevant breaches of good practice were the failures of the local authority:

(a)  to arrange a speedy independent investigation of the facts as soon as the existence of the problem became known, in conjunction with North Wales Police and an independent social services representative;

(b)  to hold immediate case conferences in respect of each of the children involved as soon as the basic facts had been determined;

(c)  to make firm decisions about the disposal and treatment of these children promptly in consultation with their parents;

(d)  to implement appropriate treatment of the children affected;

(e)  to provide necessary training and guidance for the residential care staff dealing with the children, wherever they were placed; and

(f)  to keep the parents, residential care staff and field staff fully informed about what was happening.

16.19  The consequences of these breaches of good practice were that senior managers failed to tackle the central issues affecting the welfare of the children involved and became preoccupied with procedural matters of marginal relevance. The residential care staff were given limited assistance. Discussion was bedevilled by misguided emphasis on the question whether the boys' conduct had been "consensual" and they did not receive any professional treatment despite the advice that was received from Linda Butler.

Footnote:

248   See para 4.02(11).