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29.34  It is not very surprising in these circumstances that we have received little evidence of alleged contemporary complaints against either Howarth or Norris of sexual abuse at Bryn Estyn. Five witnesses stated that they complained about Howarth; and one alleged that he complained about Howarth and (less clearly) about Norris.

  29.35  Three of the five who said they complained of sexual abuse by Howarth gave oral evidence early in our hearings. They were not impressive witnesses on matters of detail and each of them had been at Bryn Estyn for only a short period (up to about three months). Probably the most credible of them said that he told a named member of the Bryn Estyn staff, who told him to stop telling lies and beat him up. Another, who was very confused about names, said that he told his (field) social worker but that no action was taken. Later, he told his mother, who informed the same social worker. The third of these witnesses did not allege that he made any complaint whilst he was still at Bryn Estyn: his evidence was that he told a member of staff at Eirianfa later[399].

  29.36  Both the witnesses whose evidence was read are now deceased. The first said that he informed a woman trainee on placement at Bryn Estyn that he had been abused (not buggered) by Howarth on the one occasion when it had occurred but that he had been glue sniffing before making this (true) complaint.Finally, the other deceased witness said in his written statement that he had informed his mother of being abused by Howarth and she had then told his social worker, but that there had not been any follow up action.

  29.37  The witness who said that he complained about both Howarth and (less clearly) Norris whilst he was still at Bryn Estyn is referred to as witness B in Chapter 9[400]. The high point of B's oral testimony to the Tribunal about his Howarth complaint came on his second day in the witness box when he said that he had two or three conversations with Geoffrey Wyatt whilst he was at Bryn Estyn, once in the board room and once in the grounds. On the second ("main") occasion in the grounds he told Wyatt that he was fed up with being beaten up by Nefyn Dodd and abused sexually by Howarth but it was just like talking to a brick wall. B remembered getting hold of Wyatt's jacket lapels and that Peter Howarth and Paul Wilson dragged him off. The previous day, however, B had said twice in evidence that, although he had made complaints to Wyatt, he had never told Wyatt of what Howarth had been doing in a sexual way. B had said also that previous day that he had not told anybody about Howarth's sexual abuse when he was at Bryn Estyn.

  29.38  This allegation appears to have originated in a different form in a statement to the police by B dated 23 April 1992 in which he said that he had approached Wyatt whilst he was walking the grounds at Bryn Estyn "and tried to tell him about being abused by Howarth and Norris". B said that he specifically remembered approaching Wyatt on two separate occasions: as B began to tell Wyatt, the latter told him to fuck off and was not prepared to listen.

  29.39  In the summer of 1992 B requested a meeting with the Director of Social Services (John Jevons) and then told Jevons that he had informed Wyatt, on a visit by the latter to Bryn Estyn, that there were boys at the home who were being physically and sexually abused by members of the staff.

  29.40  Then on 9 September 1992, in a further statement to the police, B said that he had spoken to Wyatt on at least three occasions at Bryn Estyn. On one of Wyatt's visits B had approached him in the grounds and told him that "we are all fed up of being beaten and fucked by members of staff" and B remembered mentioning Peter Howarth and Nefyn Dodd[401] to him. On that occasion B was very angry and was holding on to Wyatt, tugging his jacket; B was also being abusive to Wyatt, attempting to get his full attention, and Wilson and (B thought) Howarth came to Wyatt's assistance. Wyatt's response was to call B a liar and to tell him to "piss off".

  29.41  In the same statement to the police B said that he had spoken to Wyatt on another occasion when the latter was making his way to the boardroom. On that occasion also he had said that "we are all fed up" with being sexually and physically abused. Wyatt had responded with words to the effect "leave it with me".

  29.42  The inconsistencies in B's various accounts of what he said to Wyatt are such that we cannot be confident that he ever specifically said to Wyatt that he or others were being sexually abused by Howarth. He may have intended to do so but his evidence to the Tribunal about what was said, if anything, was unreliable. There has been some consistency in his references to approaching Wyatt in the grounds but, if he did so, the approach was made in such a manner that Wyatt was able to brush him aside. Wyatt himself told us that he has no recollection of any approach by B at Bryn Estyn.

  29.43  The evidence of a complaint by B about Norris is even more nebulous. As we have indicated in paragraph 29.37, on his own statements B does not seem to have advanced beyond an intention to name Norris to Wyatt as an abuser and he has more frequently referred to Dodd as the person whom he named with Howarth. In other evidence B spoke of conversations with a police officer after he left Bryn Estyn in which he suggested or at least hinted that there were serious matters at Bryn Estyn that ought to be investigated but there is nothing to persuade us that Norris was named in that context.

  29.44  In relation to Cartrefle the picture is similar. Only one former boy resident alleged that he had complained of Norris' sexual abuse before June 1990. He was at Cartrefle between October 1984 and April 1986 (from the age of ten years) and he said that he told a few of the "kids in the home" about it: they told each other and he saw Norris "doing it to other boys". This witness said that he could not complain to staff because Norris was Officer-in-Charge and he could not trust anyone but later in his evidence he said that he told Lynn, whose response was that he could not make allegations like that without evidence. The witness alleged also that he had gone to the police house next door to Cartrefle about six months after he had been admitted and had told a police officer that he and other children ("we") were being interfered with. The police officer had looked at him as if he was strange and (like Lynn) had said that the police could not do anything without evidence.

  29.45  This witness has had a troubled history and he told us that one of his problems was that he could not communicate. His inconsistent answers about complaining to staff illustrate the difficulty of assessing his evidence on matters of detail and it is noteworthy that he says that the responses to both his complaints were virtually the same. We cannot be confident therefore that either complaint was made. The evidence (if true) does, however, underline the importance of listening to, recording and taking seriously complaints of this kind made by children.

  29.46  The evidence before us about complaints of sexual abuse in other residential establishments in Clwyd followed the same general pattern. The sexual abuse by John Allen persisted over a long period[402] but he was, in effect, the head and major proprietor of the Bryn Alyn Community and we are not aware of any contemporary complaint about him to a member of the staff or to any other person in authority. One former resident of the Eirianfa unit of Ystrad Hall[403] alleged that he complained to a member of staff about being buggered by another member of staff there and was physically assaulted for his pains when he did so, but we have explained in paragraph 22.19 our reasons for doubting this evidence. As for the abuse by Noel Ryan at Clwyd Hall[404], this appears to have continued for over ten years without any complaint being made by a victim to a person in authority save for the lesser complaints referred to in paragraph 23.27.

  29.47  The picture in relation to foster children is not dissimilar. The offences of Roger Saint did come to light as a result of complaints by two of his adopted children to social workers in February 1996 but by then the abuse in the foster home had been continuing for many years. Rutter's abuse was arrested earlier but the initial complaints were made by comparatively mature girls in the hostels rather than by the children in the foster home; and the sexual abuse in foster home B persisted for nearly eight years before one of the children first made allegations against Mr B.

  29.48  The almost total absence of contemporary complaints of sexual abuse by the young victims of it in Clwyd is typical of many cases that come before courts throughout the United Kingdom but that fact does not exonerate from responsibility the staff and officers in Clwyd who were charged with the duty of looking after these children, who were all in care. Quite apart from the general constraints on making a complaint that we have referred to in paragraph 29.33 there were additional factors in Clwyd militating against the early discovery of sexual abuse when it occurred. We summarise these in the succeeding section of this chapter.

The absence of any complaints procedure

  29.49  It was a serious defect nationally that complaints procedures were not introduced generally until well into the 1980s. In Clwyd itself there was no recognised complaints procedure from 1974 until about 1991. This meant that, during that period, there was no guidance to children on the subject, no instructions to staff about how to respond to complaints and no accepted procedure for dealing with allegations when they were made. Over and over again victims of abuse told the Tribunal that they did not know how to make a formal complaint against a member of staff; and both Emlyn Evans and Gledwyn Jones, whose terms of office successively as Director of Social Services spanned this period, conceded that no such procedures were laid down. The higher management of the Social Services Department simply did not recognise the existence of the problem.

  29.50  The absence of a complaints procedure was one important factor in discouraging complaints of sexual abuse and confirmed, in effect, the general view of residents that it was pointless to complain. It did not, however, excuse the failures on the part of staff, Officers-in-Charge and senior management to react positively when complaints were made. More will be said about this in the next chapter of this report because residents were readier to complain when they were assaulted physically than when they suffered sexual abuse. In practice, when a resident did pluck up the courage to complain:

(a)  he/she was rarely believed;

(b)  he/she was almost invariably asked whether he/she wished to make a "formal complaint" (and the seriousness of the matter for the member of staff impugned was stressed);

(c)  if he/she proceeded with the matter, a written statement would be taken but the complainant would rarely be seen subsequently by anyone with disciplinary authority;

(d)  in most cases the complainant would be transferred to another (usually less congenial) home.

The awareness of staff

  29.51  We have had in mind throughout the Tribunal's hearings and the preparation of this report that general awareness of the danger of sexual abuse of children in care has been very different in the latter part of the 1990s from what it was in the mid 1970s. It may well be that there was little recognition of the potential problem in that earlier period and that it was generally assumed that children in care were safe. It is, perhaps, significant that the first (1988 version) of Working Together issued by the Department of Health and Welsh Office as guidance on inter-agency arrangements for the protection of children from abuse, made no reference to children in care[405].

  29.52  Nevertheless, residential care staff (and teaching staff, where applicable) can reasonably have been expected to possess a degree of common-sense and worldliness throughout the period; and Bryn Estyn provides ample justification for this approach. Thus, the evidence has satisfied us that an overwhelming majority of the staff at Bryn Estyn were aware of Howarth's "flat list" practice, that is, of inviting favoured boys to his flat and permitting them to stay to a comparatively late hour. Moreover, a substantial number of the staff disapproved of the practice for a variety of reasons. We doubt whether any of them positively believed that Howarth was committing offences against the boys but some were suspicious themselves, many knew of the boys' gossip about Howarth to the effect that he was a homosexual and many disapproved of the "flat list" on the ground that Howarth was placing himself in a very vulnerable position, as well as tending to disrupt discipline.

  29.53  As we have said earlier, Arnold too was well aware of the "flat list" and, in our judgment, he knew of the unease felt by many members of the Bryn Estyn staff about it. We have accepted also that he knew of the rumours about Howarth that were circulating in the community home and that he called a meeting of staff at which he threatened instant dismissal for anyone giving currency to or discussing them[406]. Arnold must, therefore, bear an important part of the blame for the failure to discover Howarth's abuse earlier or at least to arrest it wholly or in part.

  29.54  Although Arnold did play a praiseworthy part in the unmasking of Leslie Wilson as a sexual abuser[407], a letter that he wrote on 9 July 1977, in the course of that investigation, throws a perturbing light on his general attitude to the disclosure of abuse. The letter was addressed personally to the Director of Social Services (Emlyn Evans) and was expressly intended to be delivered to him by hand, although neither Evans nor any other member of the senior or middle management admits that he saw it at the time. The letter (clearly signed by Arnold) described how a five page statement had been taken by the police from the boy complainant (who had been at Little Acton) at the request of a Chief Superintendent of police and in the presence of Mr and Mrs Arnold. In the course of summarising the boy's allegations in the statement, Arnold said in his letter that "The statement, damaging as it is, does not contain the boy's fuller comments, which suggest that there was considerable laxity in supervision of what was happening. I apologise for this statement but feel you should be aware that if this child were brought into Court and allowed to speak freely, much damaging material would be disclosed". Arnold also wrote of "a hope that a fuller investigation by the Police might be averted" and referred to "odd comments of snowballing effect" at the Police Station and "other aspects" which he was not prepared to commit to paper. The consistent tenor of the letter was his desire to protect the department from further disclosures and it is strongly indicative of his negative attitude of mind to thorough investigation of a particularly serious matter.

  29.55  Earlier in this report[408] we expressed some sympathy with the Bryn Estyn staff who were faced with the threat by Arnold of dismissal referred to in paragraph 29.53, but they must share collectively some of the blame for the failure to discover Howarth's abuse earlier, having regard to the gravity of the issues at stake. Only one member of that staff claimed to have raised the matter at headquarters and that was Paul Wilson, who said that he spoke of his suspicions about Howarth to Geoffrey Wyatt after he (Wilson) had been elected as a union representative, apparently in February 1984[409]. That was very late on in Howarth's offending but we have no reason to doubt Wilson's evidence on this point. According to Wilson, Wyatt's response was to ask whether he was making a formal complaint and to warn him that the repercussions could be quite serious, which is consistent with other evidence that we have received of Wyatt's unresponsive and defensive attitude to complaints. We add that, if Wyatt was unaware of Howarth's "flat list" practice by that late date, it exemplifies the inadequate monitoring of Bryn Estyn by the Social Services Department.

  29.56  What we have said on this subject is in line with our wider discussion of the cult of silence that prevailed at Bryn Estyn[410]. That attitude of mind was probably more marked there than elsewhere but it certainly existed at other community homes in Clwyd during the same period and later at Cartrefle. In respect of the latter home, for example, we heard persuasive evidence that members of the staff strongly disapproved and disliked Norris, regarding him as unfit to be Officer-in-Charge, but no complaints about him appear to have been made to higher authority until June 1990.

  29.57  The gravity and potentially dangerous consequences of these attitudes cannot be over-emphasised when we are discussing child protection. The existence of "whistleblowers" and their willingness and freedom to make complaints without fear of retribution are crucial, as is their confidence that they will be listened to positively. All the inhibiting factors, such as loyalty to colleagues and the wish for a quiet life, cannot be eliminated but it is a paramount duty of management to make sure that adverse information reaches it. In Clwyd, however, the pervading climate was of disapproval of such reports and unwillingness to investigate them. In that climate it is not surprising that sexual abuse was allowed to fester and persist.

  29.58  The final comment that needs to be made under this head is that awareness on the part of members of the staff depends not only upon observation of the behaviour of colleagues but also upon confiding relationships between staff and residents coupled with sensitive monitoring of the behaviour of individual residents. The circumstances in which a boy at Cartrefle came to confide in Stanley about Norris' misdeeds underlines the importance of each of these factors. Stanley had observed that the boy appeared to be upset and had already won his confidence, and the boy's complaint was elicited carefully without pressure on him to say more than he wished to in the early stages and without questioning the boy's motivation etc.

  29.59  Of the many complainant witnesses that the Tribunal heard and saw very few had any recollection of a confiding relationship with a particular member of the residential care staff. Various former Officers-in-Charge spoke of introducing or attempting to introduce at one time or another a key worker system, under which members of the residential care staff would be required to assume responsibility individually for establishing a close relationship with a small number of specific residents. But these sporadic efforts appear to have had little impact on the residential care system in Clwyd as a whole and failed to establish even an embryo complaints procedure in the minds of residents. This failure is illustrated by the high level of absconsions from several of the Wrexham homes and, in particular, from Bryn Estyn. Despite general concern about this problem and frequent involvement of police officers and field social workers in returning the absconders, little attempt was made to ascertain the true reasons for the absconding: instead the absconders would be questioned about offences committed whilst they were "on the run" and then punished at the community home for the absconding without further discussion.

The role of field social workers

  29.60  We deal with this topic more fully in Chapter 31, in which we consider the quality of care generally, but it is necessary to stress here the importance of the duty of field social workers to establish and maintain a close relationship with children in residential care and to listen to their worries and complaints. Although there were no statutory regulations specifying a required frequency of visits by field social workers to children for whom they were responsible who were in residential care, the evidence before the Tribunal indicates that in Clwyd, as in many other local authority areas, the provisions of the successive Boarding Out Regulations[411] governing inter alia visits to children in foster care were accepted as the appropriate standard to be followed.

  29.61  For most of the period under review that standard was set by Regulation 21 of the Boarding Out of Children Regulations 1955, which provided in its original form:

  "A local authority or voluntary organisation who have arranged the boarding-out of a child shall ensure that a visitor sees the child and visits the dwelling of the foster parents--

(a)  within one month after the commencement of the boarding-out;

(b)  thereafter as often as the welfare of the child requires, but not less often than--

(i) in the case of a child boarded out with foster parents in whose household he has been less than two years, if the child has not attained the age of five years, once in every six weeks, or, if he has attained that age, once in every two months, or

(ii)in the case of a child who has been in the household of the foster parents more than two years, once in every three months;

(c)  within one month after any change of dwelling by the foster parents; and

(d)  forthwith after the receipt of a complaint by or concerning the child, unless it appears that action thereon is unnecessary."

  29.62  Despite these clear provisions none of the complainant witnesses who gave evidence to the Tribunal recalled a meaningful relationship with his/her social worker. Yet John Coley (Deputy Director of Social Services 1980-1984)[412], for example, said in his written statement:

"The frequency of visits and the quality of trust between the child and field social worker are crucial and cannot be built up without continuity of supervision and time being spent with the child."

29.63  It is unlikely that the overall record of visiting by field workers was as bad as most of the complainants now recall and, in some cases, the present recollection of individual witnesses was shown by contemporary records to be incorrect. Nevertheless, the true record overall was, at best, very patchy. Thus, Gordon Ramsay, the Principal Social Worker responsible for placements for most of the relevant period, told the Tribunal that social workers tended to visit more at the beginning and end of placements but that children did not receive a high level of support in between. Moreover, the note of a meeting of senior management in May 1980 to discuss child care policy and practice referred to "infrequent or sometimes non-existent contact by social worker and child during periods of residence" and to the "very little" (fieldwork) "time spent in practical work with children". Again, in June 1983 Ramsay drew up a list of concerns for discussion at a meeting with senior managers, one of which was "infrequent visiting to community homes by social workers and consequently they feel unsupported and children are somewhat cynical".

  29.64  This problem was general in the sense that it affected most of the local authority homes in Clwyd but it was probably felt most acutely by residents in Bryn Estyn. The latter was a large community home with the reputation that it was a hard place; and its organisation and structure were such that any resident was likely to feel isolated unless he was particularly self-assured and gregarious. It has to be remembered also that a high proportion of residents (well in excess of 50 per cent for most of the period) were from counties other than Clwyd or Gwynedd so that visits from their field social workers at the community home were comparatively rare. It is very credible, therefore, that most of the residents felt that they were unsupported and largely forgotten unless they behaved in such a way that further local authority or police action was triggered.

Monitoring, inspection and rota visits

  29.65  General monitoring and supervision of community homes by higher management and rota visits by councillors are unlikely to lead directly to the disclosure of sexual abuse because of the very private nature of such abuse but they may do so indirectly and they may also help to eliminate practices or routines that conduce to or provide a cover for it. It cannot be said that the quality of surveillance in Clwyd, however, was sufficient to provide any protection for children in residential care against such abuse.

  29.66  A notable feature of the evidence before the Tribunal has been the lack of any personal contact between children in residential care in Clwyd and anyone from the outside world (using that expression in the broadest sense). It is necessary to explain this in a little detail but it is useful to begin by referring to the formal statutory provision governing visits to local authority children's homes by the administering authority which was contained in Regulation 2 of the Administration of Children's Homes Regulations 1951, made under section 15(4) of the Children Act 1948. Regulation 2 provided:

(1)  The administering authority shall make arrangements for the home to be visited at least once in every month by a person who shall satisfy himself whether the home is conducted in the interests of the well-being of the children and shall report to the administering authority upon his visit and shall enter in the record book referred to in paragraph 3 of the Schedule hereto his name and the date of his visit.

(2)  Where the administering authority is a local authority the arrangements shall secure that the person visiting is a member of the children's committee of the local authority, a member of a sub-committee established by that committee or such officer or one of such officers of the local authority as may be designated by the arrangements.

  29.67  There was no equivalent provision in the Community Homes Regulations 1972 and no children's committee as such after the implementation of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. Under the latter Act, every relevant local authority was required to appoint a Social Services Committee but Sub-Committee structures under that committee varied. In Clwyd there was, as we have said earlier, a Management Committee for the Community Homes of Bryn Estyn, Little Acton and Bersham Hall from 1975 to about 1984, probably because of the roles of these homes in the Regional Plan for Wales, but there was no other management committee of which we are aware for any of the other local authority community homes in Clwyd (despite Raymond Powell's contrary assertion). Moreover, in Clwyd itself the sub-committee structure was altered quite radically from time to time so that there was little continuity. Initially there was a Residential Services Sub-Committee (with its counterpart an Adult Services Sub-Committee); then, with delegation to the Areas from 1975 to 1980, came Area Sub-Committees, which seem to have continued beyond the demise of area responsibility for the homes; and in 1989 a Children and Family Services Sub-Committee, with an adult counterpart, was established.

  29.68  These changing structures did not encourage an individual councillor's sense of continuing personal responsibility for the welfare of the children in specific community homes. It must be said, however, that whilst it remained in existence the Management Committee for the three Wrexham homes did meet quarterly at each of the homes in turn and these meetings did provide an opportunity for contact. Unfortunately, however, none of the former residents of the homes recalls actual, meaningful contact with any councillor on these or any other occasions. Moreover, the format of the meetings was such that few welfare or disciplinary problems were discussed. The Officers-in-Charge dictated in effect, what the Management Committee discussed by the contents of their reports; and even the persistently high rates of absconsions were discussed only occasionally and superficially. The Management Committee were clearly on safer and more familiar ground when they discussed building alterations and other such items of expenditure.

  29.69  Provision was made for members of the Social Services Committee to visit the community homes in accordance with a rota, and it appears that there was a similar system for visits by members of the Management Committee to visit the three Wrexham homes for which they were responsible, but it cannot be said that the arrangements made any substantial contribution to the welfare of the children. We have been left with a lasting impression of councillors' unease and uncertainty about their role as visitors. We accept that they were encouraged by senior officials to perform this duty: they were, for example, issued with guidance on what to do and with simple forms to complete by way of reports upon their visits but their unease persisted and their reports were almost invariably limited to matters of domestic physical detail, such as the state of the lavatories, or neighbourhood issues.

  29.70  The unhappiness of councillors with their role as visitors was reflected in diminishing attendance. In one of his reports to the Management Committee, Arnold said "We are missing our Rota Visitors: absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. Staff welcome these visits, it enables them to discuss their work intimately and face to face". Later on, in 1992, long after Bryn Estyn itself closed, David Palmer (then Children's Resources Manager for the South Division) reported to the Director of Social Services (John Jevons) that no Wrexham children's home had been visited by senior officers or senior elected members in the past 12 months. This is all the more surprising given that, by then, the abuse at Cartrefle and the major police investigation were common knowledge. In 1995 attendance at a training day for rota visitors was so bad that plans for further training were abandoned.

  29.71  There was no formal structure for inspection of the local authority community homes except during the period of delegation to the areas from 1977 to 1980, when there were two inspectors based at headquarters[413]. Their remit, however, covered all 65 social services establishments in the county and their work load was too heavy to enable them effectively to monitor the many community homes still in existence. Veronica Pares, for example, said that the aim was to visit each residential establishment in turn and she could spend two or three days in one children's home but she was not able to visit every children's home in her half of the county in the three years that her post lasted. The other inspector, who was responsible for the other half of the county, had very little experience of children in residential care and he seems to have spent much of his time looking at residential places for the elderly and training programmes for people with learning difficulties.

  29.72  Outside the period from 1977 to 1980 visits to the community homes by senior officials seem to have been largely random. Emlyn Evans, the first Director of Social Services, for example, said that he visited Bryn Estyn once or twice a year. He thought that Arnold was living up to his high commendation by the Home Office and that Bryn Estyn was well endowed with material things. The boys seemed to be happy and there was no feeling of unhappiness or restlessness of any kind. Gledwyn Jones, who explained that he too was not children trained and had no "hands on" experience with children in care, expressed similar opinions about Arnold. He visited children's homes occasionally, usually on pre-arranged visits, and his view was that monitoring was the responsibility of the relevant Principal Officer and Principal Social Workers, not the RDCOs. He was under the impression that middle management was giving the necessary guidance and leadership, thus echoing Emlyn Evans' belief in delegation[414].

  29.73  The person under Gledwyn Jones with the longest continuous responsibility at Assistant Director level for children in residential care was Raymond Powell, who held that status from 1974 until his retirement in October 1989. We have explained in Chapter 28 how that responsibility took different guises from time to time but he had responsibility for residential care for at least six years, between 1977 and 1981 and again between 1987 and 1989; and Gordon Ramsay appears to have been accountable to him, whether or not through Iorwerth Thomas, throughout. Powell did not play any part in monitoring the community homes, however, and he seems to have interpreted his role as largely passive: he relied heavily for information upon Wyatt and Ramsay.

  29.74  In his oral evidence Powell said that he visited all the "Flintshire" homes but that he did not make regular visits. As for Bryn Estyn, he made formal visits about four times a year (later he said perhaps five or six times) and would attend Christmas lunches there. His view of Arnold was the same as that of his Directors; he felt that the atmosphere at Bryn Estyn was always good and that the boys seemed to be happy. He did not recall any specific problems that were reported to him for attention except that there were complaints from the residential side that field social workers were not visiting the residents and these were taken up with the Area Officers.

  29.75  The member of middle management who provided the longest continuous link between the community homes and senior management was undoubtedly Geoffrey Wyatt and he had responsibility for Bryn Estyn as Principal Officer Residential Services from 1976[415] and later as Assistant Director (Residential) until it closed in September 1984. Whatever his position may have been technically from time to time in the organisational structure, Wyatt was regarded by members of staff and residents in the community homes as the officer at headquarters responsible for residential care, apart from a comparatively short period between 1986 and 1989 when he was deflected to Adult Services.

  29.76  Wyatt told the Tribunal that he visited Bryn Estyn once every six weeks or so but he did not regard it as appropriate for him to tour the premises on these occasions or to inspect children's files or even to speak to the residents. His contact appears to have been almost exclusively with Arnold and he did not find it easy to be Arnold's line manager: Arnold had a great deal of experience and was accustomed to independence, finding it difficult to come to terms with working within a local authority framework. It is of some relevance also that Arnold earned substantially more than Wyatt and felt able to approach the Director of Social Services direct when he chose to do so. In Wyatt's opinion, Arnold was selective in what he divulged to Wyatt.

  29.77  It is not surprising in these circumstances that Wyatt's knowledge of what was actually happening at Bryn Estyn was very limited. We will revert to this theme in the next chapters of this report but here it is relevant to record that Wyatt told the Tribunal that he knew nothing of Howarth's "flat list" practice until the major police investigation and was amazed when he learned of it. He said also that, if he had been aware of it, alarm bells would have rung in his mind. He claimed also that he had no knowledge of any failings of Norris that might have pointed against his redeployment to Cartrefle in 1984.

  29.78  Gordon Ramsay, as a Principal Social Worker from 1974 to 1987, was junior in status to Wyatt (his grading was a recurring cause of discontent) and had narrower responsibilities but he did visit the community homes regularly. He was required to attend "placement" reviews in the homes twice a year (he chaired them except those at Bryn Estyn, Bersham Hall and Little Acton) and he attended also many case conferences in his capacity of placement officer. It was not part of Ramsay's duties to inspect the community homes (in his written statement he said that he "had no responsibility for the inspecting and visiting of children's homes") but he needed to be conversant with them to carry out his placement duties. In his opinion Arnold ran a very good establishment at Bryn Estyn, a "tight ship" for children in need of control, and he knew individual boys, treating them all the same, despite the fact that there was a strong criminal element.

  29.79  Ramsay said in his evidence that he would speak informally to boys when he visited Bryn Estyn. His assessment was that it was a rough unit with the strong discipline and respect for staff to be found in an approved school; but he had no cause for concern and did not himself witness rough handling or hear abusive language. He did, however, form the view that Norris was uncouth and crude and that he was not management material; he agreed in cross-examination that he ought to have passed on this view to senior management but said that they must have known this themselves.

  29.80  John Llewellyn Thomas did not arrive in Clwyd until July 1984, just before Bryn Estyn was closed, and remained only until April 1991. During this period he was Principal Officer (Children), working under Wyatt until 1986, then under Powell until 1989 and again under Wyatt after that until the split into divisions was implemented in October 1990. Thomas' evidence was that he found operational standards in the community homes to be very poor and that he and his colleagues were engaged in "fire fighting", which took up a great deal of time, whilst he had to deal also with an accumulation of paper work on a variety of matters following the departure of Iorwerth Thomas.

  29.81  After the closure in 1984 of Bryn Estyn and another Wrexham home, 7 Tan-y-Dre[416], there were eight local authority community homes in Clwyd still operating, with about 100 residents; and Thomas had only one RDCO (Norman Green) to assist him in monitoring them when Gwen Hurst became increasingly involved with services for young children. Green had a visiting programme providing for visits to each community home about once a month but, according to Thomas, he or Green would visit more frequently than that to deal with problems. Thomas started holding monthly Heads of Homes meetings, at which he would preside, and he made a point of visiting each home personally at least once a quarter. It does not appear, however, that Thomas felt any particular concern about Norris' suitability to head Cartrefle.

  29.82  Finally, Michael Barnes did not join the headquarters staff until January 1988 so that he had little opportunity to take effective action at that level during the period of major sexual abuse. As Principal Social Worker (Child and Family Services) his major duty was to manage the remaining children's homes (including a new home, Gladwyn), acting under Thomas and Powell (later Wyatt); and he did so until the reorganisation in October 1990, when he became Children's Resources Manager of the North Division[417]. One of his new responsibilities also was "gate keeping", namely, scrutinising potential admissions to residential care in order to avoid unnecessary admissions, which had formerly been part of Ramsay's duties.

  29.83  Barnes undoubtedly applied himself with great energy to his new duties in 1988 and he had the advantage of considerable experience of working with children in care in Clwyd community homes. He made monthly managerial visits to each home (except when attending a managerial course) and met with managers, staff and the children; and there were other routine visits for various purposes, including the investigation of complaints. Amongst the steps that he took were initiatives to develop the role of the Heads of Homes meetings, to supervise those Heads more closely and attempts to improve rota visiting by councillors.

  29.84  One of the Officers-in-Charge with whom Barnes had to deal was Norris at Cartrefle, who was previously known to him, although they had not been colleagues in the same community home. In Barnes' evidence to the Cartrefle inquiry[418], he said that he had had differences with Norris previously in his career over the latter's attitude and language; and he described his first supervisory meeting at Cartrefle with Norris as frank and abrasive. Barnes made it clear to Norris that the use of foul and sexual language, together with "derogatory labelling", would not be tolerated. Norris subsequently obeyed this edict, at least within earshot of his own managers, but in subsequent supervisory visits Barnes raised many matters of concern about the running of Cartrefle and Norris responded with complaints about the Department. Barnes formed the view that Norris was not capable of doing his job and that he should not have been appointed. As a result of the difficulties between them, fewer managerial visits were made to Cartrefle than had been planned or should have been made.

  29.85  Barnes responded promptly, however, to Stanley's request that he should attend Cartrefle late at night in June 1990 in view of a resident's complaint that he had been sexually abused by Norris. Barnes saw the boy, whose complaint he believed, and there has been no criticism of his subsequent actions in reporting to his Principal Officer and placing the matter in the hands of the police. He dealt appropriately also with the anxieties of some members of staff about Stanley himself at that time.

Conclusions

  29.86  Although we recognise that the identification of potential sexual abusers often presents insurmountable difficulties and that young victims are usually extremely reluctant to complain about it when sexual abuse occurs, we are strongly critical of many aspects of the regimes that prevailed in community homes in Clwyd between 1974 and 1990. It is true that, in the earlier part of that period, ignorance of the risk of abuse by residential care staff or by others involved with children in care was widespread but that does not absolve Clwyd's Social Services Department from blame for their failure in many respects to take essential precautions for the safety of children in residential care within the county.

  29.87  In this chapter we have highlighted what happened at Bryn Estyn and Cartrefle because those were the two homes in which the most prolonged abuse occurred but many of the criticisms and all the lessons to be drawn apply to the other community homes within the county.

  29.88  A major and inescapable conclusion is that Arnold was wrongly permitted to run Bryn Estyn as his own fiefdom without any adequate direction, monitoring and supervision from management above and that, in doing so, he made grave errors. The most serious of those errors were his failures to prohibit Howarth's "flat list" practice and to investigate what was happening in that flat, despite the rumours of which he was aware. But his role in the advancement of Norris was also seriously mistaken, as was his espousal and encouragement of the cult of silence amongst members of the staff. All these matters should have been within the knowledge of an alert and effective higher management.

  29.89  These particular failures occurred in one establishment inherited from the Home Office, in respect of which Clwyd managers appear to have regarded themselves as incapable of exercising control or insufficiently experienced to do so, but other criticisms that we have made are of general application. These include the absence of any complaints procedure or any effective key worker system; the lack of awareness of staff that children were being abused and their reluctance to report anxieties about the behaviour of colleagues; the corresponding reluctance of headquarters staff to respond to complaints with thorough investigation, on which we enlarge in the next chapter; the isolation of residents in care and their inadequate access to, and relationship with, field social workers; and the failure of headquarters for most of the period to provide any adequate system of supervising, monitoring and inspecting the community homes. Cumulatively these shortcomings must have played a part in the prolongation of the sexual abuse and may have encouraged the abusers before it began to think that they would escape detection.

  29.90  Our discussion in this chapter has been focussed mainly on the community homes for which Clwyd County Council was directly responsible but our comments are relevant to the agencies responsible for other residential establishments for children within the county with which we have dealt earlier in this report. We stress, in particular, the need for clear complaints procedures in these establishments and for recognised "whistleblowing" procedures with appropriate protection for members of staff who make adverse reports on colleagues. There is also a need for the training of all residential care staff in likely symptoms of sexual abuse of which they should be aware; and regular independent monitoring of the homes is crucial. These matters are of particular importance in relation to private homes like the Bryn Alyn Community without any element of external management.

  29.91  We have not found any specific breach of duty by Clwyd in respect of its own children in care placed in non-local authority establishments within the County but we cannot over-emphasise the importance of regular visiting by field staff workers of such children wherever they may be placed and the need to build up a relationship of trust and confidence. In more recent times the direct responsibilities of local authorities have been enlarged under the Children Act 1989 by the provisions in Part VIII of that Act for the registration of private children's homes. A wide duty to investigate and to take appropriate action is imposed by section 47 of the Act (replacing a provision in section 2 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969) where a local authority has reasonable cause to suspect that a child who lives, or is found in, its area is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.

  29.92  The issues that arise in relation to the avoidance or early elimination of sexual abuse in foster care are rather different from those that we have discussed in the context of community homes; and we have dealt with foster care in Clwyd as fully as possible in Part V of this report. Again, however, the quality of the relationship between field social worker and child, awareness on the part of the former, and regular monitoring of the placement are all of the utmost importance.

Footnotes:

374   The private residential establishments such as those in the Bryn Alyn Community have been counted as one for this purpose, although residents were dispersed on more than one site

375   See para 8.03.

376   See para 8.23.

377   See para 8.05.

378   See para 12.10.

379   See para 8.24.

380   See para 8.26.

381   See paras 11.02 to 11.06.

382   See para 12.10.

383   See paras 13.14 to 13.20.

384   See paras 14.32 to 14.45.

385   See paras 15.21 to 15.25, 17.08 to 17.14 and 17.16.

386   See para 17.16.

387   See paras 15.34 to 15.37.

388   See para 25.15.

389   See para 25.18.

390   See para 15.24.

391   See para 15.28.

392   See paras 13.17 to 13.19.

393   See paras 13.15 and 13.16.

394   See para 13.20.

395   See para 12.10.

396   See paras 14.32 to 14.42

397   See paras 8.03 to 8.22.

398   See paras 8.23 to 8.34 and 15.07 to 15.14.

399   Part of Care Concern's school at Ystrad Hall, see paras 22.01 and 22.02.

400   See paras 9.05 and 9.32 to 9.34.

401   B did not, however, suggest that he had been sexually assaulted by Dodd.

402   See para 21.24.

403   See paras 22.16 to 22.19.

404   See paras 23.17 to 23.27.

405   The omission was remedied in the edition circulated on 14 October 1991.

406   See paras 8.14 to 8.16.

407   See para 12.10.

408   At paras 8.17 and 8.21.

409   See para 8.18.

410   See paras 11.02 to 11.06.

411   See generally Appendix 6, paras 31 to 35.

412   See para 28.22.

413   See para 28.12.

414   See para 28.14.

415   See para 28.11 as to his position in relation to the Area Officers between 1977 and 1980.

416   See paras 4.02(8) and 4.19(8).

417   See para 28.44.

418   See para 15.47.