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Introduction

37.01  Cartref Bontnewydd was established as an orphanage in 1907 in the village of Y Bontnewydd, about three miles south of Caernarvon, on the main A487 road to Porthmadog. It was administered by a Methodist Trust, inspired by the vision of Robert Bevan Ellis, and it remained open until 1983, operating latterly as a voluntary community home. According to the Trustees, over five hundred children were cared for at different times at Cartref Bontnewydd during this period of its history and we are not aware of any complaint in respect of it.

37.02  It is said that the reason for the closure of Cartref Bontnewydd as a voluntary community home was the emergence of fostering as the preferred method of providing for children in need. The Trust decided, therefore, to establish a Family Placement Centre at Cartref Bontnewydd and this fostering unit opened on 11 October 1984. In its new guise the agency entered into a partnership arrangement with Gwynedd County Council to provide fostering services and the arrangement continued until the demise of that County Council in March 1996. It is a non-profit making organisation employing a staff of four. One of its early employees was David Bayley Hughes[516], who was appointed as a family placement officer from 3 February 1986; and some later employees were seconded to the unit by Gwynedd County Council.

  37.03  The fostering unit does not occupy the whole of the premises and in 1988 the rest of the building was re-opened as a community home for up to seven boys and girls, but this was managed and controlled by Gwynedd County Council, occupying it under licence from the Trust. The intention had been that it should replace Ty Newydd and open in 1987 but four of the residential care staff were to be transferred from Ty'r Felin and difficulty was experienced in replacing them there. In the event Mari Thomas[517] took up her appointment as Officer-in-Charge on 10 April 1988 and she held that position until early 1995, when she took maternity leave and then started a full-time two year course at the University of Wales, Bangor, for a Diploma in Social Work. The senior of the three other care workers who moved to Cartref Bontnewydd from Ty'r Felin on 10 April 1988 was Anna Ashton[518], who had served as a Senior RCCO with Mari Thomas under the Dodds at Ty'r Felin following the closure ofTy Newydd, and she remained at Cartref Bontnewydd until the end of the period under review. She became Temporary Residential Team Manager there for six months on 6 January 1995, when Mari Thomas left, and then became Deputy Manager when another person replaced her as Temporary Manager. Finally, Peter Gadd[519] served as the other Senior RCCO from 1 July 1988 to 28 July 1989, when he left to work for the probation service.

  37.04  Cartref Bontnewydd remains open as a community home and is managed jointly with Queens Park. This is the result of an agreement made recently between the new Gwynedd Council and Anglesey County Council. Cartref Bontnewydd is still a seven bedded unit and now provides accommodation for children and young people aged between 13 and 17 years. Mari Thomas is again Officer-in-Charge and Anna Ashton is her Deputy. Queens Park caters for the same age range and is a four bedded unit. The line manager for both is one of four Children's Services Managers appointed by Gwynedd Council.

Complaints of abuse

  37.05  We are aware of only four complainants in relation to Cartref Bontnewydd and none have alleged that they were sexually abused there.

  37.06  Three of the complainants alleged comparatively minor physical abuse by Mari Thomas and the evidence of two of them was read to us. The first of the two was at Cartref Bontnewydd between 11 April 1988 and 6 March 1991, with a gap of eight months or so in 1989. This witness had three complaints about his time there. Firstly, he alleged that he was required by Thomas to strip down to his shorts (worn instead of underpants) when he was rightly suspected by the police of being in possession of stolen money. Secondly that Thomas slapped him across the face with her left hand whilst she slapped the third complainant (whose evidence was not read to us) similarly with her right hand. This incident was said to have occurred after the two victims had absconded and had then been returned by the police (the third complainant confirmed being slapped but bore no grudge about it: for most of the time he was happy at Cartref Bontnewydd). Thirdly, the first complainant alleged also that he had been slapped by another member of the residential care staff after he had spat on the floor of his bedroom whilst talking to her.

  37.07  The second complainant whose evidence was read also went to Cartref Bontnewydd immediately it re-opened and stayed there for just under six months, when she was 14 years old, having previously been at Ty'r Felin for18 months. This witness, who was herself the target of some allegations of bullying elsewhere, alleged that she too was struck by Mari Thomas after absconding from Cartref Bontnewydd with another girl and being returned by the police. She said that she and the other girl were sent to their shared bedroom by Thomas and told to undress and hand over their clothes. When she refused to do so, Thomas grabbed her by the hair and deliberately knocked her head against the flat of the windowsill with the result that she had a headache but no other injury. In retaliation she kicked Thomas on the knee. This witness told the police that she did not wish to pursue any complaint about her treatment at Cartref Bontnewydd.

  37.08  In her oral evidence to the Tribunal Mari Thomas denied that she had struck any of the complainants. She said that there was an element of truth in their allegations in the sense that, when residents had run away and then came back, she did give them a telling off but she had never hit or slapped them. In the course of her evidence, Thomas explained that Nefyn Dodd's practice atTy'r Felin had been very autocratic and he had insisted on very high standards. She had probably communicated more with him than other members of the staff there and she was, in effect, forced into his ways and into following his routine. A result of this was that initially she was strict at Cartref Bontnewydd but subsequently she could not see the point of it.

  37.09  The complainant who gave oral evidence to the Tribunal was, unhappily, a very unsatisfactory witness. She was anxious to give "live" evidence to us, although she was very nervous about doing so, but her recollection of events was confused and at times demonstrably false. She alleged that she had spent two short periods at Ty'r Felin and one at Cartref Bontnewydd but the only relevant records before the Tribunal indicated that she was a resident atTy'r Felin only for a short period in 1991. Moreover, her allegation in relation to her period at Cartref Bontnewydd was directed against a member of staff called Mark, whom no one has been able to identify; and she had not been interviewed by the police in the course of the major investigation between 1991 and 1993 so that she was not identified as a complainant until she was visited in Yorkshire by the Tribunal's team as part of a general trawl in January 1997.

  37.10  To sum up, therefore, we are not persuaded that any sexual or physical abuse by members of the residential care staff or anyone else occurred at Cartref Bontnewydd after it had re-opened as a community home. It may well be that Thomas did on one to two occasions in the early days use very limited force to absconders on their return in the circumstances that they have described but we are satisfied that she neither intended to nor did in fact cause any injury on those occasions.

The quality of care generally

  37.11  The representatives of the Welsh Office who visited Ty'r Felin and Queens Park in the autumn of 1988 did not include Cartref Bontnewydd in their study because it had only recently opened as a local authority community home. We do not, therefore, have the benefit of any independent assessment of the quality of care there then and, as far as we are aware, there has not been any subsequent inspection.

  37.12  The fact that the home has attracted so little criticism is obviously a pointer in its favour and the small amount of evidence that we received from former residents about conditions there generally was also favourable. It is clear, however, that some of the deficiencies that pervaded the residential care system in Gwynedd as a whole persisted at least for some time and Nefyn Dodd remained the line manager for residential homes until he took sick leave at the end of November 1989 before retiring on 23 May 1990.

  37.13  Mari Thomas told the Tribunal that many improvements in practice were effected over the following seven years. There is now much closer scrutiny of admissions. No emergency admissions are accepted at Cartref Bontnewydd and there are planning meetings before placements are made. After an admission there is a further planning meeting to formulate a detailed plan for the child, over which the line manager (a children's services manager) presides; and the Independent Reviewing Officer in the Independent Inspection Unit presides over all statutory reviews. In the home itself six full time residential support workers are employed (in addition to a cook and a domestic worker) and some training is provided for them by way of seminars and day release schemes, although these do not provide professional qualifications. There are staff meetings fortnightly, at which specific children and their care plans are discussed. The complaints procedure is set out on a card for each resident; and there is a recognised "whistleblowing" system enabling members of the staff to report untoward incidents to Thomas. A daily log is kept at the home and there is a file for each child. Thomas' view is that residential carers need to move on now to doing more individual work with each child and that more research is needed into how that should be done most effectively.

Conclusions

  37.14  The evidence before us does not justify any suggestion that sexual or physical abuse has occurred at Cartref Bontnewydd. We have included an account of the place in this report, however, partly because it has had a dual role since the 1980s as an independent fostering unit and a community home operating in different parts of the same premises and partly because Cartref Bontnewydd and Queens Park are the two community homes within the geographical area of the former Gwynedd County Council that survive. It has been helpful also to include a summary of Mari Thomas' account of the present regime at Cartref Bontnewydd because she has been Officer-in-Charge there both before and after the recent local government reorganisation.

Footnotes:

516   See paras 33.13, 33.14, 35.07, 35.16 and 35.18 to 35.34.

517   See paras 33.109 to 33.113.

518   See para 34.05.

519   See paras 34.05, 35.15, 36.10 and 36.43 to 36.46.