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Introduction

43.01  In this chapter we discuss three foster homes in Gwynedd where forms of abuse other than sexual abuse are alleged to have occurred during the period under review. In the first of these foster homes, however, the placement authority was the City of Manchester, whereas Gwynedd Social Services Department agreed to supervise the placements on behalf of Manchester.

  43.02  The second of the cases discussed differs from others with which we have dealt in this report because the complainants have not alleged that they were physically abused there in the usual sense. Their allegations relate to the general physical conditions under which they were compelled to live.

Foster home A

  43.03  The four foster children in this case were three boys and a girl, who were the subject of a care order made on 22 May 1974 under which their care was committed to the City of Manchester Social Services Department. The three boys were born respectively on 7 March 1967, 8 October 1968 and 2 June 1972; and the girl was born in 1971. We have been concerned particularly with the youngest boy (A1) who gave oral evidence to the Tribunal and who is the only one of the four foster children to complain of abuse by Mr and Mrs A.

  43.04  These children were removed from their parents in distressing circumstances under a Place of Safety Order on 2 January 1974, when their mother was terminally ill and their father was failing to provide satisfactory care for them. At first the two older children were placed in a children's home whilst the girl and A1 were placed in a residential nursery. The children's mother died in June 1974, very shortly after the care order was made, and the plan was to find a long term foster home for all four children together.

  43.05  The foster parents, Mr and Mrs A, and their own children were also a Manchester family, who moved to Rhosneigr in Anglesey in 1975, shortly before the foster children were placed with them. They were in their early 30s and Mrs A was Mr A's second wife. They had responded to advertisements for foster parents that appeared in the local press in Manchester when they were planning their move to Anglesey and the children were boarded out with them on 21 December 1975. This had the effect of expanding their family to seven children because they already had with them three children of their own, namely, a teenage boy (of Mr A's first marriage), a second boy aged about five years and a baby daughter.

  43.06  A1 remained in the foster home until 13 February 1987, by which time the family had moved to a large bungalow at Llanfaelog. He was charged with arson on the latter date, for starting a serious fire at the foster home, and granted bail on condition that he lived at Queens Park. On 8 July 1987 A1 was convicted of arson and ordered to be detained for five years under the provisions of section 53 (2) of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Under that order he was admitted to the special unit at Red Bank School, near Warrington, on 8 October 1987, after a period of assessment at Risley Remand Centre.

  43.07  According to Mr A the other three foster children remained with Mr andMrs A until they each reached the age of 17 years. The middle son, however, had special educational needs and attended Ysgol Talfryn[555] from the age of 14 years, spending his holidays at the foster home. All four children have remained in touch with Mr and Mrs A since they left the foster home. In particular, the As had attended A1's wedding and had gone on holiday with A1 and his family at his invitation. A planned further holiday as recently as April 1997 had been cancelled only because of the admission of A1's child to hospital.

  43.08  Mr and Mrs A are active members of the Evangelical Free Church. Mr A is a qualified sewing machine mechanic and his wife is a trained teacher. Mrs A gave up teaching, however, whilst she was a foster parent and only undertook part time work, mainly in shops, during that period. Following the fire the As returned to Lancashire and Mr A has been employed as a school caretaker since 1990.

  43.09  A1 told the Tribunal in his oral evidence that he was well looked after byMr and Mrs A: the family lived in a nice, tidy house in a quiet area and both clothing and food were very adequate. His complaint was that things changed for him after about five years, which he put as in or about 1978, when the younger of his two older brothers began to get into trouble, "stealing all over the place", with the result that that brother was sent away to school. A1 said that Mr and Mrs A then began to "take it out on him" to try to ensure that he did not misbehave similarly as he became older.

  43.10  One of A1's complaints was that, if he swore, the As would shove a piece of soap in his mouth and leave it in for a couple of hours or first Mr A and eventually Mrs A would start hitting him. His major complaint, however, was that Mr A began to hit him with a buckled belt after he and the As' young daughter had taken some refundable bottles from the back of a shop and had then returned them in order to obtain the refunds. According to A1, he was struck with the belt on that occasion by Mr A about ten times on the bottom of his bare back whereas the As' daughter was only smacked on the hand. As a result of the beating he had quite a few deep cuts, which he later showed to his schoolteacher. On another occasion Mr A administered similar punishment to him after the As' daughter had fallen off a wall with the result that she had had to have stitches. The beatings occurred also on "more than one occasion" for either swearing or for "just trying to be myself really, having fun with all the other kids". The beatings were always in private in the bedroom upstairs but Mrs A knew about them and told him after the shop incident that he "deserved it".

  43.11  A1's additional allegations against Mrs A were that later, when he started getting into trouble with the police, Mrs A threw a golf club at him after he had been cautioned by the police for stealing. Before that she had smacked him across the face a couple of times but these were isolated actions on her part.

  43.12  A1 said that his arson offence at the foster home was not triggered by any specific incident: his feelings had built up over the 12 years that he had been with the As and he was intending to pay them back for what they had done. He had not been able to share his feelings with his brothers or sister or his social worker but he had got on really well with his Gwynedd social worker, who had visited him regularly. She would talk to the foster parents for half an hour or so and would then spend ten or 15 minutes with the children in the presence of the foster parents. He could not recall any Manchester social worker visiting him. However, after he had been admitted to Queens Park following the arson offence, he told his social worker, in the course of working on his life story book, exactly what had happened when he was living with the As.

  43.13  It is clear from the documentary evidence before us that bruising and weal marks on A1's back did give rise to concern at the end of June 1978, when he was just six years old. On 28 June 1978 his Headmaster telephoned the foster home and spoke to Mrs A about these marks: A1 had been showing his back to other children and the Headmaster was sending him home. This conversation took place just before A1's social worker called at the foster home to make an appointment and Mrs A reported the matter to her but Mrs A's explanation of what had occurred was far from satisfactory. Mr A's son had reported the marks to her that morning when he was getting A1 ready for school; she had not looked at the marks herself; she did not know what had caused them but attributed them to a nappy worn by A1 at night because of enuresis; and she was going to take A1 to see the general practitioner.

  43.14  The social worker called at the foster home again the same evening. Mrs A then said that A1 had told the doctor that he had fallen backwards off his bicycle and had hit his back against a Tonka toy that had been left by the gate and that the doctor had accepted this explanation. A1 himself told the social worker that he had toppled backwards on to a Tonka toy. She noted that the bruising seemed to her to have been caused by contact with a solid mass such as a door or another solid piece of wood but that the scratches were very superficial.

  43.15  Such records as we have seen do indicate that the social worker followed up this incident by talking to the Headmaster and a health visitor and a further visit to the foster home when Mrs A told her that the A's own son had confirmed that A1 had fallen off his bicycle. The upshot was that the social worker accepted the explanation given. When A1 was asked in evidence to comment on these records he said that they had been falsified to protect the As. He denied ever having told anyone that he had fallen over a Tonka toy: he did recall "a little meeting" with the social services about the incident but he was never told what the outcome of "his complaint" was. He had told the teacher that Mr A had hit him with a belt.

  43.16  In his written statements to the Tribunal Mr A denied ever hitting A1 with a belt. Of the four foster children, the middle boy and A1 had been the naughtiest: they had stolen money from the As, a church and teachers and he had used a slipper to them from time to time as a reminder to the children about how to behave and to show them that the As would not put up with dishonesty. Apart from that both he and his wife had smacked the children from time to time but all the children in their home had been treated equally. Mr A emphasised also that he and his wife loved the foster children, did their very best for them and still kept in touch with all of them, including A1, whom he had recently taken for job interviews. He and his wife would have liked to adopt the foster children, if finances had permitted. They had always accepted that A1 did not intend to harm them when he started the fire in their home and they thought that it had been done to divert attention from the theft of money from Mrs A's purse.

  43.17  In relation to the 1978 incident Mr A said that neither he nor his wife had been aware of A1's injuries until the headmaster telephoned. His recollection was that the Headmaster had reported that A1 had said that he had been hit with a stick by Mr A's son but the correct explanation had emerged when his wife had taken A1 to see the doctor. Neither he nor his wife had been asked to make a statement to the police arising from A1's complaints.

  43.18  The eldest foster son of the As made a statement to the Tribunal in November 1996 confirming his earlier statement to the police in September 1992. He said that he had no complaints to make about the foster home, although he did not like the fact that the As were very strict and religious. He understood what they were trying to do for him and he regarded their treatment as fair. Punishment was usually a smack on the backside or legs. If he lied, his mouth would be washed out with soap or washing up liquid. This witness now lives in Manchester and he confirmed that he continues to telephone the As regularly.

  43.19  A1 was seen by a consultant psychiatrist after his arson offence, on the advice of his Gwynedd social worker, in preparation for his appearance in Court. He told the psychiatrist that he had stolen money from the home and had been asked to recover it. His excuse for not doing so the next day was not believed and he determined to pay back his foster mother for this and many other "perceived injustices"; and he considered alternative schemes before deciding to set fire to the house. It became clear in the interview that his resentment was directed against Mrs A rather than Mr A. He said that he felt that she wanted the foster children as her own children and encouraged them to forget their origins. A1 took off his shirt in the course of the interview and showed the psychiatrist "extensive old scarring", which A1 claimed was the result of "belting" at the age of about eight years, and he referred also to the incident with a golf club. The view of the psychiatrist was that A1 was not suffering from any mental illness but that his personality development had been significantly impaired: his early experiences in Manchester had distorted his ability to relate and he seemed to have had no assistance in understanding his beginnings. The psychiatrist saw A1 as rootless, muddled and searching for a non-existent ideal family: it was essential that he should be helped immediately to find out about his background.

  43.20  The allegations made by A1 to the psychiatrist were passed on to Gwynedd Social Services Department and investigated by them in 1987. An inter-agency meeting was held at the Anglesey Area Office at Llangefni on 27 May 1987 and a case discussion on 16 June 1987. At the first of these meetings it was decided that, in view of the lapse of time, the Social Services Department rather than the police should take up the matter with the As. A senior social worker and a social worker then visited the As but, unsurprisingly, their investigation did not reveal any significant new information.

  43.21  Finally, Gwynedd Social Services Department was asked by the Welsh Office to look again into A1's allegations following the routine attendance of a social services inspector at a case conference at Red Bank School in relation to A1, as an offender detained under section 53(2) of the Act of 1933[556]. In consequence, a further Case Conference, presided over by Larry King[557], was held on 26 April 1988 at Bontnewydd Fostering Development Centre. Before this meeting, A1's sister, who had left the foster home in December 1987, had been seen by King and had said that she knew of no abuse taking place in the foster home (save that she did recall her eldest brother having his mouth washed out with soap when he had lied).

  43.22  In reporting back to the Welsh Office on 28 April 1988, in a letter apparently drafted by King, the Director of Social Services (Lucille Hughes) said that the same allegations by A1 had been made by him to the consultant psychiatrist in May 1987 and had not been accepted as child abuse at the meeting of the local Review Committee on 16 June 1987. She said, however, that the following points had been agreed at the recent Bontnewydd meeting:

"(1)That if such a situation arose again, this Authority would not agree to supervise on any other Authority's behalf without a full contractual visiting arrangement by them being set up.

(2)  That these parents were not properly prepared for the placement of 4 difficult and needy children.

(3)  That the placement resulted in emotional and psychological disturbance both to these children and their own 3 children.

(4)  There is no evidence that A1 was physically abused in this household. Medical and other evidence does not support this contention.

(5)  However back in 1978/79 the matter should have been case conferenced in terms of well established Abuse procedures.

(6)  The A family should be complimented for the efforts they made over many years with 3 difficult foster children, (and the girl who was not difficult)."

  43.23  In his statement to the police made on 24 September 1992 A1 referred to being struck across his back by Mr A over a period of several years until the fire but added "Although I've mentioned the punishments I've received at the hands of (Mr A), which I didn't agree with, I do not wish to make a formal complaint about it. I do not wish the police to investigate this matter. I have now moved from Rhosneigr and made a fresh start in my life".

  43.24  It is impossible for us now, 11 years after the final Case Conference, to reach any different conclusion about the alleged physical abuse of A1. His recollection of the 1978 incident, when he was only just six years old, must now be very blurred and he was not able to give persuasive details of any other occasions when Mr A used a buckled belt to him, apart from the one when the As' daughter is said to have fallen off a wall. The As' regime was probably too strict and they may have resorted to inappropriate physical chastisement on occasions by the standards of many at the time but it would be wrong for us to hold that they were guilty of abuse, bearing in mind the views expressed by two of the other foster children and the difficulties that the As had to face in dealing with their three foster sons.

  43.25  Nevertheless, there are many lessons to be learned from the case, as were noted at the 1988 Case Conference. It appears that there was little or no introduction of the foster children to the foster parents before the placement was made and the latter, who were not given any preparation for dealing with these potentially difficult foster children, had no prior experience of fostering. The placement was much too far from Manchester for any real supervision from there. Manchester Social Services Department played little or no part in the supervision once the placement had been made, despite its continuing statutory responsibility; and it was not even represented at the regular reviews that were held. Moreover, the placement was to be criticised on other grounds because it involved an attempt to weld one ready made family who had lost their mother with another close-knit family and the setting up, in effect, of a small group home of seven children without adequate financial and staff resources. Although the records suggest some effort was made in the very early stages to help the children understand their past, this was too little and too early for A1 whose need for active social work intervention aimed at helping him understand and come to terms with his history and current life situation was not addressed until the commission of a serious offence. In the event the As are to be congratulated on their continuing loyalty to the foster children and the response to that loyalty that they receive.

Foster home B

  43.26  Mr and Mrs B, who were married on 1 July 1963, lived in a detached bungalow on the edge of an industrial estate just outside the town of Caernarvon. Mr B was 27 years old and his wife 16 months younger when they married. It was Mrs B's second marriage and she had custody of her two sons and a daughter by the first marriage, who were then aged six years, three years and seven and a half months respectively. Mr and Mrs B subsequently had a son, born on3 August 1964, and a daughter, born on 8 August 1966.

  43.27  The Bs were approved by Gwynedd County Council as foster parents for short and long term placements in 1977 and they fostered a large number of children subsequently. The two main complainants about this foster home were two sisters, B1 and B2, who were placed there from 9 September 1985 to 20 August 1986. By September 1985 Mr B, who had had a varied working history, had been unemployed for four years because of redundancy in his last employment and he did not expect to be successful in finding new work at his age of nearly 50 years. Of the five children of the family only two remained at home: they were the daughter of the first marriage, B3, and the Bs' son, B4.

  43.28  There were two other members of the household, namely, a foster child and a former foster child, both male. The older was the former foster son, B5, born on 12 February 1964, who continued to live with the Bs at the age of 21 years; and the younger, B6, born on 2 October 1975, who had been fostered with the Bs when just under six months old and who was adopted by them on 2 July 1987.

  43.29  Thus, there were eight in all in the household after B1 and B2 joined the Bs in September 1985. The bungalow itself had, according to the Cartref Bontnewydd Development Officer, four large bedrooms, two living rooms and a large kitchen, together with a lavatory and a bathroom. It was rather chaotic, however, because central heating was to be installed prior to complete re-decoration and there were two terriers to be accommodated as well.

  43.30  The two complainants, B1 born on 17 April 1976 and B2 born on 26 August 1977, had had a disrupted life before they were placed with Mr and Mrs B. They had been removed from their own home as early as 28 February 1978, under a Place of Safety Order, following an alleged assault by their father on their half-brother. Their names were placed on the Child Protection Register at that time and a supervision order was made in matrimonial proceedings on 6 April 1978. It seems that they continued to live in North Wales until September 1980, when they moved with their mother to stay with the maternal grandparents in Birmingham until their mother obtained council accommodation there. The half-brother went to stay with other grandparents and did not figure in the subsequent relevant history.

  43.31  It appears that the mother had an unstable way of life and, when she returned with the two girls to Bangor early in September 1985, she had no accommodation to go to. She spent a night or so with a friend who lived in the Maesgeirchen estate but B1 and B2 were taken from that address by the North Wales Police on a 14 day Place of Safety Order on 7 September 1985 and they were admitted to Ty'r Felin Community Home[558] for two nights. It was from Ty'r Felin that B1 and B2 went to the Bs on 9 September 1985 for short term fostering. The Place of Safety Order lapsed on 20 September 1985 but B1 and B2 were then received into voluntary care and remained with the foster parents on a boarding out basis.

  43.32  Both B1 and B2 gave oral evidence to the Tribunal in which they made stringent criticisms of living conditions in the Bs' home during the period of nearly a year when they were living there. The two girls shared a bedroom, with separate beds, but a major complaint was that B2 frequently had to share her bed with B3, Mrs B's daughter of her first marriage, who was then 23 years old. At that time B3, who suffered from "mental instability" and incontinence, was spending most of her time as an in-patient at St Asaph Hospital, but was returning to the foster home at week-ends and for periods of a week at a time. On these occasions B2 had to share her bed with B3 and she complained of the wetness and B3's strange and insanitary behaviour, saying that she was frightened of B3 at the time because she did not understand why B3 acted as she did and that she would get over-excited on occasions. A further allegation was that sexual misconduct occurred in the bedroom between B3 and a member of the family who lived elsewhere.

  43.33  This evidence was largely confirmed by B1 and a number of other complaints were common to them. They said, for example, that the bedroom was damp and cold and the bedding inadequate. It was particularly cold in winter and initially they had to use coats and curtains instead of blankets. There was no heating in the bedroom and no central heating had been installed. They bathed only once a week and there was insufficient hot water. There were complaints also of hair washing and hair cutting by Mrs B. The girls' clothes were second-hand or bought from Oxfam and the food that they were given was inadequate. Both of them alleged also that there were occasions when they had to eat snacks in the kitchen whilst the others had a cooked meal such as a roast dinner on a Sunday.