The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Jan Klimkowski]

There is no doubt that the systematic abuse of children in Welsh care homes took place.

Exclusive: Eyewitness 'saw Thatcher aide take boys to abuse'


A former resident of the Wrexham care home at the centre of abuse allegations tells Channel 4 News that he saw evidence of abuse, and remembers seeing Sir Peter Morrison at the care home five times.

(Video at link)

Warning: you may be distressed by the interview above

The former resident told Channel 4 News that although he did not recognise Sir Peter at the time, he later realised it was him.

Sir Peter, who died in 1995, was Margaret Thatcher's parliamentary private secretary and was at the heart of the Tory establishment during the 1980s. Recently, he has been publicly linked to abuse at the care home.

The former resident, who was not abused himself, said: "Going through some stuff recently and I saw his face. I know now he was the MP for Chester at the time. Morrison. Red, wavy hair. I recognised him straight away.

"I saw him at Bryn Estyn, he turned up in a car, boy went off in his car, don't know if he was in it. It was definitely his car, I saw him arrive in it then we went to bed and we saw it drive off.

"We used to see a lot of people we didn't recognise, not staff. They couldn't have been there for the same reason the staff were there. They turned up at odd hours, early evening and the night. Really nice shoes, I always remember the shoes. And the cars, we were interested in the cars."

David Cameron ordered an urgent investigation into whether the north Wales child abuse inquiry "properly did its job" after fresh allegations of abuse at Bryn Estyn emerged. It is alleged that a senior Thatcher-era politician, who has not been named, was involved.

WATCH: Photographs of north Wales abuse 'were handed to police', Steve Messham tells Channel 4 News

'Properly constituted'

Home Secretary Theresa May has also ordered a seperate inquiry led by the National Crime Agency into claims of abuse.

Describing allegations of abuse from other residents, the former resident told Channel 4 News: "They said there was more than one, they said they were made to drink, there was a lot of people there, there was a party almost.

"It was almost like pass the parcel, I knew a few boys who were marked up, like a stamp in the post office, I know one lad ... he had to go off to hospital. He had tremendous problems."

The former resident told the programme about other physical evidence of sexual abuse: "The state of them, they were quite obviously extremely upset - some of them quite marked around the face and body … cut quite badly around the arms and chest area.

"Some of them were quite upset...they were quite disturbed about it, very ashamed…Every week we used to have a laundry change, we used to strip the beds. Some of the boys who'd been taken off in cars ... they were embarrassed."

'Well dressed'

Talking about those who would come to the care home to abuse the boys, he said they stood out: "Their mannerisms, they were obviously well dressed. I noticed their shoes and their watches more than anything.

"Their shoes were always really shiny, which was unusual. One guy wore his coat around his shoulders, a tan coat. They seemed to have the run of the place, if they wanted to do or see anything they could do it. I thought they must own the place because everyone is being so nice to them, deferential. We were told not even to look."

The resident said he did inform police: "I made a statement to South Wales Police with regard to some alleged offences in SW area - a statement was taken but didn't hear anything else about it."

However, describing the effect the events had had on him, he said: "I've been carrying this around for 35 years. It's destroyed every relationship in my life. I don't trust anybody.

"I've tried to commit suicide on three occasions. Rather than actually tell anyone. I never even told my family. Nobody in my family knows about it because you were made to believe that you were wrong, nobody would believe you. You'd be shunned and it would be your fault."


06 November 2012

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Daily Mail version - photos at the link.

How the BBC nailed the wrong man and the REAL story behind the care home child abuse scandal

By Paul Bracchi

PUBLISHED:23:44, 9 November 2012| UPDATED:10:42, 10 November 2012

Steven Messham was just 13 when he arrived at the Bryn Estyn children's home, a forbidding mock Tudor mansion on the outskirts of Wrexham in North Wales.


It was not long before he was placed on what was known at Bryn Estyn as the flat list'. To those like Steven, now 51, who used to live at the now infamous establishment, the list still evokes chilling memories.


The flat list' was compiled by one of the men who ran Bryn Estyn and on it were written the names of his favourite' boys; the prettiest' ones, in other words. Steven was one such boy.

Alleged victim: Steven Messham accused a senior Tory politician from the Thatcher years of being involved in a widespread paedophile ring

Most evenings, he and up to seven other youngsters would be summoned to the senior staff member's private flat (hence the term flat list') near their dormitories in the main building, ostensibly to watch television and enjoy some light refreshments.


They were always told to come dressed in pyjamas, though, and not to put on underpants. Steven discovered why on his first visit to the flat. There is no need to dwell on the details of what happened next, or on many subsequent occasions.

Suffice to say, Steven was sexually abused day after day, week after week for the next five years; not just in the flat. He was also passed to other abusers who worked at Bryn Estyn or were connected to the home, until he was allowed to leave, psychologically scarred, shortly before his 18th birthday.

By then, he says, he had been violated by more than 50 different men. I realised the best thing was to do whatever they said to survive,' he said.

He went to the police, of course, as others had done before and since, but no one in authority was listening back then; not the police, not social services, not even the local Pentecostal minister, who had heard the rumours about Bryn Estyn, but thought the boys must be lying.

It seems the same culture which allowed Jimmy Savile's monstrous reign to go undetected also existed in North Wales in the Seventies and Eighties.

Only in 2000, with the publication of a damning report into the regime at Bryn Estyn and 39 other children's homes in the area during that period, did the extent of the scandal finally begin to emerge.

The suffering of hundreds of victims all children like Steven Messham at the time and the wickedness of the adults entrusted with their care is laid bare on every one of the 1,000 pages.


Youngsters were not just subjected to sexual abuse, but almost daily thrashings, beatings, threats and ritual humiliations; witnesses spoke of being forced to lick the feet of staff, eat soap, cut the grass with nothing more than scissors and clean toilets with toothbrushes.


Many of the culprits including sadistic deputy head Peter Howarth, who drew up the notorious flat list' were brought to justice and jailed.


The report that exposed their vile activities, following a three-year public inquiry led by former High Court Judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse, should have marked the end of one of Britain's biggest and most controversial child abuse investigations.

This week, we discovered that it hadn't. David Cameron has now ordered new inquiries into whether links to a wider paedophile ring potentially involving politicians were suppressed.

The dramatic development follows an investigation by BBC2's Newsnight into claims by Steven Messham that a Tory grandee from the Thatcher era was implicated in the Bryn Estyn scandal.

His central explosive allegation was that he was taken outside the home or the Colditz of Care' as it was called by those unfortunate enough to end up there and sold' to men for sexual abuse, and that the Tory in question was among the perpetrators.

It was widely reported that Newsnight intended to name the Tory paedophile suspect and although it ultimately stopped just short of doing so, it triggered a frenzy of speculation on Twitter, with Lord McAlpine, the former Tory treasurer, being identified on scores of messages on the social networking site.


Betrayed innocence: Children in a play at the Bryn Estyn home run by John Allen (centre), who was jailed in 1995 for indecent assault on six boys

The controversy culminated with ITV presenter Phillip Schofield handing a list of well-known Tory figures all named as paedophiles on the internet to Mr Cameron live on television, when he appeared on This Morning on Thursday. Mr Cameron was visibly taken aback by the stunt and accused the show of fuelling a witch-hunt'.


Within 24 hours, his words were borne out in circumstances that could hardly be more embarrassing for the BBC and indeed for Mr Cameron himself.


For it now emerges that this story of the senior Tory and young boys' is false.

The Guardian newspaper yesterday revealed evidence that the claims against Lord McAlpine are based on mistaken identity. The Tory peer himself issued a furious denial of any wrongdoing. Steven Messham has since apologised to him.

Newsnight, the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, has now left itself open to the charge that it was so eager to recover from its failure to broadcast an investigation into Jimmy Savile and so eager to pursue sex allegations against a senior Tory that it triggered just the kind of witch-hunt' of which Mr Cameron warned.

The latest revelations raise questions about Mr Cameron's decision to reinvestigate the North Wales child abuse scandal although it does seem paedophile activities there were wider than previously thought.

Sick: Peter Howarth, the former Deputy Head of the Bryn Estyn Boys home was jailed for sex crimes

The chain of events which led to this week's furore began 15 years ago. It was on April 21, 1997, that Steven Messham testified before the Waterhouse inquiry at a former council chamber in the village of Ewloe, near Chester.

Steven Messham revealed, in pitiful detail, how he had become one of Bryn Estyn deputy boss Peter Howarth's favourites', how he had even been abused in the sick bay while recovering from tonsillitis, and how, before one assault by another member of staff, he was told: Come on, I know you enjoy it.'

The effect on his life since leaving Bryn Estyn had been devastating. Steven Messham had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, taken two overdoses, slashed his wrists and been given electric shock treatment.

His account was tragically similar to many of the other poor souls who poured out their pain in the witness box until Gerard Elias QC, leading counsel to the tribunal, put the following question to him: Does the name ****** mean anything to you.' It can now be revealed that the name Gerard Elias put to Steven Messham was McAlpine. Messham's reply to the question was: Yes, sir.'

The subsequent exchange between Elias, Messham and Sir Ronald Waterhouse was taken down in shorthand by the local reporter who covered the inquiry. This is how it unfolded.

Elias: In what context [does the name mean anything to you]?'

Messham: I was also abused by him sexually.' Sir Ronald: Is the person you referred to alive or dead?'

Messham: I believe he is dead.' [This is a crucial inconsistency, to which we will return.]

Elias: Were the acts you speak of while you were at Bryn Estyn or elsewhere?'

Messham: Bryn Estyn, sir.'

Elias: How many times did you see the man?'

Messham: Three times.'

Elias: Who told you his name?'

Messham: I'm not saying, sir, I'm not trying to be awkward. I would like to tell the tribunal the full story to stop it happening again. But I've been banging my head against the wall for years. I have made numerous complaints to police.'

More information about Steven Messham's alleged encounters with the abuser he mistakenly believed to be Lord McAlpine are contained in the statement he previously gave to police and which are referred to in the Waterhouse report.

Steven Messham lived at the now closed Bryn Estyn boys home, Wrexham (pictured) during the 1970s

The abuser had several cars and a chauffeur. They would wait for Steven Messham at the bottom of a lane near Bryn Estyn when he had a late pass from the home. He said he was abused in the car in a lay-by and at the Crest Hotel in Wrexham. Why he thought that the man in the car was supposedly a senior Tory figure is not disclosed. Nor does he identify the person or persons at Bryn Estyn who introduced' him to the abuser.

Steven Messham cannot be the only source of the allegation, however.

In 2000, in fact, BBC Radio 5 Live broadcast a brief interview with an unidentified victim who gave a remarkably similar account to Steven Messham. He believed he had been abused by the same person. The original 5 Live material, using an actor's voice, was repeated on Newsnight earlier this week because the source himself could not be traced.

The interview is short on detail, but the victim apparently met his abuser in a car park in Wrexham.

That is where I was told to meet him,' he said.

We went for something to eat and he pulled over in a lay-by and then hey presto oral sex took place. He gave me some money. He was probably just trying to keep me quiet.'

Later, he says, he gave a photograph of his abuser to the police, but they took no action. Did Sir Ronald Waterhouse find Steven Messham's account credible? No. He dismissed the allegations as embarking on the realms of fantasy'. Although he did find Messham gave evidence in good faith.

He said: On this evidence we cannot be satisfied that any member of [Lord McAlpine's] family was involved in paedophile activity ... and the evidence [of Steven Messham] has been demonstrated to be incorrect in some respects.'


Savile is now believed to have been one of the UK's most prolific abusers, with about 300 possible victims but the BBC faces questions about whether they helped cover-up his sexual crimes

In his original police statement, for example, Steven Messham says he was raped on four or five occasions'. When he appeared before the inquiry itself, it was three times'. On the recent Newsnight programme, more than a dozen times'.

As we know, Steven Messham also told the inquiry he thought his abuser was dead. Lord McAlpine is very much alive, of course.

The person Steven Messham apparently mistook for Lord McAlpine was allegedly a member of a different branch of the family who lived in North Wales, and who is indeed dead. But beyond this testimony, there is no evidence that this man ever abused children, either.

A local councillor, Keith Gregory, who was himself abused at Bryn Estyn, told the Guardian yesterday that he believed there was no truth in the allegations against Lord McAlpine.

Given Steven Messham's horrific experiences and no one doubts for a moment he was a victim of the most appalling and sustained sexual abuse it would be surprising, many might think, if his testimony were not blurred and confused in parts.

This does not mean there is no substance whatsoever to his story: that the tentacles of Bryn Estyn stretched much wider than has previously been acknowledged.

The fact also remains that both the public inquiry and the police investigation into the North Wales child abuse scandal attracted criticisms at the time.

If Peter Morrison was implicated in the Bryn Estyn child abuse scandal, was he the only member of the Establishment to have been involved?

I still have lingering suspicions that neither the inquiry nor the police investigations pushed hard enough to get to the truth,' said Malcolm King, formerly social services chairman in the Clwyd authority, who was instrumental in calling for the Waterhouse inquiry to be set up.

Indeed, the authority had commissioned its own report into children's homes in the area beforehand and urged Sir Ronald to address the wider areas of concern . . . this includes the suggestion that public figures may have been involved in the abuse of young people in North Wales'.

Was one of them the late Peter Morrison, a former close aide to Margaret Thatcher? An unnamed former Bryn Estyn resident said he saw Morrison, MP for Chester between 1974 and 1992, visit the home several times in the 1980s and take boys away in his car.

The claim is not implausible. Why? Because it was common knowledge in Westminster circles that Morrison had an unhealthy interest in boys.

Edwina Currie a junior health minister in the Thatcher government spelled it out, in black and white, in her diaries which were published in 2002.

One appointment in the recent reshuffle,' she wrote, has attracted a lot of gossip and could be very dangerous: Peter Morrison has become the PM's PPS [Parliamentary Private Secretary].

Now he's what they call a "noted pederast", with a liking for young boys. He admitted as much . . . when he became deputy chairman of the party but added: "However, I'm very discreet" and he must be!'

She [Thatcher] either knows and is taking a chance, or doesn't; either way, it's a really dumb move. It scares me, as all the Press know, and as we get closer to the election, someone is going to make trouble very close to her indeed.'

If Peter Morrison was implicated in the Bryn Estyn child abuse scandal, was he the only member of the Establishment to have been involved?

Clearly, these are dark waters. But the events of the past 24 hours prove that any further investigations must be rather more careful and rigorous than those apparently undertaken by the BBC's Newsnight.

[Peter Lemkin]

The BBC has been well and truly fucked over.

You can say that again....hardly a day goes by lately without them putting their heads in their rectums!

Investigative journalism is suspended.

....as far as their investigative journalism went, that is....

There seems to be a parallel between parts of the growing BBC scandal and the 'Murdoch Empire' scandal.....I wonder if there are points of intersection?! In some way all of this - along with the 'British Establishment' seem to be complicit in [at the least] looking the other way when it comes to pedophilia and the like. Is the UK's Pedogate about to blossom?

[Lauren Johnson]

Location of Haut de la Garenne

In case anyone is interested:

Latitude: 49°12'7.12"N

Longitude: 2° 1'36.52"W

Which suggests?

For someone who has no idea where the Isle of Jesey is, how small it is, how the populace would be frightened to be interviewed on film by Bill Maloney, how rural the Haut de la Garenne is, I found it personally helpful.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Location of Haut de la Garenne

In case anyone is interested:

Latitude: 49°12'7.12"N

Longitude: 2° 1'36.52"W

Which suggests?

For someone who has no idea where the Isle of Jesey is, how small it is, how the populace would be frightened to be interviewed on film by Bill Maloney, how rural the Haut de la Garenne is, I found it personally helpful.

Lauren - indeed, it's a tiny island in the English Channel.

Out of sight, with bizarre local laws and abysmal law enforcement.

The perfect place to abuse the vulnerable and voiceless.

[Lauren Johnson]

The Haut de la Garenne renamed in 1960 from the Jersey Home for Boys. Furthermore,

Haut de la Garenne is French for top of the warren. The building is situated on Mont de la Garenne, a hill overlooking Mont Orgueil where rabbits were hunted. This varenne of the King was a perquisite (privilege) of the Crown.[SUP][25][/SUP]

Why rename it as a place for hunting rabbits?


Is it significant that the entrance of the Haut is 115 meters from La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, a neolithic tomb?
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[Charles Drago]

Is it significant that the entrance of the Haut is 115 meters from La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, a neolithic tomb?

I believe so.

I am convinced that spiritual ritual is a not uncommon context for child abuse by the powerful, whose material wealth cannot satisfy the lust for ultimate power -- for eternal youth and dominion in the next world.

[Lauren Johnson]

Is it significant that the entrance of the Haut is 115 meters from La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, a neolithic tomb?

I believe so.

I am convinced that spiritual ritual is a not uncommon context for child abuse by the powerful, whose material wealth cannot satisfy the lust for ultimate power -- for eternal youth and dominion in the next world.

As in hunting "rabbits" and sacrificing them? After all, they are only "rabbits."

[Charles Drago]

Is it significant that the entrance of the Haut is 115 meters from La Pouquelaye de Faldouet, a neolithic tomb?

I believe so.

I am convinced that spiritual ritual is a not uncommon context for child abuse by the powerful, whose material wealth cannot satisfy the lust for ultimate power -- for eternal youth and dominion in the next world.

As in hunting "rabbits" and sacrificing them? After all, they are only "rabbits."

That, and the equivalent of consuming the wolf's heart to gain the wolf's strength and cunning.

You are, as they say, what you eat.

Material wealth and earthly power are term-limited. And so wealthy, powerful men and women look to trump mortality by all means necessary.

Some invest heavily in psychic research as they seek assurance that, while they can't take it with them, they nonetheless will be going somewhere.

Others take darker measures.

[Lauren Johnson]

Others take darker measures.

I would imagine that "lighter" measures are being taken, such as intense research into anti and reverse aging technology. Of course, should this technology get worked out, sadly, it would be too expensive to share with everyone. Phsysical immortality requires "population control." Whatsmore, physical immortality leads to the "recognition" that one is god and that one should behave like it.