Comment by Hope on August 6, 2014 at 10:40

And just incase the media don't know about the children who are being molested , raped and murdered - sold to fostering/forced adoptions teams - state child trafficking and slave traders for perverts etc here is one way to let them all know.

 

The UK newspaper megaphone

http://www.ukfamilylawreform.co.uk/megaphone/megaphonenewspaper.htm

Comment by Hope on August 6, 2014 at 11:11

Children Missing Education register

Pay particular attention to sections 4.2 , 5.2 and especially to section 5.4

The policy has also been revised to ensure that particular consideration is given where children whose suitable education is not known and who have not been seen are notified to Specialist Children’s Services.

https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=47255

There has been 65% increase in home education - is it because their parents no longer trust the state with their children ?

Watch from 1.15 http://www.kent.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/138277

Apparently Mr Carter & Co are not a huge fan of home education.

Comment by Hope on August 6, 2014 at 11:32

1996  -

Terrible legacy that haunts so many children

VICTIMS OF THE ABUSERS: How the architects of suffering escaped detection for d ecades

When Frank Beck resigned after 13 years of running children's homes in Staffordshire a decade ago, he wanted a reference to apply for a post with a social-work agency. The local social services wrote enthusiastically that he was "above questioning."

t emerged five years later that Beck had led a reign of abuse from 1973 to 1986 at three children's homes in the county. The man who was above questioning was a vicious paedophile who had sexually, emotionally and physically abused more than 100 children in his care.

No case could better sum up the failings of social services for the care of children who cannot live with their own families. Although Beck was eventually given five life sentences in 1991, and died in prison of a heart attack in 1994, he has left a legacy in the recurring nightmares of the children he abused and the loopholes that remain in the system.

Despite the fact that children reported Beck and he was interviewed four times by police in the Seventies and Eighties over abuse allegations, he was cleared each time. The police, according to the subsequent inquiry, were not predisposed to believe the children.

But no formal system was ever set up to address complaints against Beck, who used his infamous regression therapy on his charges who were forced to wear nappies, and was convicted of rape and buggery.

The absence of a central regulatory body meant there was no one to appeal to outside the authority. The lack of interest was summed up by one social worker in the report who said: "I have hard kids to place and here was someone who would take them without asking too many questions. I dare not upset him."

Other councils were anxious to believe that the Beck scandal could never happen in their homes. But across Britain abuse has been exposed in care homes. Among the greatest concerns has been the suspicion that paedophile groups were operating in homes. More than 60 children were thought to have been involved in a ring involving council staff and external abusers in Islington, north London.

In the inquiry that followed last year by Ian White, Oxfordshire's director of social services, he warned that Islington's failure to deal with a further set of allegations in the early Nineties meant staff who may have abused children could be working in childcare elsewhere in the country.

The report put local councillors in the dock as well as employees. It said managers were too terrified to deal with staff in a fiercely politically correct regime for fear of being called homophobic or racist.

The revelations of abuse in Staffordshire of more than 140 children in the Eighties were equally damning. Tony Latham, a social worker, was the architect of the policy known as "pin-down" for controlling difficult children in homes.

They were kept in isolation for weeks at a time in a bare room; many were forced to breaking point where they attempted suicide. But Barry O'Neil, the then director of social services, said of Latham, the policy was "to let him get on with it and not to interfere as long as he produced the goods".

When he was finally exposed, an inquiry launched in 1991 concluded he had lost sight of "minimum standards of behaviour and professional practice".

But perhaps the most disturbing scandal is that of Clwyd, North Wales, in the Seventies and Eighties, where more than 100 children may have suffered sexual abuse in homes.

The attempts to suppress the report into what took place has provoked concern about how deep the corruption went. There have been calls for a public investigation of claims that social workers procured boys for people outside the homes and used the boys themselves for sex.

The most enduring legacy of the scandals must be the revelation that 12 former residents of homes in North Wales are dead, in circumstances that have been linked to their time in care.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/terrible-legacy-that-haunts-so-ma...

Comment by Hope on August 6, 2014 at 12:00

Foster parents jailed for battering four-year-old

A boy of four died after being subjected to months of cruelty by his foster parents.

Social workers did nothing to protect him even though he was often covered in cuts and bruises.

By the time paramedics were called, John Smith had suffered a brain haemorrhage, his body was covered in 54 visible injuries - including three adult bite marks - and clumps of his hair were missing.

He died the following day, Christmas Eve 1999. Yesterday, his foster parents Simon and Michelle McWilliam were jailed for eight years for child cruelty.

They could not be charged with a more serious offence, such as manslaughter, because it could not be proven which of them inflicted the injuries.

Judge Anthony Scott-Gall told the couple, who had denied cruelty: 'You systematically set about abusing that little boy, who wanted no more out of life than to be loved and to give love. You made a mockery of those wishes.'

'It is hard to imagine a worse case. You lied and lied to teachers and social workers, you pulled the wool over their eyes. You are a cruel and heartless pair.'

An independent report revealed that social workers made 20 visits to the McWilliams' home in Fishersgate, West Sussex, during the six months John was in their care.

On at least seven occasions his injuries were suspicious enough for them to have sought medical evidence or attention.

But Brighton and Hove Council staff 'too readily' accepted the lies peddled by 41-year-old McWilliam, an accountancy student, and his third wife, 35.

The couple, who had applied to adopt John, insisted the boy had harmed himself. He constantly threw himself downstairs and into furniture, they claimed, calling him a problem child.

Social worker David Pamely believed them, even though John had no history of harming himself.

For 17 months he had lived with another set of foster parents, Rod and Pauline Mears, who described the youngster as cheerful, polite and twinkle-eyed. John, who was born in May 1995, had been taken into care after his mother Marion Smith was unable to cope and attempted suicide.

His natural father had once been charged with child abuse and was forbidden by social services from living in the family home.

Although John was thriving in the care of Mr and Mrs Mears, in the summer of 1999 it was decided he would be well-matched to the McWilliams, who were looking to adopt a child after fertility treatment had failed.

Few checks were made on personal information the couple provided during an eight-month assessment, according to a report into the tragedy by social services expert Alyson Leslie.

When she contacted McWilliam's ex-wives, they were horrified at the prospect of him adopting, calling him cruel and violent.

McWilliam claimed to be heartbrokenby the death of his son Sebastian, by his first wife, at three weeks. He had a daughter from his second marriage but during the seven-week trial at Lewes Crown Court he told the jury that he had no contact with her.

Miss Leslie said John 'was failed by the very system which existed to protect him' and social workers 'too readily accepted' the McWilliams' lies and became 'overly sympathetic' to the couple.

The first report of John suffering injuries came on August 6 - a month after he had moved in.

His new foster mother explained away the bruises on his face and spine by telling the social worker that John had bumped into a table and slid down stairs.

Mr Pamely told the court he was shocked when later that month he saw a red mark on John's face, apparently caused by a carpet burn, but did not ask the child about it for fear of causing anxiety.

Two days later he visited again and found John with a black eye, and a cut and bruised face. Michelle McWilliam said he had been misbehaving and had fallen from the 'naughty chair'.

In October, teachers became alarmed when the child showed them a small tear in his penis. In November, Mr Pamely saw marks on John's jaw. On several occasions in subsequent weeks, John's foster mother claimed he had been violent and she and her husband felt exasperated and useless.

On December 23 Michelle McWilliam called an ambulance.

Paramedics found John unconsciousin his bed clutching his favourite toy dinosaur.

Simon McWilliam - who said the boy's admission to hospital was 'inconvenient' because it coincided with the end of his university course - turned on the social workers, criticising them for ignoring his and his wife's cries for help.

But as they sat at the dying child's bedside, they began to concoct a story about the injuries.

After the verdict, John's natural parents said in a statement that they 'cannot begin to understand why their son was placed with people such as the McWilliams'.

His first foster mother had called John her 'Little Star' and 'a rainbow who touched everybody'.

Mr and Mrs Smith added: 'Lessons must be learned from this tragic case to ensure that this should never happen to another child again.'

John is the latest of many abused children failed by their social workers. Perhaps the worst was that of eight-year-old Anna Climbie, beaten and starved to death by her aunt in London despite the involvement of three social services departments.

Earlier this month, the stepmother of Lauren Wright, six, was jailed for life for beating and torturing her until she died.

Norfolk Social Services had repeatedly been warned Lauren was in danger but did nothing

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-79961/Foster-parents-jailed...

Comment by Hope on August 6, 2014 at 12:07

The Pindown Experience and the Protection of Children - The Report of the Staffordshire Child Care Inquiry  1990

https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/yourcouncil/dataprotectionandfreed...

Comment by Hope on August 7, 2014 at 14:29

In UK,up to 40 MPs and peers knew about or took part in child abuse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byouK-F2r5E

Perks of the job ?

Comment by Hope on August 7, 2014 at 23:09

Exclusive: Police to re-investigate claims of sexual and physical abuse at a former residential school in Cumbria

Granada Reports can reveal that allegations of abuse at a former residential school for boys in South Cumbria are to be re-investigated by police. Underley Hall was a place where pupils, many of them with learning difficulties, should have been safe. According to those we've spoken to they weren't. Their claims of sexual and physical abuse in the 1970s and 1980s are now being re-investigated as part of Operation Tweed.

http://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2014-08-01/exclusive-police-...

Comment by Hope on August 8, 2014 at 14:21

How did the paedophile teachers at my school get away with it for so long? Were liberal Seventies values partly to blame, asks one of the BBC's most respected voices in this deeply personal and troubling account 

• Robert Peston admits 'fond memories' of school now replaced by anxiety
• 'Hideous predilection' of at least one teacher was regarded as 'eccentricity'
• His games teacher at Highgate Wood, north London, has been jailed
• Another teacher asked boys to urinate in front of him
• Mr Peston was not aware of crimes until a victim contacted him recently 

 

Most of us, I think, create myths about ourselves, especially about our childhoods, whose point is to give meaning and purpose to how we live our lives today. 

Over many decades I’ve derived comfort and succour from the idea that the comprehensive school I attended from 1971 to 1978 taught me how to learn, immersed me in a community of children from all sorts of different social and ethnic backgrounds that prepared me for the world as it really is and kept me safe.

My fond memories of the school, Highgate Wood in North London’s Crouch End, are a reason why I have been a very public champion of state schools for decades, and spurred me to set up a charity, Speakers for Schools, whose aim is to provide free talks for kids from inspirational people. 

They are a substantial part of who I am and underpin whatever confidence I have to do the things I do.

Recently, however, I’ve had to revisit one important element of the story I tell myself about Highgate Wood, namely the idea that it was a haven and refuge from the badness of the world. 

This re-examination has not led me to conclude that Highgate Wood was a poor school, but it has made me anxious, as a parent, about the vulnerability of our children even in institutions that seem caring.

This rewriting of my own story was prompted when a Highgate Wood student from the early Eighties got in touch a few weeks ago to tell me that he had been systematically abused by a teacher who was a pillar of the school for most of its existence (Highgate Wood was created out of a secondary modern school in the mid-Sixties).

He gave me harrowing details about how Andy Adams, a man who was games teacher when I was there in the Seventies and who went on to become assistant head — in a career at Highgate Wood lasting well over 30 years — had used him for sex for many years from the time he was 13. 

In the process, Adams permanently wrecked this student’s relationship with his family, undermined his education and made it impossible for him to find happiness as an adult.

The victim says: ‘My personality and emotions are so fractured that it is impossible to recognise anything resembling a whole, a me.’ 

He attempted suicide, spent months as a psychiatric in-patient and with the help of therapy is desperately trying to reduce what he calls his ‘terrible feelings’ to a manageable level.

 

What he described to me was such a challenge to how I remembered the school that for a brief moment I wondered if it was really true.

I was never close to Adams because I was a swot not a jock, although I remember him as a bit of a bully. 

One of my best friends of the time tells me the only activity Adams ever joined in with was a sadistic game called murder ball. And on the evidence of Facebook posts, most former students now think it is significant that Adams was obsessed with making sure no student kept their shorts on in the showers.

When the victim sent me the charge sheet and his witness statement, it became clear that Adams was a paedophile.

 The victim approached me, as a relatively well-known former student of the school, because he wanted the world to know how Andy Adams had been caught and was facing sentence — so that if there were others who had been abused they would perhaps feel it was now safe to come forward and seek help.

 

There had been no interest from local papers. So I briefed the Broadway edition of the Ham & High. The victim’s strong sense was that the local council, Haringey, and the school were hoping that no one would notice the case.

At the time the victim got in touch, Adams had pleaded guilty to multiple charges of buggery and indecent assault with a minor over several years. 

But when I contacted Sally Lowe, Haringey’s head of news, for a comment, she told me she knew nothing about it. This surprised me, given that sentencing was scheduled for just one week later. Lowe said she would find out what she could.

 

Five days later, on July 9, she texted me: ‘Sentencing on Friday and your source is very much legit. I’ve been speaking with the school this week and they are all v shocked of course. No real sense of anyone knowing at the time but obs v distressing.’

Given that the case raised serious questions about the safety of children in a local school and that we were days from sentencing, it is perhaps odd that the council’s senior spokesman knew nothing about it until I phoned.

The point is that Adams may have retired in 2004, but until 2010 he was on the premises helping the school’s work experience co-ordinator for about four weeks a year. ‘He was co-ordinating work placements,’ a school parent told me. ‘My daughter remembers him speaking at assembly.’

And until he was sentenced Adams was celebrated at the school — a wing of the school bore his name: the ‘Adams Wing’ has now been changed to the ‘Admin Wing’. Adams was not an incidental character at Highgate Wood who slipped through the net. For many years he was the school.

In the event, Adams’s sentencing was delayed a week, until the afternoon of the last day of term on July 18. He was jailed for 12 years, which was a third less than it would have been if he had not entered a guilty plea relatively early.

 

Shortly after sentencing, Highgate Wood published a short letter on its website. It stresses that he retired in 2004; it makes no reference to his continuing careers work in the school over subsequent years.

Some parents and ex-pupils have told me they feel the school has been a bit too eager to distance the current school from the school of Adams. And Adams’s victim believes the instinct of the school was to say nothing at all.

He says: ‘The police told me the press release was only written “in case” it was in the news. Apparently your call prompted this. So basically they were going to say nothing.’

Lowe said that is not so. She said that as soon as Highgate Wood was informed by the police that Adams had pleaded guilty, it ‘started making arrangements to inform staff [and] parents and to remove Mr Adams’s name from the building’.

But my fear is that Highgate Wood — which says that ‘this is an historic case and is in no way linked to any existing member of staff’ — is perhaps not sufficiently conscious that schools are living, breathing social organisms, such that every generation of teachers is inextricably linked to the previous one.

What remains unclear is how Adams’s crimes were missed for most of his career. The victim’s barrister said during the trial that a deputy head at the time saw the victim naked with Mr Adams and apparently turned a blind eye.

In the words of the barrister: ‘[The victim] took the view that, after that, the deputy headmaster was even harsher on him than he was before.’ Also, the girlfriend of another boy says she told a senior teacher that her boyfriend — who was 16 — had been abused by Mr Adams, but was ignored.

It is these failures to sound alarms that uncovered for me some troubling and upsetting memories of my own — about another teacher at the school. This teacher had a cupboard at the back of his classroom, into which he would invite certain boys to make him his ‘special orange juice’.

They peed into a cup in front of him. Everybody in my year and adjacent years knew it was happening. The more confident, savvier kids, like me, steered clear.

But for reasons that I don’t fully understand today, I never told my parents or any teacher about any of this. Looking back on it, I think I was worried that somehow I would get the boys who went into the teacher’s sinister cubbyhole into trouble; that they would be embarrassed and punished.

 

However, one of my friends of the time tells me he did tell at least one other member of staff — a hippy-ish man who we regarded as a mate — about his colleague’s paedophile tendencies.

He was told that the best thing to do was simply to stay away from him. There was another teacher who apparently knew about the peeing. That was Adams. His victim says: ‘Adams had known about the man for a long time, about the special cup and the boys being abused.’

All of this has haunted me in a relatively low-level way for a long time. Just a few years ago, I even asked a former Haringey councillor, now dead, if she was aware of any of it.

She said that eventually there was an incident that came to the attention of the council and the teacher was quietly removed from the school. 

But a couple of weeks ago I was told the teacher then turned up, in the Nineties, as a music teacher at a local school, where he was eventually turfed out by one of the governors who knew the stories about his behaviour at Highgate Wood.

 

What I now think is that the Highgate Wood of the liberal Seventies regarded the teacher’s hideous predilection for seeing boys urinate as an eccentricity to be tolerated. But if someone in authority had taken more notice, perhaps Adams would then have been deterred from ruining the life of at least one vulnerable, defenceless boy.

I asked Haringey whether it had any records of the teacher being eased out in the way that the late councillor had said. Its response was defensive. 

Lowe: ‘If you feel that there may have been further criminality here or links to the Adams case, please can I suggest that you refer these to the police in the first instance.’ 

Which, it goes without saying, I will do. The police, of course, have a lot on their plate investigating child abuse by celebrities such as Jimmy Savile. But goodness knows how many other paedophiles were for years able to get away with it in schools just like mine.

Even so many years after the crimes were committed, it surely matters that what these paedophiles did is exposed and that they are held to account. As a therapist who helps victims of paedophilia has told me, we have a duty to shout about this evil as and when we are made aware of it.

The reason is that those let down by schools such as Highgate Wood, who were not protected when they should have been, need to know that what happened to them was not their fault, that it is safe to share the horror of their abuse and that they can belatedly receive the help which they were denied when it mattered most.

• This article first appeared in The Times. The fee is being donated to the Anna Freud Centre

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2718468/How-did-paedophile-...

Comment by Hope on August 12, 2014 at 15:11

Liverpool protest! 11/08/14
Against forced adoptions in secret family court !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NHf5l2x5KI

Comment by Hope on August 12, 2014 at 18:52

Ex-social worker Nicholas Allen jailed for child sex plot

A former social worker has been jailed for four years for arranging to have sex with an eight-year-old girl.

Nicholas Allen, 54, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, believed he was arranging the sexual abuse with the girl's mother and stepmother.

But when he travelled to Leybourne, Kent for the meeting it turned out the women were undercover police officers, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

Allen pleaded guilty to arranging the commission of a child sex offence.

'Stupid and naive'

Prosecutor Serena Gates said Allen met the officers from Kent Police on 14 May and was arrested.

"He told police he had been a social worker for 30 years but had been dismissed for sending inappropriate text messages to a 15-year-old girl," she said.

The court heard Allen also had a caution for a previous sex assault on a teenager.

Defending Allen, Kieran Moroney said he had suffered a breakdown in his late 40s and early 50s which had ended his marriage.

He said Allen was stupid, naive and angry with himself and remorseful for what he had done.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-28746823

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