State cover-up

Tony Hyland wrote an article entitled: 'State cover-up of high level paedophile ring.'

Care workers ... acted as go-betweens for a paedophile ring that extends into the topmost layers of society.

Policemen, church ministers, local authority executives, senior businessmen and politicians, including someone believed to be a leading supporter of Margaret Thatcher, have been identified.

The present Public Tribunal into the case...... measures have been taken to prevent the proceedings from being covered fully in the national media.

In the event the press has been virtually absent from the proceedings. There would have been no significant national coverage of this major scandal, if not for the work of a single journalist, Nick Davies of The Guardian...

Waterhouse has also indicated that the final report will not find the "public figure" culpable of any crimes, even though he has been identified by six victims. He stated that whilst a number of the abusers will be named, those of the two policemen will be omitted, even though one of them has already been convicted of sexual offences against children...

39 children's homes in North Wales have been implicated. Nearly 300 people have given evidence as victims of abuse. Some 148 individuals have been identified as abusers...

Key aspects:

John Allen, a convicted paedophile, ran a complex of homes in London and North Wales that supplied children to wealthy outsiders. Allen is currently serving a six year sentence.

At the Bryn Alyn home, two senior officials have already been convicted of systematic sexual abuse of children in their care. Another, Paul Wilson, was convicted of violent attacks on children but given a suspended sentence. He was accused of physical assault on 66 occasions by 66 different boys.

A room at the Crest Hotel in Wrexham was regularly hired out on Sunday evenings to VIP's who were ensured a steady supply of children for their sexual gratification.

"Over a dozen victims who complained of abuse by the paedophile ring have met suspicious deaths. Two brothers who were abused by Allen were trying to blackmail him. In April 1992 one of them died in a house fire in Brighton. The other died soon afterwards in mysterious circumstances....

One witness ...claimed to have been abused by 49 different people. At the age of 11, he attended army cadets where two of the instructors, both policemen, raped him repeatedly. At an army cadet weekend camp he was raped by another instructor.

Far from social services providing a haven from such abuse, it became the means through which he was exposed to even worse physical and mental torment. At his first home he was indecently assaulted by the superintendent, groped by one housemaster, beaten by another, half-drowned by a senior housemaster and slapped by a policemen he tried to complain to.

At his second home, aged 15, he was abused by those in charge of the centre and offered up to wealthy outsiders. He described one of these as "a powerful public figure". After this man took him to an outhouse and orally and anally raped him, he was told, "Just remember who I am."

At the age of 16, he ran away from the Wrexham home, but ended up in the custody of one of the army cadet instructors who had raped him. This man introduced him to a group of 20 associates, who took turns to abuse him. Amongst the culprits identified were two jewellers, a director of a major company, a local authority executive, a Roman Catholic priest and another social worker. Many of those identified have subsequently been convicted of sexual crimes against children...

The most revealing evidence is that regarding one of the paedophiles, who it was hinted at was one of Mrs Thatcher's most prominent supporters.

When the police finally arrested 17 suspects during an inquiry in 1991 the victim claims, 'For some unknown reason, he was not arrested like anybody else. He was allowed to walk round the North Wales Police headquarters and he was allowed to vindicate himself from anything, as if he was the boss... I tried to tell the police of many instances not just relating to him and I was told at the time, and I will never forget it as long as I live, that they were not interested in that.'

The tribunal was informed that the North Wales police had in fact recommended that the man be prosecuted, but this was blocked by the Crown Prosecution Service in London - which took over the case from its local branch...

Those who turned to the police or other social workers for help were met with indifference or outright hostility. A total of 27 separate police inquiries failed to produce anything substantial.

When the police finally launched a major inquiry in 1991, they secured the conviction of only four of the care workers and concluded that there was no evidence of a paedophile ring. A total of 13 reports by social services went unpublished. Clwyd County Council commissioned an independent inquiry and then ruled that its report could not be published...