“Finlayson-Newman Report”: Listen – Take Seriously What They Say (1993) Lothian
City of Edinburgh Council have released the “Finlayson-Newman Report”:
Listen – Take Seriously What They Say (1993) [1] authored by Alan F Finlayson and Alison J Newman, for John Chant, the Director of Social Work, Lothian Region. This was in response to a Freedom of Information Request [2].
Listen – Take Seriously What They Say (1993) [1] authored by Alan F Finlayson and Alison J Newman, for John Chant, the Director of Social Work, Lothian Region. This was in response to a Freedom of Information Request [2].
The report was originally published in September 1993. It is a “Review of present and planned arrangements for responding to complaints from young people in care with recommendations for further action” .
It was made in response to comments by Lord Caplan at the close of the trial of William Hogarth in July 1992. Hogarth was a residential care worker of the Social Work Department and was found guilty of 6 charges of assault over 7 homes and 3 childrens homes.
The council also say that “Within the text there is regular reference made to “Shrubhill”. This is in fact Shrubhill House which was the headquarters of Lothian Regional Council’s Department of Social Work at the time the document was written.”
At present I have only skimmed the Report I will update this post, on further reading. Any summary or comments on the Report to place it into context would be gratefully recieved.
Please note that victims of abuse may be triggered by reading this information. The Sanctuary for the Abused [A] has advice on how to prevent triggers. National Association for People Abused in Childhood [B] has a freephone helpline and has links to local support groups. Other useful sites are One in Four [C] and Havoca [D]. Useful post on triggers [E] from SurvivorsJustice [F] blog.
This is all written in good faith but if there is anything that needs to be corrected please email cathyfox@bigfoot.com
Links, Hyperlinks and References
[1] Finlayson-Newman Report: Listen – Take Seriously What They Say (1993) authored by Alan F Finlayson and Alison J Newman [1] prepared for John Chant, the Director of Social Work, Lothian Regionhttps://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/199581/response/497906/attach/3/EDIR%202852%20Listen%20Take%20Seriously%20What%20They%20Say.pdf
[2] Freedom of Information Requesthttps://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/finlayson_newman_report_listen_t_2#incoming-497906
[A] Sanctuary for the Abused http://abusesanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/for-survivors-coping-with-triggers-if.html
[B] NAPAC http://www.napac.org.uk/
[C] One in Four http://www.oneinfour.org.uk/
[D] Havoca http://www.havoca.org/HAVOCA_home.htm
[E] SurvivorsJustice Triggers post http://survivorsjustice.com/2014/02/26/triggers-what-are-they-and-how-do-we-work-through-them/
[F] SurvivorsJustice Blog http://survivorsjustice.com/
cathyfox the truth will out, the truth will shout, the truth will set us free
ReplyDeletehttps://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_dual_concern_child_sex
Operation Dual Concern Child Sexual Abuse
From: Cathy Fox
15 February 2014
Dear Cheshire East Council,
Please could you send me a copy of the final Report of the
Operation Dual Concern about child sexual abuse in Congleton 1988.
Cheshire Social Services carried out an investigation into this
with the police.
Please could you tell me what other information the Council hold on
this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Cathy Fox
…
From: FOI East
Cheshire East Council
17 February 2014
Dear Ms Fox
Thank you for your email.
Cheshire East Council came into being as a Unitary Authority in 2009, following the merger of three former local borough councils: Macclesfield, Congleton, and Crewe & Nantwich. As such, a lot of records and information from the old Councils were transferred to the Cheshire County Archives & Local Studies Service in Chester, so I am afraid we no longer hold the information you require.
However, if you contact the service at the link below, I am sure they will be able to help you:
http://archives.cheshire.gov.uk/
Telephone number: 01244 972574
I hope this information will be of assistance to you.
Yours sincerely
Martin Johnson
Customer Relations & Compliance
Cheshire East Council
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19871125&id=zDY1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=NKYLAAAAIBAJ&pg=5412,7128236
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 25 November 1987
18 held in inquiry over child sex ring
A child sex ring based in a prosperous stockbroker belt was believed to have been smashed last night after a joint investigation by police and social services.
Eighteen people were helping police inquiries after 17 youngsters aged between three and 15 were taken into care.
The arrests came as teams of police and social workers swooped on homes in and around the Cheshire town of Congleton, in the stockbroker belt south of Manchester.
A Cheshire County Council spokesman said: “The children were taken into care this morning. Every effort is being made to avoid distress to them.”
Police sources said most of the children were from Congleton, with some from outlying areas. “It’s about child sex abuse on an organised basis,” one senior officer said.
It is understood that the inquiry centres on an alleged pornography ring involving parents and children. A Cheshire police spokesman said the investigation had required a particularly painstaking and caring approach.
A number of people are expected to appear at Sandbach magistrates’ court today on charges under the Sexual Offences Act.
News of the joint investigation came as the charity Childwatch said it had set up a five-man investigation team because organised child sex abuse was increasing so rapidly.
The children taken into care were last night being looked after by a team of social services staff and foster parents while further inquiries were made, Cheshire social services director Mr David Wakefield said. They were taken under Place of Safety orders “in the light of information placed before the magistrates.”
The 18 people arrested were understood to be at three police stations in south Cheshire.
Childwatch said it formed its undercover investigation team after exposing several organised child sex rings around Britain and uncovering depraved individual cases following tip-offs from the public.
It was also using two private investigators to keep pace with what it described as a sickening growth in child sex-for-sale rings. Childwatch founder Mrs Dianne Core, 42, said a lot of money was at stake in organised child sex.
“An awful lot of paedophiles are very successful businessmen or respected professional people with careers,” she said.
“Since the Paedophile Information Exchange was busted some years ago it has gone underground and is coming back even more powerfully. We have identified nine organised groups or cells now operating. One has the motto ‘Sex before eight before it’s too late’.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zTY1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=NKYLAAAAIBAJ&pg=3712%2C7492560
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 26 November 1987
Two in court on child sex charges
A man and a woman appeared in court in Cheshire yesterday on sex charges involving a girl, aged six, and a boy, aged three.
The unemployed man, 39, was charged with rape and a serious offence.
The woman, a 45-year-old housewife, stood in the dock next to him at Sandbach magistrates court, charged with abetting, counselling, and procuring the offence of rape.
Reporting restrictions were not lifted and the two were remanded in custody until tomorrow.
Magistrate Mr Gordon Ball made an order that nothing be published to identify the children.
Both the accused come from Congleton where inquiries into allegations of sexual offences against children continued last night.
Three of the 17 children taken into care on Tuesday were allowed home yesterday. A spokesman for Cheshire County Council social services said: “We are satisfied that their welfare is no longer at risk.”
Three more of the 18 adults arrested by police in a series of raids on the same day were released on police bail. Six are still being held.
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ig01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqULAAAAIBAJ&pg=2441%2C4620261
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 19 July 1988
Judges reveal ‘Satanic’ child sex abuse case
A “SATANIC” child sex abuse scandal was revealed by three top Judges in London yesterday.
Horrifying allegations had been made against 15 people, including parents, that 17 children had been abused by public sex acts and also that the children, aged up to 12, had been forced to drink their own blood and the blood of sheep.
The Judges, headed by Sir Stephen Brown, President of the High Court Family Division, paved the way for the evidence to be handed over to the police.
They dismissed an appeal by some of the 15 people against whom the allegations are made, who had sought to block moves for the evidence to be handed over.
Sir Stephen, sitting in the Appeal Court with Lord Justice Neill and Taylor, upheld a decision by Mrs Justice Booth that her judgment and evidence in the case, which she heard in private at Nottingham, should be handed over.
Sir Stephen, giving judgment yesterday in open court, said Mrs Justice Booth had made orders on July 5 at the end of a case in which she granted a request by Nottingham County Council clearing the way for the 17 children, who were all wards of court, to be put up for adoption.
He said the county council had taken court action because of alleged grave abuse of the children by no less than 15 adults.
“The adults and the children were all members of what may be described as an extended family and its associates,” said the Judge.
“It was alleged that over a considerable period of time these children of varying ages had been subjected to gross sexual abuse at the hands of adults, sometimes at parties where full intercourse had taken place in the presence of a number of adults and other children.”
He said there were instances, which Mrs Justice Booth had accepted as having happened, which could only be described as “Satanic”. That was the word Mrs Justice Booth had used in her judgment.
The Judge said that only two of the parents involved in the case had given evidence at the Nottingham hearing. The majority had declined.
However, he said that some of the parents – four were involved in yesterday’s appeal – had objected to the Judge’s decision at the end of the case to release a transcript of her 33-page judgment detailing the allegations and her frindings, and other evidence in the case to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
In yesterday’s appeal against this information being handed over, the parents had claimed it would be wrong for information resulting from such private hearings to be dealt with in that way.
If this were allowed, it could inhibit the frankness of those giving evidence in such actions.
Sir Stephen said Mrs Justice Booth had taken the view that the public interest outweighed confidentiality in this case.
She had taken the view that it was in the interests of all the children, not just those involved in the case, that those who were found guilty of abuse should be brought to book.
Sir Stephen said he and the other two Judges yesterday considered that Mrs Justice Booth was entitled to make the order she had. They rejected the appeal against her ruling.
“In my view it has not been shown that the Judge exercised her discretion in any way which could be criticised as being wrong,” said Sir Stephen.
It was clearly a matter of public importance and interest that those who were thought to be responsible for the abuse should be brought to justice, and should be prevented from exercising such conduct against others, he said.
He ruled that Nottingham County Council should have leave to disclose to the Chief Constable of Nottingham, any officers authorised on his behalf and to the Crown Prosecution Service, a transcript of Mrs Justice Booth’s judgment and all other evidence and information in its possession relating to the proceedings.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kA01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqULAAAAIBAJ&pg=2143%2C6263330
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 26 July 1988
Woman jailed for five years after torture of teenage girl
The woman responsible for the week-long imprisonment and torture of a runaway teenager, in which the girl was beaten until she was unrecognisable, was yesterday jailed for five years.
The Old Bailey was told that mother-of-three Hazel Paul, 28, used a ouija board to exercise a “bizarre” influence.
She made the girl take part in the ouija sessions at her home in Gladesmore Road, Tottenham, hypnotising her and making her take her clothes off. While the girl was naked a lighted candle was held to her pubic hairs.
Mr Gerald Gordon, prosecuting, said Paul also took part in beating the girl and made her sleep in a wardrobe. Under her influence, others in the house beat, kicked and cut the girl.
Jailing Paul, Judge Peter Mason said: “You were the director of operations, playing your part in beating up this girl. She was cut with a knife under your directions. You were said to be illiterate, that may be, but you are streetwise and cunning.”
Steven Nicholas, 15, of Tottenham was sentenced to two years detention under the terms of the Children and Young Persons Act. He cut the girl with a hacksaw blade and the blade of an electric carving knife, pushed her downstairs and dragged her around by her hair, the court was told.
The Judge said he was not the leader and one explanation for his behaviour might be “the bizarre influence” Paul had over him.
Nicholas told the court he was under Paul’s spell and believed she had psychic powers. “I was just doing things she told me to do. It was weird, she could dig into my mind.”
Paul’s sister-in-law, Loretta Henry, 18, also of Tottenham, was sentenced to 18 months youth custody for her part in the beatings.
The 15-year-old girl’s ordeal began last November when she and a friend ran away from a Newham Council children’s home, Mr Gordon said.
They ended up at Paul’s home, and when the girl finally left six days later she was so badly beaten staff at the home only recognised her by her voice.
Mr Gordon said Paul, Nicholas and Henry were all responsible or repeated acts of violence against the girl. Paul in particular “goaded and encouraged” the others.
The girl was attacked with a variety of weapons, including a knife blade, hacksaw, hammer, and the tip of a stiletto heel, and her head was repeatedly banged against a wall.
After the other runaway left, the girl also tried to get away but was told she would be killed. During one attack her screams were so loud that Paul and Henry went to a neighbour’s house to apologise for the noise, claiming the girl was suffering from fits.
For the last two days the girl was kept without food and water. She eventually persuaded the three to let her go to the home by pretending she had a large cheque which they could have. Once at the home she was taken to hospital and her three attackers, who claimed they had found her in the street, were detained.
Paul and Nicholas denied falsely imprisoning the girl and causing her grievous bodily harm, but were found guilty. Henry admitted the charges.
Artist Newton Matticks, 39, of Tottenham, was jailed for three months for having sex with the girl and indecently assaulting her, which he admitted.
Another man, Dean Richards, 30, of Tottenham was jailed for three months, suspended for two years, after admitting indecently assaulting the girl.
The Judge ordered that the girl should not be identified.
So the one adult Male 30 who sexually attacked a underage girl got a three months suspended sentence ? Whilst the young woman got 5 years and the two other young people none of whom sexually attacked the child all went to jail. WHY?
Deletehttp://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19880730&id=lA01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqULAAAAIBAJ&pg=6629,7327957
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 30 July 1988
Jail for four after child sex assaults
Three men and a woman were jailed yesterday ranging from three to ten years, convicted of “unspeakably vile” child sex abuse following a major investigation in Congleton, Cheshire.
A 40-year-old man found guilty of raping his four-year-old daughter and buggering his three-year-old son was jailed for 10 years at Chester Crown Court. His divorced wife, 46, who pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the rape by holding down their daughter was sentenced to three years.
A 43-year-old man was found guilty of indecently assaulting his five-year-old daughter, nine-year-old son, and his neighbor’s sons, aged five and seven. He was jailed for five years.
His 48-year-old neighbor was found guilty of attempted buggery with his five-year-old son and buggery with his seven-year-old son. He was jailed for seven years. A six-month suspended sentence for child cruelty from Knutsford Crown Court last year was also enforced consecutively.
Mr Justice Alliot said he must impose deterrent sentences because of the apparently widespread sex abuse of children.
“Your conduct to any normal parent is unspeakably vile, and yet so we are held to believe it is widespread,” the Judge said.
“It seems incumbent on me to pass deterrent sentences, but I must not be moved by abhorrence to get the sentences out of proportion.”
He added that they had been found guilty of specimen charges only but his sentences had to reflect their overall criminality. The men had denied all the charges. The woman had admitted the charges.
He was aware that the anonymity the defendants enjoyed in the press was not enjoyed in prison. “You have a choice of running daily attack or going on rule 43,” he told them. (Prisoners fearing attack can ask to be segregated under rule 43.)
Counsel for the defendants said two of the men had already been assaulted by other prisoners.
The Judge paid tribute to Detective Superintendent David Jones, who led the police side of “Operation Dual Concern” with Cheshire Social Services department to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse.
“Whatever may occur elsewhere it is manifest that in this part of the world there is the highest co-operation between the police and social services,” said the Judge.
The children are now all in the care of social services and are receiving special counselling to recover from their ordeal.
…
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/102072811
ReplyDeleteThe Canberra Times – Tuesday 20 September 1988
Devil sacrifice of children ‘all over Britain’
LONDON: Babies and young children were being sacrificed to the Devil in witchcraft rituals all over Britain, according to Tory MP Mr Geoffrey Dickens.
The children are lured into covens, drugged or brainwashed and then forced to take part in degrading sexual acts, he alleged.
In extreme cases, babies or very young children are killed as offerings to the Devil, Mr Dickens said.
He claims to have evidence from around the country that children are being “sacrificed” in bestial ceremonies.
“Six hundred children go missing every year. At least 50 of these children are simply never found again.
“Murder is horrible enough to contemplate, but in most cases of this nature the child’s pitiful body is eventually discovered. With witchcraft sacrifice nothing is ever found,” he says.
The MP told She magazine that the secrecy surrounding such covens makes hard evidence difficult to come by.
“It is a tricky and difficult area to prove, but from conversations with contacts and ex-Satanists, I can honestly tell you I do believe these things have and are happening,” he says.
Mr Dickens says he is building up a dossier which he hopes will provide concrete proof on the evils of Satanism.
“Then, you can rest assured I will go to the police, he says.
A child-care expert, a former black witch and a vicar all back up the MP’s claims about the Satanic rituals.
They say sometimes young women are “mated” with the high priest of a coven so they can give birth to his child.
The baby is never registered and is later offered as a sacrifice to the Devil.
One woman told how she was drawn into a coven which fed her heroin habit. She was “initiated” into the coven by being raped across an altar by the High Priest and witnessed a 13-year-old girl being raped in a similar way.
She also admits that during her Ave years as a black witch she once took part in a human sacrifice. “It was a baby girl, nine days old. She belonged to a woman in the coven. Her throat was cut. We drank the blood,” she says.
Ms Dianne Core, national organiser of the Childwatch charity, has also been gathering evidence on the use and abuse of children in covens.
She tells of three children who were drugged, forced to eat excrement and drink urine and then tied upside down on a cross while adults performed sex acts on them.
Ms Core believes that the times children disappear are significant.
“Often you will find they go missing near one of the major Satanic festivals like the one this week, the autumn equinox on September 20,” she says.
— PA
…
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19880415&id=vzhAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=N1kMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1963,3804610
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 15 April 1988
Children ‘at risk from witchcraft’
Young people are in danger from the effects of witchcraft which is ‘sweeping the country,” Mr Geoffrey Dickens, the Tory campaigner against child abuse, warned in the Commons yesterday.
In a call for a debate on witchcraft, the MP said it was common knowledge that many people convicted of offences against children had been involved in witchcraft initiation ceremonies.
“People laughed when I spoke nine years ago about child abuse. Most people are listening now,” Mr Dickens said. “I now warn the House – witchcraft is sweeping the country.”
However, his comments were met with laughter, and there were further jeers when Labour MP Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) shouted: “It (witchcraft) is in Downing Street.”
Leader of the House Mr John Wakeham suggested that Mr Dickens should try to raise the subject in an adjournment debate.
Mr Dickens siad outside the Commons that now he would be pressing for – or possibly himself introducing – a Bill to make it illegal to practise witchcraft, and empowering courts to pass heavy custodial sentences.
He said: “These are extremely devious, evil people. They get a satanic hold over adults and children in such a way that they have them totally at their command.
“If we are to protect children from this sordid, sexual and diabolical grasp, we must bring in new laws to wipe witches off the face of the earth.”
Mr Dickens said he had evidence of a vicar in the North of England who claimed there were 50 witches’ covens operating between Blackburn and Manchester alone.
“This vicar is obsessed by fears that the North of England is in the grip of supernatural warfare.”
Mr Dickens, who will be raising the matter in detail in the Commons within the next few days, added: “I have not gone mad. This is a serious and growing problem which must be exorcised.”
...
http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/church-hiding-sex-pest-vicars-2-1-88/#comments
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19890201&id=-S01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=8aULAAAAIBAJ&pg=5405,780926
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 1 February 1989
A Judge yesterday jailed a family caught up in a “vortex of evil” which resulted in Britain’s biggest child sex abuse case.
Young children, some still in nappies, were woken from their beds late at night to be used as “playthings” at sex parties.
Two mothers, who watched as their children were sexually assaulted, were told by Mr Justice Farquharson: “You must have sat there when these parties were going on and heard your children screaming and did nothing about it.”
The Judge, who said he had endured listening to the evidence about the abuse of “those helpless young children,” jailed eight members of the family and a friend for a total of 43 years at Nottingham Crown Court.
But he accepted some of the tormenters had themselves been corrupted by the “dreadful” grandfather, a 60-year-old jailed for 10 years last month for interfering with eight of his grandchildren.
Yesterday, his two sons, two daughters, three sons-in-law, a son-in-law’s brother and the friend pleaded guilty to a total of 53 offences, including sex abuse, incest and cruelty.
One 32-year-old mother who watched her children being abused, was sentenced to eight years, another to three.
After the case, it was disclosed that 23 children, aged up to 12, eighteen of them from the Nottingham family, had been taken into care.
Mr Peter Joyce, prosecuting, told the court that two of the children had been abused even after being taken into care.
One father assaulted his daughter when he was allowed to take her to toilet at a social services office.
Mrs Judith Dawson, child abuse consultant with Nottinghamshire County Council, said that social workers had been overruled by a Judge, who allowed the adults access visits.
She said of the case: “Nothing has ever been attempted on this scale before. We have removed an entire generation of children.”
The children were now with foster parents, who were slowly coaxing them back to normality.
The Judge said he had seen some of the children and found them “engaging and attractive.”
He told nine in the dock: “How any of you could have allowed these things to go on simply amazes me.”
“They were passed around at these parties, or assemblies in which you got together, and used as playthings. All the time, they were upset and crying, and you did nothing whatever to help them.”
The court was told by Mr Joyce that one couple’s children were unloved, unkempt and often unfed and locked in a bedroom.
They were forced by hunger and thirst to eat flies and drink water from a toilet bowl.
The Judge praised the social services and police for carrying out an “onerous and terrible job.”
...
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19880720&id=iw01AAAAIBAJ&sjid=nqULAAAAIBAJ&pg=2652,4861239
ReplyDeleteGlasgow Herald – 20 July 1988
11 in court
Eight men and three woman appeared in court yesterday facing more than 100 charges related to child sex abuse, covering an eight-year period. They were arrested last year in Nottingham’s biggest child sex abuse investigation, after a joint operation between police and social workers. The hearing, before magistrates at Nottingham Shire Hall, was adjourned until August 16.
...
"Joint operation between police and social workers."
Sounds like Operation Dual Concern.