Web of abuse

NORTH Yorkshire's biggest police investigation into child abuse began with a letter. It was written by a childhood resident of Springhill Residential School in Ripon and gave the first details of appalling abuse children there suffered at the hands of some workers many years before.

Barnardo's, the charity that ran the school, passed the letter to police. At about the same time, detectives first heard of abuse in another children's home, Fairfield in Harrogate. The two reports led to the setting up of a special squad of officers codenamed Operation Pudsey.

Three years of hard work later, the childhood horrors they uncovered have put five child abusers in jail and another has a suspended prison sentence hanging over his head.

Thirteen people have appeared before a court on Operation Pudsey charges. Six were convicted. Two defendants were acquitted of all charges. Their nightmare, of being wrongly accused of these terrible crimes, is over. Three others had the case against them thrown out before the trial; the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed in the case of another; and the jury was unable to come to a clear verdict in another case.

During their investigations, detectives heard account after account of how charity staff members who were supposed to provide care and security for deprived children from difficult backgrounds did exactly the opposite. The children, now adults, described how they were sexually abused on a regular basis, or gagged, or beaten or given unnatural "punishments". So deep were the mental wounds inflicted on the victims, many had been unable to speak for decades of what was done to them.

While they suffered in silence, their abusers were leading apparently successful professional lives. When Philip Anthony Dunne became the first to be brought to justice, his victims filled the public gallery at York Crown Court. They saw the 53-year-old former house parent and now respected Worcester churchwarden jailed for 11 years after he admitted 18 offences during a five-year reign of terror at Springhill. His first words to detectives when they knocked on his door were: "I've been waiting for you." Since he was jailed in December 1998, more victims have had to relive their ordeals in court.

One of their tormentors, Malcolm Stride, 53, went on to work in other schools, including his last in Southampton. He is now serving 39 months for eight offences of indecent assault when he was a sports master at Springhill.

Psychiatric nurse and former house parent Cynthia Chandler, 70, rose to be the nurse in charge of a home for elderly people with mental problems. Her husband Reginald, 73, is also behind bars, serving eight years for the abuse he committed both at Fairfield in Harrogate and afterwards. Between them, the couple's rule over a special unit for the most difficult children left their victims too terrified to reveal the truth.

Another abuser, Michael Raine, 36, of Harrogate, misused his quasi-position at Fairfields as the son of two other house parents to sexually attack a young girl. He was jailed for eight months.

David John Thompson, also from the Fairfield home and now living in Bridlington had a three-month sentence suspended after he was convicted of indecent assault.

Police stress the six child abusers are not members of a paedophile ring. There was no connection between the two homes, and their times there did not all coincide. They were the rotten apples among two otherwise generally devoted and caring staffs who did provide the security and affection the vulnerable, parentless, difficult or damaged children in their charge so badly needed.

Headed by Det Insp Phil Metcalfe with Det Sgt John White, the Operation Pudsey team traced 1,710 people who were former residents of the home, including family, friends or those linked to them professionally. They took 1,187 statements and collected 2,405 other documents. They began by talking to the two people who initially spoke out and then interviewed other people they named as possible witnesses.

Some of the victims told of other abuse and revealed the names of more potential witnesses. Operation Pudsey expanded until the team were investigating the Ripon school run by Barnardo's from January 1967 to July 1990, and the Harrogate home from 1964 to 1984, run by what is now NCH Action For Children. From the beginning they had full cooperation from the two charities involved despite the catalogue of abuse they were unearthing. They also worked closely with North Yorkshire social workers David Rogers and Jo Miles.

Charity members have given, and continue to give, counselling for victims. Mounting a prosecution involving crimes that date back more than 30 years was not easy. Judge Jonathan Crabtree, who dealt with most of the cases, has made no secret of his doubts about very long delays in prosecutions and his dislike for what he calls "trawling" by police officers visiting people and inviting them to make complaints.

He specifically excluded the Operation Pudsey team from his comments in court yesterday. Its officers firmly deny any "trawling". The judge commended six of its officers: the two senior officers, detective constables George Wishart and Jason Marchant and police constables Dawn Harmsworth and Robert Thorpe.

He said: "They have done their duty. They have gone to great lengths to be fair to the people who were eventually charged and I think that it has been of its kind an admirable exercise by these officers."

During the last year, the judge has stopped two cases. Cynthia Chandler also tried to persuade him to stop her case, unsuccessfully, before admitting her guilt.

Her jail sentence brings to an end a remarkable example of teamwork between the police, prosecutors, the charities involved and other agencies. As Richard Cragg of North Yorkshire CPS said: "We consider this was an excellent example of successful co-operation between the CPS, police and other agencies in the criminal justice system.

"We are pleased with the result of the prosecutions."

Detectives are sure the whole story has not come out in court. They believe other former residents at the two homes suffered abuse but were unwilling to press charges or had managed to put it behind them.

But Operation Pudsey has proved that child abusers should never believe they are safe from justice, even if their crimes go undetected for many years.

PICTURE: JAILED Philip Dunne