[historic] Grooming in Bognor? Surely not!
The current focus on grooming gangs has tended to focus on British Asian issues, though it should be noted that in one case certainly this was part of organised crime in many aspects.
However, this article looks at one case in one Town, dating back to the late 80's/early 90’s. No race issue here to cloud matters. The following is an article written for this paper by me in March 2017. It reveals a disturbing scenario of grooming of boys in children’s homes in Bognor Regis, run by the County Council. The groomers appear to have been members of a branch of a well-known business-charitable organisation of national standing (this stands in for ‘gang’). Boys would leave the home on a Thursday night, stay in a room rented by the County Council for those leaving care, and return, with money and ‘presents’ the following Monday — known as The Breakfast Club.
The fact that no victims have come forward to the police etc is so typical of such scenarios, they do not have any confidence they will be believed, the case of B and X below underscore this commonality.
Just as a sidenote, since 2018, it is said that 150,000 illegal boat migrants have reached the UK, the UK population is 69 million. Bognor’s population is 69,000 — “do the math” would give Bognor, if evenly spread, 150 of that total, or around 21 each year ….. None of the staff at the homes or the Members of the charity branch are likely to have been illegal migrants.
Is this the biggest scandal in Bognor’s history?
by Jan Cosgrove. 10th March 2017
The issue of historical child abuse in Britain is now the subject of 3 national level Inquiries in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it has extended from children’s homes into junior soccer etc. Many parts of the country have seen issues unfold — North Wales, Islington, Kincora Boys Home, Jersey, Dolphin Court, Elm House and so forth.
So far emerging is the constant pattern of children not being heard, being disbelieved etc, even cover-up.
The Herald now reveals the possibility that there was a regime of abuse at a former children’s home in Bognor Regis which has remained hidden since the late 1980s.
The author first became aware of the possibility in the late 1980s as the Chairman of The Bognor Fun Bus charity. One of the Fun Bus assistants, Steve Hall, also had a sideline as a local DJ. He told me that he had been asked to do a gig at a local major hotel on a Friday, in place of a regular DJ whom I believe may have been the late Ian Harding. Steve told me he had needed to go upstairs for a reason, he had been told to go to a certain floor but went to the wrong one. There he encountered two totally naked younger teenage boys who he said were “high on something or other”, “totally out of it”.
I obviously was deeply concerned but without further proof I saw no opportunity to pursue it. Given what we now know, though I do regret not feeling I knew how to progress this then and reporting it as I think now I ought, would the then-prevailing wind of refusing to believe kids etc have buried it anyway? Who knows?
What I was able to find out is that it was said that social services had a flat on a floor of the hotel, which had leased the floor as flats to provide a steady underpinning income.
I am also aware that a associate of Mr Harding who worked in the Town in an official capacity was known to habituate the hotel and a young man of 17 who used the Fun Bus on its skater sessions told me that this man had propositioned him.
It is not until 2013 that more detail came to light. B had been at Aldwick House on Hawthorn Rd as a result of abuse in his own family including his being sexually abused by his father. B says that an older boy had tried to get into his room at AH to abuse him, he had shut him out and reported to his social worker (name given) who had ignored it and also was the same one who told the police not to believe B when he reported his dad had abused him.
Later B says the older boy asked him if he would like to go to ‘The Breakfast Club’ which meant they would go to a local hotel on a Thursday and return on the following Monday, other boys went. B says he refused as he was suspicious, there were rumours in the home. He says those boys who went (I have several names) often came back with expensive presents and also that a (named) staff member tried to persuade him to go along. One occasion he asked his social worker about the Breakfast Club and was told he shouldn’t know about that.
In 2012 I made a Freedom of Information Request to West Sussex about Aldwick and Penn Houses, it will be noted it was refused and why.
Dear Mr Cosgrove,
I am writing in response to your Freedom of Information request of 19
November 2012.
Your request was regarding Penn House and Aldwick House Children’s Homes,
both in Bognor Regis, both now closed.
1. Please give the dates the homes were opened and closed by West Sussex.
We do not hold information relating to when the Homes were opened.
Aldwick House closed in the late 1980’s, and staff and children
transferred to Penn House which closed in 2002.
2. Please state whether any allegations concerning staff at the homes
were made by children resident in them, involving sexual or other abuse?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
3. If so, how many and in what years?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
4. How were these investigated?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
5. Were any staff reported to the Secretary of State for Education to be
barred from working with children? (List 99)
We do not hold any information with regard to any ex-employees. We only
hold electronically the fact someone was dismissed. No electronic record
is made of their work location or whether any referral to ISA or to the
Secretary of State for Education (at that time) was completed. If the
closure was over 7 years ago we are not required to hold employee records
for any longer than that. In relation to safeguarding the time limit is 10
years.
6. Were any persons prosecuted, disciplined, dismissed or otherwise dealt
with re any such allegations?
We do not hold any information with regard to any ex-employees. We only
hold electronically the fact someone was dismissed. No electronic record
is made of their work location or whether any referral to ISA or to the
Secretary of State for Education (at that time) was completed. If the
closure was over 7 years ago we are not required to hold employee records
for any longer than that. In relation to safeguarding the time limit is 10
years.
7. Were any children’s allegations found to be untrue? How many?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
8. Did any children in those homes make any allegations concerning being
taken from there to premises in Bognor Regis to be abused?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
9. Did West Sussex make any use of apartments in any local hotels in
which to place residents from those homes (e.g. in terms of ‘moving on’
from care)?
In order to answer this question, a full review of individual cases would
be necessary which would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The
appropriate limit has been specified in Regulations and for local
authorities it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 2 1/2 working days in locating, retrieving and extracting
the information. Therefore the costs exemption in section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act is triggered and we are not obliged to comply
with this part of your request.
10. After the closure of these homes, where have children been
accommodated who would have gone to them?
The closure of Aldwick House led to children being placed at Penn House
and elsewhere. When Penn House closed, children who would have been
placed there were either placed in foster care or other children’s homes
run either by WSCC or independent agencies depending on their assessed
need.
The website has a facility where someone asking an FoI can be contacted, I get a message from “Alma” @[xyz.com], why I am interested in AH as she was there and had good memories and wanted to contact other former residents. I replied to her I was unable to say much. I then get another message which instead of alma@[xyz.com] gives a full name.surname@[xyz.com]. She goes quiet, I type the name plus “West Sussex” into Google, it comes up under, if I recall,192.com with 2 people, one in her sixties but the other in her 40s, the right age, in a local nearby village.
B has told, yes, she was at Aldwick House and “looked out” for the younger residents, sort of an older big sister figure, “kept an eye out for the younger ones”.
In March 2013 I wrote to The Chief Constable of Sussex Police outlining my concerns and got a brief reply it would be fully answered. That did not happen. Ever.
In 2015 I made complaint to Sussex Police, I was told that my letter to the Chief Constable had been lost and that in any case he would not have seen it. An inspector did write to me re Alma to suggest this was not an unusual comment, maybe she had simply been interested I had mentioned Aldwick House. I ask readers, how many of you know the website What Do They Know? Is it coincidental? I don’t think so and she has not responded to my subsequent messages to contact me. It is hardly the place you’d search to find old friends who’d been in care with you in my view. As yet, then, unexplained. I have put Aldwick House into Google and the FoI above hasn’t come up in the first 30 entries.
Eventually in 2015 the police did interview B, in my presence, he told them what he had told me. I have heard only that some people have been interviewed.
So, we have Steve’s original report to me, alas he committed suicide some years back, an absolute tragedy, his wife had died previously. Also B’s info which tended to corroborate that something was amiss.
Out of the blue, in 2015, I was in conversation on Facebook with someone who suddenly privately messaged me, “Breakfast Club”, we discuss names, some match Bs so any question of Bs reliability is muted on this. The new informant, A, is no friend to B, regards him as a “paedo”, I gather also Ahad been grossly multiply abused by a close relation. I am not sure if A was also at Aldwick House but I think he was judging from what he told me.
A has a ‘thing’ about a local organisation and asked me if I belonged (no) but is it coincidence it met on Thursdays at the same hotel. My wife recalls being in the bar one Thursday evening and being subject to what she felt was strong misogyny by its members present.
B also told me that one of the named older boys, who was gay and also DJ’d, was often not in the home being elsewhere at “other” children’s homes not in West Sussex and also went to stay with an “uncle and aunt” who ran a boarding house in SW London. A person of the same very distinctive name deceased in Margate rumoured suicide.
The major problem is that abuse victims have not come forward, shame being one factor, not being believed another, and a whole range of reasons I won’t treat on here. I have spoken to two people who are themselves victims, one in an organisation representing victims from a school in Purley who lives now in Bognor and Tom Perry who was at Caldicott School where he was abused, one of the 4 men who featured in Channel 4’s groundbreaking ‘Chosen’ [view HERE ]. They both say this article ought to be published in order to encourage victims to come forward. If they do not trust the Police, they are welcome to contact me either by private Facebook message here or by email to jancosgrove1945@gmail.com absolute confidentiality is assured and I have links to a qualified and effective counsellor.
I am grateful to Vince McCabe, himself an abuse survivor, for the following comment on this article prior to publication:
As a former victim of child abuse and a member of SOSA (Shirley Oaks Survivors Association) I have campaigned for years to have our voices heard. Recently, Lambeth Council finally admitted that they were aware of industrial scale sexual abuse taking place at their facilities in Shirley Oaks and, that there was also evidence of former council members covering up the scale of abuse taking place at Shirley Oaks from the early 1950’s to the late 1990’s. To date, over 100 paedophiles have been identified and 60 of them have been successfully prosecuted. SOSA will not stop until every abuser has been located, and convicted of their crimes against looked after children.
I gave evidence to Lambeth Council back in 2001 as part of two ongoing investigations into child sexual abuse, Operation Middleton, and the Children’s Homes in Lambeth Inquiry, known back then by its acronym CHILE. I am currently waiting to give evidence to IICSA (Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse).
People reading your article need to understand the difficulties that former abused victims face, the greatest of these is one of trust. They face disbelief, denial, cover up, more abuse as their personal credibility is attacked. They face having their current and former lives examined under a microscope, and an unwillingness by the local authority and the police service to believe them, or to act upon their allegations.
Even when they are believed, due to the nature of our legal system justice may still not be pursued. They may also lead lives that they don’t want harmed by disclosing. Family members and siblings may not even be aware of what they suffered. Victims often feel guilty about their abuse. They wrongly blame themselves for what took place, and many have lifestyles that are battered and scarred from years of self-harm as a result of their abuse.
Many have locked down what happened to them and moved into a state of denial that it ever took place, and the pain of revisiting their abuse is more than they can cope with. There are myriads of reasons not to disclose, and only one that might allow them to summon the courage to do so; the reality of actually seeing their abusers punished for their crimes.
Little wonder that few are willing, or indeed able to take that initial step and disclose what happened to them.
Like yourself, I have also been party to confidential information about child abuse taking place in homes run by the local authority in West Sussex. I am not at liberty to disclose those confidences, because the people that disclosed to me wish to remain anonymous.
Unless the former children placed into local authority homes can summon the courage to openly name their abusers, and then give a full statement to the police, I fear that their abusers will remain anonymous, and that justice will not prevail.
But I would still urge them all to come forward and disclose, despite their fears. I have campaigned relentlessly to bring my abusers to justice and to force an acknowledgment from Lambeth Council, that children in their care were abused on an industrial scale. It has taken me, alongside a lot of other members of SOSA, forty five years to drag the truth from Lambeth Councils lips, but we have finally been successful. You can read about our success here
http://www.lambethchildabuse.org/lambeth-council-admit-child-abuse-on-an-industrial-scale/
So I share in your concerns Jan, and I hope that former victims placed into the local authority care of West Sussex County Council will contact you and confirm what is already widely known, that children in the care of West Sussex County Council were also exposed to a variety of abuses, many of them sexual.
Only further information can help reveal more of what actually happened, who may have known, been involved.
Is this all blown up and fanciful, or is it a case of “something is rotten in the state of” Bognor? Given it is three people who either did not know or like one another, that names and dates match, I for one am totally convinced we need to be told and proper investigation pursued.
This story and the names of boys and staff I have will go to the national inquiry and to Bognor’s MP. I have no idea where this may lead but I hope readers will share my concern and support my writing it up for public view.
[Please note, the Aldwick House childrens home run by West Sussex County Council featured in this article closed some years ago and is not the same as and has no connection the current Aldwick House care home run by New Century Care at a different address in Bognor.]
Posted 10th March 2017 by Bognor Regis Herald
