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THE official report into the north Wales child
abuse scandal is set to denounce the bureaucratic culture that
allowed corruption to grow unchecked across Britain.
During the past three years, 24 police
investigations have been launched as a result of the exhaustive
inquiry.
The 800-page report, the result of 16 months
of harrowing public testimony from the generation of children
abused in 30 homes in north Wales in the 1970s and 1980s,
dismisses suggestions that there was a conspiracy linking other
children's homes from Cornwall to Northumberland. It is,
however, expected to confirm that care workers and bureaucrats
associated with now-closed homes in Wales were able to move
without detection to other homes. This revelation has spurred
police to investigate other allegations of abuse in towns across
Britain.
The report was handed to the Welsh Office last
week, still lacking its executive summary. This is expected to
be completed next week by Sir Ronald Waterhouse, QC, chairman of
the tribunal. Such is the sensitivity of the document that the
only copy is due to be placed in a strong room at the Cabinet
Office.
Senior officials from the Home Office, the
Welsh Office and the Department of Health will then be invited
to the Cabinet Office to read it, take notes and offer factual
corrections. They will not be allowed to amend it.
The final report will be published around
Christmas, when legal restrictions will be lifted and the full
scale of Britain's longest-running abuse scandal should become
clear.
Seven men have
been convicted of assaulting children in north Wales: one boy
told the tribunal that he was sexually abused by 49 men,
including his housemaster, a social worker and a policeman to
whom he turned for help.
Several public figures were alleged to have
been in a paedophile ring, including leading politicians,
aristocrats and senior policemen. The hearing, set up by William
Hague when he was Welsh secretary, has cost £10m.
The price of abuse for the 170 victims,
however, has been immeasurable. At least 12 have committed
suicide.
The inquiry prompted chief constables around
the country to re-examine claims of abuse at homes in their
areas. The most advanced investigation is Operation Care, run by
the Merseyside police. So far 19 people have been jailed for a
total of 126 years, a further eight have been charged and 26 are
on police bail. The police have just started asking questions at
their 79th home.
In Cheshire, police have just opened two new
operations called Osmosis and Ozone which involve 32 people. As
a result of four earlier operations in the area, 13 men were
jailed for a total of 110 years and another dozen have been
arrested or charged.
In south Wales, Operation Goldfinch in Cardiff
investigated 50 homes, resulting in many closures. In
Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire,
Cambridge, Devon and Cornwall, a total of 50 people have been
arrested. So far six men have been jailed, one for 18 years for
serious sexual offences.
Whitehall sources say there is political
support for the proposal mooted before the tribunal for a
child's commissioner, an independent ombudsman who would
investigate all future abuse claims and vet all staff employed
in all children's homes.
Additional reporting: Zoe Brennan and Simon
Trump
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