Police leading a huge but largely
abortive child abuse inquiry denied yesterday they had encouraged false
allegations and wrecked the lives of innocent teachers and care workers by
"trawling" for evidence in children's homes.
Dozens of professionals in the north-east, backed by MPs, have lodged
complaints about the blunderbuss effect of the five year Operation Rose
that saw more than 200 people investigated but in the end only six
convicted.
The £5m inquiry led to 558 claims of assault, rape and other sexual
abuse from 277 residents or former residents of 61 care homes.
The methods used by Northumbria police have been referred to the
Commons home affairs committee, which is studying the handling of hundreds
of similar child abuse allegations in care homes.
The scale of the north-east inquiry has emerged with the lifting of a
legal gag. The two years of reporting restrictions on the trials of 32
north-east care workers and teachers linked to 142 allegations of child
abuse, ended on Tuesday with the collapse of the final case in Newcastle
crown court.
The legal move has cleared the way for the complaints of care workers
and teachers either acquitted by juries or told by police that they would
not face trial.
Ray Johnson, co-chairman of the north-east branch of Falsely Accused
Carers and Teachers, said that the clumsy snail's pace investigation had
destroyed his life and career as it had scores of others.
He has lodged papers with the police complaints authority claiming
malicious prosecution and victimisation after a judge threw out charges
against him because a three-and-a-half-year delay had flouted his human
rights. "My life has been utterly destroyed for the past five years for no
reason whatsoever," he said. "People who abuse children physically or
sexually should be punished, but the methods of the Northumbria police
have brought the downfall of innocent people whose only crime was to look
after disaffected children in homes."
John Scott, assistant chief constable of Northumbria police, defended
the idea of the "trawling" system yesterday but acknowledged that it could
trap the innocent. He said: "We would conduct the inquiry in the same way,
were we to do it again. However, recommendations have been made to
establish best practice."
The police have now drawn up recommendations for child abuse inquiries
involving care homes, which include "fast track" legal preparation to get
cases quickly to court, and a national protocol to record unused material.
There are about 85 cases pending nationally and the Commons committee
is studying a further 100 convictions of care workers and teachers dating
back 30 years.
The committee chair, Chris Mullin, Labour MP for Sunderland, said in
January as the inquiry was set up: "It's been suggested that a new genre
of miscarriage of justice has arisen from the over-enthusiastic pursuit of
allegations of abuse of children in institutions. The decision to conduct
this inquiry was taken in response to a large number of well argued
representations."
Typical among the cases of Operation Rose was that of a Esme Allenby,
54, a care worker whose life was said to be ruined by nine allegations of
indecent assault. Though the police never took the claims to trial, she
was devastated by the public pursuit of the claims.
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