Justice for the abused: No trust in government enquiries
On the back of the Yorkshire Police cover ups of their role in the Hillsborourgh disaster and the battle of Orgreave during the miner’s strike in 1984 new cracks are appearing in the façade of the British capitalist state. The emerging and fast moving scandals relating to the sexual abuse is threatening to engulf the entire British establishment and its political elite questioning their very legitimacy.
The so-called enquiries into the Jimmy Savile scandal and the North Wales abuse cases cannot be trusted to uncover the truth. They are establishment enquiries designed at best to kick the issue into the long grass, at worst to indulge in another state cover-up of criminal proportions. Only a truly democratic and accountable investigation, with access to all previous material and testimonies, will suffice. The state in the form of governments, the police, sections of the media and the prosecution authorities have been guilty for too long of an orchestrated cover-up and this has to end.
Jimmy Savile a friend to the elite
Prior to his death in 2011 Savile was a member of the prestigious and exclusive Athenaeum ‘gentlemen’s’ club in Pall Mall having been proposed by the head of the English Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Basil Hume, in 1984. A close friend of ex Tory PM Margret Thatcher Savile saw in the New Year with the Iron Lady on eleven consecutive occasions at Chequers. He moved in the highest circles of the British ruling class.
A court favourite of the Royal Family Savile received a box of cigars, a pair of gold cufflinks and this message from Prince Charles on his 80th birthday “Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that.” Quite! Charles apparently used Savile as a marriage guidance counsellor and confident in his troubled relationship with Princess Dianna, a fine choice. Dickie Arbiter, who handled media relations for the Prince and Princess of Wales while spokesman for the Queen between 1988 and 2000, said Savile used to rub his lips up the arms of Prince Charles’s young female assistants as a greeting. Such grooming, as preparation for sexual abuse, openly took place in St. James Palace.
With sponsors like this Savile was virtually immune from proper investigation and prosecution. He abused literally in plain sight with brazen regularity and even boasted about his exploits in his autobiography. Investigations by Surrey Police following allegations made against him by four women came to naught when the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him in 2009 due to ‘insufficient evidence’ relating to abuse perpetrated in the 1970’s. Suspicion will be rightly high about the role of the Police as DJ and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini has stated that it was ‘common knowledge’ in Leeds that Savile had bribed members of the Yorkshire force and also that journalists at News International had been aware of Savile’s abuse for years but had done nothing.
A catalogue of abuse
Savile once returned an abscondee teenager to a Police station in Yorkshire after having abused her for the night saying to the WPC on duty ‘don’t nick me luv or I’ll bring the station down around your ears’. They didn’t as Savile was a very wealthy and powerful celebrity and people also knew that he was quite prepared to sue for libel. We now know numerous children tried to report Savile’s abuse but were disbelieved. He could get away with practically anything and his cringe inducing grooming of vulnerable young people along with the then named Gary Glitter was broadcast on prime time Saturday night TV. After the show young people were sexually abused and not just by Savile and Glitter.
One of the survivors of Savile’s abuse, the courageous Karin Ward, stated on BBC Panorama that she witnessed Glitter sexually abusing a young girl in Savile’s dressing room as the presenter stood by laughing. She also described, as a fourteen year old, having to perform oral sex on Savile as the price for appearing on his show. The young people, girls and boys, had all been brought to the show from children’s homes and Broadmoor Secure Hospital (to which Savile had his own key!). At Broadmoor Savile befriended Yorkshire Ripper serial killer of women Peter Sutcliffe and the Sun, as befits a rag from the gutter, is now publishing articles with statements from Sutcliffe that Savile is innocent!
When the wave of allegations against Savile broke with the ITV1 ‘Exposure’ documentary this October the most common media comment was that it was widely known that he had been abusing young girls, women and also boys, one being a nine year old cub scout, for at least six decades. Just about everyone knew about his unsavoury reputation and the revelations came as no surprise.
Apart from the testimony of the survivors of Savile’s abuse a string of adults have come forward to describe their experience of witnessing his abuse of vulnerable young people and wheelchair bound adults with learning difficulties, Savile’s target of choice but he didn’t discriminate, at various locations where he was doing ‘charity work’. His venues for abuse included BBC studios, Broadmoor Secure Hospital, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Haut de la Garenne Children’s Home on the Channel Island of Jersey (scene of a forensic child abuse investigation in 2008).
At the Duncroft Approved School for emotionally disturbed girls in Surrey Savile would turn up in his convertible Rolls Royce to whisk young girls away to be abused elsewhere. Abuse occurred in his but n’ ben cottage in Glencoe or his van used as a mobile home when he did cross country runs for charity and at sundry other locations. In his wake Savile left a legacy of innumerable young lives traumatically shattered by his insidious sexual abuse. Investigations are going on into 400 lines of enquiry involving 200 witnesses.
BBC
What is shocking is the role of the BBC establishment, not only in turning a blind eye to Savile’s abuse since the 1960’s, but also the decision to stop their own journalists from investigating and broadcasting a story on Savile for Newsnight in 2011. The now former BBC director-general George Entwistle gave testimony before the MP’s cultural committee late in October this year and admitted he did not dispute that child abuse was ‘endemic’ at the BBC in the past but that the corporation was now clean.
Entwistle was red faced as an e-mail had come to light from executive producer Peter Rippon, responsible for spiking the Newsnight investigation for ‘editorial reasons’ in 2011, down playing the seriousness of Savile’s abuse. The e-mail stated that further investigation was unwarranted as the allegations were ’40 years old’ and the victims were ‘not too young’. Not too young meaning vulnerable emotionally disturbed teenagers from the care system some only twelve or less.
Instead of an expose of Savile’s abuse the BBC screened a special tribute to him on Boxing Day 2011. It is suggested the decision to pull the Savile expose was to avoid a disruption of the Xmas programing schedule which might have meant the cancelation of the odious tribute despite warnings that failure to run the story could damage the reputation of the BBC. Such blindness and hypocrisy is staggering.
The possible existence of an organised abuse ring within the corporation is coming to light which can be traced back to the program Top of the Pops in the 1960’s.
BBC director general Entwistle has gone after only 54 days in post with a £450,000 golden handshake after Newsnight mistakenly named Thatcher’s former adviser Lord McAlpine as being implicated in the North Wales scandal. This has unfortunately diverted attention away from the real issues in the scandal, the horrendous history of abuse in North Wales and the subsequent cover up.
Savile meanwhile has been implicated in the Welsh scandal. A survivor of abuse from Bryn Estyn care home in Wrexham has testified that Savile would visit the home and stated ‘he kept on looking at me and smiling and laughing. Then he started rubbing my leg. After that I went to bed but he had other children brought up to him’. Savile is also noted to have visited homes with his brother in the eponymous Rolls Royce.
Cover Up
The decision to launch an enquiry in Wales in 1996 was made following the suppression of an independent social work report commissioned by Clwyd County Council in 1994. Known as the Jilling’s report after, it recommended a wide ranging enquiry conducted in the full view of public scrutiny The decision not to publish this report was explained as being for ‘legal reasons’ and most copies were pulped but the council’s insurance company had threatened that cover would be withdrawn if it appeared and it was pulped but it was leaked.
In response the then Tory Secretary of State for Wales, William Hague, appointed a member of the old boy network Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC to head an enquiry in 1996. What was Hague’s role in framing the parameters of the enquiry? What knowledge did he have of the extent of the abuse in North Wales and did he know of anyone who may have been involved? He must have at least have known about the involvement of Tory Grandee and member of Thatcher’s cabinet Sir Peter Morrison’s. His name was prominent in police reports about the abuse and was exposed by ex-leader of the Welsh Tories Rod Richards. Hague was definitely on friendly terms with Jimmy Savile and Richards has stated that Hague ‘’must’’ have known about this.
A decision made prior to the enquiry, contrary to the recommendation in the suppressed social work report, was that it would not be in the full view of public scrutiny and the names of abusers would not be published.
This couldn’t have been an independent decision by Waterhouse as he would have been instructed by defeated 2001 Prime Ministerial candidate and current Foreign Secretary William Hague. Frankly this stinks to heaven and raises the question of why this decision was taken?
The enquiry tribunal sat for 203 days, hearing evidence from more than 650 people relating to some 40 children’s homes. The report from the enquiry ‘Lost in Care’ was published in 2000 and was 1000 pages long.
This enquiry had the strangest approach of any child abuse enquiry I have ever heard of. Waterhouse’s brief was to enquire into abuse in North Wales children’s homes between 1974-1990. He took his brief literally and only considered abuse that had happened within the homes. So if a child was raped in a home it was regarded as abuse but if a child from one of the homes was raped by a public figure in a hotel it wasn’t relevant!
Waterhouse not only purposely narrowed the scope of the enquiry but stopped witnesses from recounting prolific evidence of abuse perpetrated by prominent figures.
Waterhouse ruled against journalists reporting on any proceedings that named any living person who was accused or likely to be accused of abusing children in the homes who gave evidence unless they had previously been convicted of abuse. The ruling was extended twice in the form of an injunction.
His reasons for this were truly remarkable. He argued that this would encourage abusers to come forward and give honest evidence without fear of retribution. Yet he had the power to compel witnesses to attend and this was completely unnecessary. Anonymity was actually granted to somebody who had already been dead for 16 years.
Sian Griffiths
Sian Griffiths, who was head of Personnel for Clwyd Council throughout the entire period, attended the enquiry and recalled Detective Superintendent Peter Ackerley giving evidence. Naming people under investigating he began reeling off names known to the Crown Prosecution Service. These included well known staff in the homes but he then mentioned the name of a very prominent person who had been high up in the government. Waterhouse interrupted and said ‘no stop that’s enough’ and that was it.
Channel 4 has said they cannot name this person for “legal reasons” but he is a prominent politician and is still alive. So who was it that Waterhouse censored mention of during the proceedings? Not Sir Peter Morrison as he is now dead. It must be somebody with very powerful connections and perhaps still in high office?
It is obvious that the enquiry was so designed, not to uncover the reality and extent of the abuse, but to minimize it while protecting the livelihoods and reputations of the great and the good safeguarding them from prosecuted.
Griffith recalls convicted abuser Gary Cook naming local people who were involved in sex parties in the homes. They were called to give evidence but Cook randomly named a high profile public figure. He was not called! There has never been an explanation as to why certain named individuals involved in abuse were called to give evidence and others not. Those not called just happened to be powerful public figures. Griffiths has told Chanel 4 that there are six key witnesses who were not originally called who would have to be called if another enquiry is held, of these three are high profile public figures.
Griffiths has also testified that photographic evidence showing men sexually abusing boys at the time were ordered destroyed after the enquiry under direction of the court despite its potential for use in future prosecutions.
Child sexual abuse has been described as a syndrome of secrecy and denial. I can think of no better example of this in action than this farce of an enquiry that denied justice to the traumatised survivors.
There were only eight convictions after the enquiry of prominent abusers. Mainly staff who managed or worked in the homes.
Some of the victims did not survive. Eight boys who had suffered horrific, organised and sustained abuse are now dead. That is the real tragedy of this case, that vulnerable children supposed to be cared for and protected by the state were sacrificed while well-heeled and powerful abusers got off Scott free.
The implications are potentially even more serious given evidence of Jimmy Savile’s involvement in the scandal. Was he one of the names that Waterhouse suppressed? This is entirely possible of course. It would mean that this maintained the cover of one of Britain’s most prolific abusers and may have allowed him to continue his career of horror for a further 15 years.
Any investigation into the Waterhouse enquiry will raise some very uncomfortable questions for the government but what form will this take?
Teresa May, Tory Home Secretary, is promising a new enquiry into the Waterhouse enquiry and that Police are carrying out new investigations. There are in fact nine separate enquiries going on. There is talk of a ‘super enquiry’ but people must not be fooled. The government is trying to buy time to allow a renewed cover up and for people’s memory to fade so high placed Tory criminals can escape justice.
Socialists should campaign against the approach being taken by the political establishment and highlight the social factors preventing tackling the problem in a meaningful way. It’s clear that child abuse is a feature of class and patriarchal societies. Capitalism does contribute to social conditions which allow abuse to continue unabated and to evolve. A society based on meeting human need and not one of exploitation for profit for the few would undoubtedly mean a revolution in social attitudes, human relationships and behaviour. Only in this way could we be able turn to the real task of trying to create a society where all children are safe and nurtured.
We say
No trust in establishment enquiry into the child sexual abuse scandal
Justice for the abused. For a genuinely democratic and accountable inquiry into the abuse case, involving survivors groups, trade union organisations and others with adequate, publicly funded resources and access to all documents and testimonies held by state bodies.
Stop the intimidation of ‘whistle-blowers’
Reverse the cuts and privatisation in care homes and public services. We need a fully-funded, publicly owned, democratically controlled service, run by care receivers and providers, families, the unions and medical/care professions
