wonder 404

By Simon Regan.

In the early nineties, in the now defunct Scallywag magazine, which I founded, we interviewed in some depth twelve former inmates at Bryn Estyn who had all been involved in the Wrexham paedophile ring...

Two of these young men, who had been 14-years-old at the time, swore they had been not only introduced to the paedophile ring operating in the Crest Hotel in Wrexham but had later been escorted on three or four occasions to an address in Pimlico where they were further abused.

We took them separately to Pimlico and asked them to point out the building where this had taken place. 

They were both positive in their identification. 

It turned out to be the private flat of a well known .... lobbyist ... involved with the 'cash for questions' scandal. 

At the time we ran a story entitled 'Boys for Questions' and named several prominent members of the then Thatcher government. 

These allegations went to the very top of the Tory party, yet there was a curious and almost ominous lack of writs.

The two young men were able to give us very graphic descriptions of just what went on, including acts of buggery, and alleged that they were only two of many from children's homes other than North Wales.

There was, to my certain knowledge, at least one resignation from the Conservative office in Smith Square once we had published our evidence and named names.

The real trouble about exposing paedophiles is that former victims of child abuse make lousy witnesses...

By the very nature of the abuse, when they are rudely shoved out into the wide world (one of the witnesses, Stephen Messham, for example, was released on his sixteenth birthday on Christmas day after two years of abuse, and had to sleep rough on the streets for four and a half months), they are often deeply psychologically disturbed.

Some of the extreme cases commit suicide, many more were sexually disorientated in the worst possible way. 

Some became gay prostitutes, others drug addicts...

It was all very well for us to take statements from former victims in the cosy atmosphere of a pub lunch, but put them up against an agile and eminent QC whose sole task is to discredit them, and they quickly crumble, even break down in tears. 

Many former victims now have criminal records of some kind, owing almost exclusively to the abuse itself, and the barrister will brutally exploit this as evidence that the witness is unreliable and tainted. 

Faced with the choice of a clearly neurotic young man who quickly falls down in the witness box, and a smooth, experienced, erudite and often highly respected culprit, juries tend to give the accused the benefit of the doubt.

I watched it in the now famous Court 13 at the High Court during the libel action between former Supt. Gordon Anglesey and Private Eye (and others) when, despite the fact that under cross examination, Anglesey had to admit that his evidence did not correspond with his own notebooks, the 'other side' subsequently tore the five main prosecution witnesses to pieces in a monumental act of judicial harassment.