80 Highbury New Park

Address: 80 Highbury New Park, London N5 2DJ

Open: 1970-1992

‘At 80 security was non-existent and life was a nightmare of physical and sexual abuse.’ Young person living at 80 Highbury New Park interviewed by the Evening Standard (1992).

Number of ISN survivors that lived at 80 Highbury New Park children’s home: 17: 11 women and 6 men – as children in 80 Highbury New Park they were aged mainly 12-16 years

Numbers of children named by ISN survivors as living in 80 Highbury New Park cildren’s home:: 35: 12 boys and 23 girls

Numbers of children living at 80 Highbury New Park children’s home in council documents: Not known although the Evening Standard interview of a girl who lived there in 2003 stated there were 10 children age over 15 years (01.07.2003)

Residential staff named by ISN survivors as working in 80 Highbury New Park: 22: 12 women and 10 men

Life at 80 Highbury New Park children’s home

The Evening Standard coverage of the child abuse scandal from 1992 onwards described 80 Highbury New Park as a centre of child sexual exploitation with a number of older men entering the building through windows. One of the staff was said to have been listed in the White Inquiry appendix (1995) as not suitable to work with children and he left the authority in 1991 following allegations.

‘I was pregnant and a boy tried to get into my room. I had to put the bed against the door.’

‘We were left to our own devices.’

‘We only had keys to our own rooms not to the outside door.’

‘He was very off and angry with me for being on strike and not telling him.’ Social work record 1979

‘She had to be held for over an hour as she was out of control.’

‘I reported sexual abuse by male member of staff.’

‘ A man cuddled me in my room – it wasn’t right.’

Abusers Linked to 80 Highbury New Park

Roy Caterer

Press Coverage

‘Pimp preyed on me while I was in care’, Evening Standard 01.07.2003

‘Now we have discovered that a worried residential social worker, with the help of police, made one last desperate attempt to rescue Louise from a life of degradation and exploitation.

They snatched her from a pimp’s house and took her to safety – only for Islington social services bosses to order she be sent back to the home where the pimps had found her.’

‘How Louise, aged 15, was sent back to a life of shame’ Evening Standard, 16th October 1992