Author: islingtonsn

‘Night run’ care home abuse survivors encouraged to help with investigation

Trips involved children being taken to various forests

Islington Tribune, 23rd July 2023

By Izzy Rowley

Dr Liz Davies

AN appeal for abuse survivors who remember “night runs” has been launched.

The Islington Survivors Network (ISN) has called for any survivors of the borough’s care home abuse scandal who remember “night runs”, which took place during the 1970s and 80s, to come forward.

These trips involved children being taken from their care homes and brought to various forests.

The exact purpose of these trips is unclear, but survivors are certain that the night runs were not recreational or fun, with one reporting to ISN that they were “touched inappropriately and sexually by staff who came with us” while being taken horse riding in Epping Forest.

One man, who does not wish to be named, recalled being “frightened and petrified” on a night run when he was about five years old.

He told the Tribune: “To give you a picture, there was a lot of abuse going on in the home – physical, mental, psychological abuse.

“I remember about three trips altogether. We were taken in a van to Epping Forest. I don’t think the people that took us worked in the care home, but whoever they were, they must have had the authority to take us.

“It was daylight when we left, but it was dark when we arrived there. I recently spoke to someone else who was in the same care home and he said he remembered holding my hand the whole time, he wouldn’t let go of it. There were lots of posh cars lined up – it all seemed very organised.”

He added: “I remember being told to shut up and say nothing on the return to the home.”

He said that an investigation into these runs would be a step towards justice for him and other survivors like him. “I would definitely encourage as many people as possible [to come forward]. I think the more that come forward, the more likely it is that it’s going to make any kind of investigation into it that bit easier,” he said.

Survivors from care homes in Highbury Crescent, Grosvenor Avenue, Conewood Street, Elwood Street, Gisburne House, and Copthorne have reported experiencing these runs.

Different forests were visited including Epping Forest, Cassiobury Park, Thetford Forest and the Norfolk Broads.

According to ISN, many of these children were abandoned in the middle of the forest and left to make their own way back to a campsite or a vehicle they were transported there in. Some survivors report fewer children coming back from these runs than went out on them.

Dr Liz Davies, founder of Islington Survivors Network, said: “This is so serious and we hope there will be an investigation from the police and Islington Council.

“This needs to be investigated because it’s a recurring theme from so many survivors from so many different homes.”

An Islington Council spokesperson said: “We strongly support prosecution of any people involved in abuse, and it’s vital for anyone with new information about non-recent abuse to contact police, so allegations or evidence of abuse can be fully investigated.”

After being contacted on Wednesday the Metropolitan Police did not respond in time to give a comment.

• Anyone who has experienced abuse of this kind can report it directly to the police by calling 101 or visiting www.met.police.uk/ro/ocr/how-to-report-a-crime or contact Islington Survivors Network at islingtonsn@gmail.com who will facilitate a report.

Paedophile Met Police officer Paul Lamb dies in prison

Islington Gazette, 19th July 2023

A woman who was sexually abused by an Islington policeman says a series of failures robbed his victims of true justice.

Paedophile Paul Lamb got away with his crimes for decades after his fellow officers dismissed the girl as an “attention-seeker” in the 1970s, she claimed.

Their inaction left him free to abuse more children.

He was only brought to book decades later, in 2021 – but a report has now revealed that he served just one year before dying of pneumonia and cancer.

The report, by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, uncovered “disappointing” shortcomings in Lamb’s medical care.

“I feel cheated,” said Christine (not her real name).

“He didn’t deserve a death sentence. I don’t believe in revenge or capital punishment. But I believe in justice – and he didn’t really serve much time at all for what he did to us.”

Paul Lamb was jailed in May 2021, but died in in May 2022 – just one year into his 17-year sentence (Image: Humberside Police)

As a teenager, Christine was placed in the council’s Sheringham Road children’s home.

That was where she met Lamb, who lived a ten-minute walk away in police accommodation near Pentonville prison.

“He was always in the children’s home,” she said.

After Lamb began abusing her at the age of 13 or 14, she said, she reported him at Caledonian Road police station.

“I was totally ignored,” she claimed. “They said, ‘Get out of here, you’re just being an attention-seeker’.

“I was in a children’s home. We were all seen as scallywags. We were never going to be believed.”

The Met Police Service said it could not comment on this claim “given the time that has passed”.

It added that while Lamb was a Met officer, he was “not on duty” when he met and abused Christine.

The Sheringham Road children’s home has since been demolished, but former child occupants handed Islington Survivors Network these photographs of the front door and the home’s minibus (Image: ISN)

Prosecution

Lamb moved to Yorkshire in the 1980s, where he continued abusing children.

Decades later, Christine approached the Islington Survivors Network (ISN), which helped her report her abuse to the Met again.

Officers discovered Humberside Police were already investigating Lamb over other allegations. The cases were joined.

In May 2021, Lamb, aged 73, was sentenced to 17 years in prison for 19 sex offences, including abusing Christine.

He was sent to HMP Hull.

Christine said the authorities never told her he had died a year later.

‘Christine’ said she reported her abuse by Lamb as a teenager at Caledonian Road police station (since converted into housing), but was ignored and told to go away (Image: Google Streetview)

Shortcomings

Lamb’s partner raised concerns with the Ombudsman that his treatment was “lacking” and there was “damp in his cell”.

It found his care had been “of a variable standard”.

Lamb arrived at prison with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and osteoarthritis, but there was “no evidence” he was offered appointments to monitor those conditions.

He was diagnosed with breast cancer three months later and underwent surgery.

He complained of pain in his chest in early March 2022 and admitted he had not been taking his medication.

He was not sent to hospital until late April, by which time he had shortness of breath and fatigue.

His cancer had returned and spread, but there was “no evidence” the prison held necessary meetings about his care.

He died on May 27, 2022.

A report by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman found shortcomings in the healthcare Paul Lamb received at HMP Hull (Image: Google Streetview)

Reaction

The ombudsman did not comment on whether better treatment might have prolonged Lamb’s life.

But it said it had already issued advice to HMP Hull in June 2021 about its management of long-term conditions and use of care plans, following a previous death.

“It is therefore disappointing that these issues are evident in this report,” it wrote.

“For survivors, it was a short sentence for the horrors of what they went through,” said Dr Liz Davies, from ISN.

She said further intelligence about Lamb, from another Islington survivor, had never been criminally investigated.

Christine added: “I don’t want anyone to die – just to serve their time and go home. He should have got that a long time ago, but instead he basically got away with it. I think it’s quite shocking, really.”

City Health Care Partnership (CHCP), which provided health services for HMP Hull, said Lamb’s inquest in April 2023 concluded he had died from natural causes.

“CHCP was not an interested party in this case as we were released from the coroner,” it said.

It is no longer HMP Hull’s health provider.

A prison service spokesperson said: “HMP Hull has accepted and implemented the ombudsman’s recommendations, including improving training for healthcare staff.”

*ISN can be reached on 0300 302 0930 or islingtonsn@gmail.com.

Time running out for child abuse payments

Islington Tribune

Survivors of care homes scandal can apply for £10,000 support sum

Friday, 2nd June — By Anna Lamche

SURVIVORS of Islington’s child abuse scandal only have one year left to apply for a £10,000 support payment, amid warnings the Town Hall could be doing more to widen access to the scheme.

The support payment scheme, which opened in May last year, offers £10,000 to every Islington child who suffered abuse while in care homes during the “worst chapter” of Islington’s history.

As of this week, applicants only have one year left to submit their statements to the scheme before it closes.

According to a council press release published to mark the one-year anniversary of the opening of the scheme, the Town Hall has so far made 155 payments to survivors, totalling £1.535million.

Anyone who was abused in care between 1966 and 1995 can apply. The Town Hall has said it “particularly welcomes more applications from people from black and Asian communities”.

But Islington Survivor’s Network (ISN), an independent group that has long campaigned for justice for the victims of the child abuse scandal, is asking why the council hasn’t done more to advertise the scheme.

Dr Liz Davies, founder of ISN, is calling on the council to do more to advertise the scheme outside of Islington, in places like Bournemouth, Hertfordshire, Stevenage and Harlow, where many Islington children were sent, and survivors are known to have settled.

Dr Davies would also like to see the council working “more collabora­tively” with ISN going forward.

“We were supposed to have regular review meetings. I think we’ve only had one proper review, which came quite late in the day. They’re not involving us on an ongoing basis,” she said.

ISN has worked with survivors over many years, gathering informa­tion on the crimes com­mitted, including precise information on the people involved in the abuse, and the care homes in which the abuse took place.

Dr Davies warned resources are being wasted because the council and ISN often duplicate work, with both services taking statements from survivors. “We’ve met these people, we know their stories,” she said. “We could do it between us.”

According to Dr Davies, ISN has so far worked with 190 survivors to help them submit their applications to the scheme, including help with accessing their case files, filling in forms and supporting them through trauma.

Of those 190 ISN has worked with, some 143 have received support payments so far. But Dr Davies has warned time is running out for some: “We’ve had a few with life-limiting illness… we’ve lost a few people along the way,” she said.

“It’s not what I thought it would be,” Dr Davies said of the scheme.

A spokesperson for Islington Council said it had advertised the scheme in health services, GPs, and housing providers among other places and had featured an article on the scheme in the council magazine.

“There will be further communications promoting the scheme to more communities, both inside and outside Islington, in the coming months,” they said.

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/time-running-out-for-child-abuse-payments

No way to report historic Islington child abuse to Met Police

EXCLUSIVE Islington Gazette: 2nd March 2023

Exclusive by Charles Thomson Investigations Reporter

No way to report historic Islington child abuse to Met Police

Dr Liz Davies, from the Islington Survivors Network (ISN), said victims victims were struggling to report their abuse to the Met Police (Image: Ken Mears)

The Met Police’s failure to investigate historic child abuse in Islington could lead to vigilante attacks on abusers, a former council whistleblower has warned. 

A support group for survivors has received intelligence on paedophiles who are still alive and may pose a continuing risk, but says it is struggling to report the information to police. 

Dr Liz Davies founded the Islington Survivors Network (ISN) and has helped compile more than 130 applications to a council “support payment scheme”. 

READ MORE:

But she said those trying to report their abuse wanted to see the culprits face justice but were being obstructed by bureaucracy. 

“It will get to a point where if nobody does anything, there are a lot of ex-prisoners in ISN who would stop at nothing,” she said.  

“I don’t want that to happen. That’s not how it should be.” 

No police liaison 

Dr Davies blew the whistle on widespread abuse in Islington’s children’s homes in the early 1990s, while working as a social worker. 

Now an emeritus professor at the London Metropolitan University, she uses her office to help people apply to the council’s payment scheme for victims. 

The Gazette reported last week that intelligence was “pouring out”, with multiple complainants describing similar abuse by the same perpetrators. 

READ MORE:

But, said Dr Davies, her repeated calls for a designated liaison officer to act on the intelligence have gone unheeded. 

She is supported by Islington Council. 

“We strongly support the Met having a single point of contact for abuse allegations relating to Islington’s children’s homes and we are writing to the borough commander in support of this,” a spokesperson said. 

“We strongly expect the Metropolitan Police to fully investigate any new allegations of abuse and to allocate appropriate resources to investigate.” 

Trouble reporting 

“We currently have no police to be in contact with on this at all,” said Dr Davies. 

“Since ISN started, we’ve been put with five different police teams and they’ve all folded up. We were tossed around.” 

She said the latest advice from police had been to call 101 or go to a police station. 

But, she claimed, “I tested 101 with some referrals and it was hopeless. 

“One went to Islington police station and got the same response – that they didn’t have anybody to take a statement. 

“He was devastated as he had taken ages to get the courage to report this crime. 

“He then rang the Islington child protection team. He phoned from my room here and I heard it.” 

Dr Davies said the officer simply replied by expressing his annoyance that he had been contacted directly and asked where the complainant had got his details. 

“We had been given his name by the former team that had just closed down,” said Dr Davies. 

But in light of the officer’s response, the complainant decided not to engage with the police any further. 

Abusers are still alive 

“When the payment scheme started, I was well aware that everybody’s statements would be naming abusers, because that’s part of the scheme,” said Dr Davies. 

The 16-page form applicants are asked to fill out includes a section asking for the names of any abusers. 

Dr Davies said her own research had shown some of the abusers being named were still alive and traceable. 

“We need a liaison officer to have strategy meetings on current risk to children that may be posed,” she said. “It’s basic child protection procedure.” 

The Met did not respond to Dr Davies and Islington Council’s request for a dedicated liaison officer. 

It said complainants should call 101 or report their abuse online. 

“Your information will be passed to a specialist team who will work with you and support you” the force said. 

“You will then receive a single point of contact throughout the investigation. 

“We take all reports of abuse, recent or non-recent, extremely seriously. 

“Specially trained officers will support victim-survivors and we will work to seek justice for them wherever possible.” 

  • ISN can be reached on 0300 302 0930 or by emailing islingtonsn@gmail.com. 

Please help to promote the Council Support Payment Scheme and inform survivors about how to apply. Help distribute our leaflet.

Contact Islington Survivors Network if you want leaflets to distribute. We especially want to cover Islington but also Hertfordshire, Essex and Enfield where some of the 41 children’s homes were. We can post them to you or arrange for you to collect them from our office in Holloway Road.

As yet the council has hardly promoted the scheme at all. We had agreed a plan with the Council Communications Team but this has not been implemented. Please put the leaflets on noticeboards – GP surgeries, hospitals, libraries, supermarkets, cafes, shops, foodbanks, voluntary organisations – wherever you think survivors of abuse will see them. THANK YOU!!! We depend on you to help spread the news of this Scheme. We have already assisted over 180 survivors to make an application and 130 have received the payment. None have been refused. The Scheme will only be in place until May 2024 and the process can take 3-6 months so please help to let survivors know about this as soon as you can. If you have any questions about this please call us 0300 302 0930. This is a voicemail service linked to our email and we will get back to you.

What was the Islington Children’s Homes Abuse Scandal?

Islington Gazette 25th February 2023

By Charles Thomson Investigations Reporter

What was the Islington Children’s Homes Abuse Scandal?

Liz Davies fought for more than 30 years for children she knew were being abused in Islington Council’s care.

The former social worker’s efforts eventually secured an apology and a support scheme, which has already paid out almost £1m.

Here is a timeline of how the scandal unfolded. 

1990 

Liz, a social worker, raises concerns about exploitation of children in homes. 

1991 

Islington’s Area Child Protection Committee rejects her concerns. 

1992 

Liz goes to Scotland Yard but no substantial investigation occurs. 

The Evening Standard newspaper publishes a series of reports suggesting Islington’s children’s homes have been “infiltrated by paedophiles”. 

Whistleblowing staff and children describe drug-dealing, sex trafficking and violence. 

Dr Liz Davies first blew the whistle on abuse in Islington’s care homes in 1990. She is still fighting for the survivors today (Image: Ken Mears)

1995 

A report by Ian White, former president of the Association of Directors of Social Services, and Kate Hart, a former senior manager at Hampshire and Oxfordshire councils, finds Islington Council did not properly investigate allegations against workers.

Claims include: “sexual assaults on other staff, encouraging boys to be rent boys, sexual misconduct with residents, sale of drugs, poor child care, involvement in paedophile rings and child pornography”. 

More than a third of accused staff were not investigated. Others left on health grounds before disciplinary proceedings could progress. 

The report warns that abusers may therefore now be working with children elsewhere with clean records. 

Council bosses, including leader Margaret Hodge, resign. 

The White Report is forwarded to the Metropolitan Police, but no investigation occurs.  

1999 

Islington Council chases up the Met, asking whether the White Report’s findings merit investigation. 

Detective Superintendent Sue Akers says there is “insufficient tangible evidence on which to base an holistic enquiry on the scale that would be necessary”. 

The former Grosvenor Avenue children’s home in Highbury is one of many where abuse reportedly occurred (Image: Ken Mears)

2001 

An internal Met Police report says that since the White Report, the force has investigated “at least five former council employees” over “serious sexual abuse in care homes”. 

“With the exception of [one],” it says “none of these suspects were identified previously, despite being prolific offenders during the period under review. 

“I suggest this tends to cast serious doubts about the thoroughness of the council enquiry.” 

To date, 12 complainants have alleged sexual abuse at Gisburn House, in Watford. 

Multiple staff have been accused from another home (Conewood Street/Park Place, N5). 

Since allegations were made about a third home (1 Elwood Street, Highbury), the report adds, “two suspects have fled the country”. 

There is “a high probability” that a “properly resourced cold case review” would identify new victims and offenders, it concludes. 

2003 

Another internal report questions the Met’s continuing inaction, saying it gives the council “a solid security policy against criticism, in that they have asked police to investigate and police have, thus far at least, declined to do so.” 

“Why did the police make this decision at all?” it asks. “Why was the CPS apparently not involved?” 

Still no major investigation occurs. 

READ MORE:

2016 

Dr Davies, now a professor of social work, launches the Islington Survivors’ Network, prompting many new complainants to come forward. 

Two police officers meet Dr Davies and create a list of 26 alleged abusers. But the investigation is closed down and the Met will not say why. 

The Islington Gazette revealed that Sandy Marks, who oversaw the response to the abuse allegations in the early 1990s, had once been linked to a pro-paedophile activist group (Image: Newsquest)

2017 

The Islington Gazette reports that ex-councillor Sandy Marks, chair of Islington’s Social Services committee when the abuse was unearthed in the early 1990s, was once linked to radical pro-paedophile campaign group “Fallen Angels”.  

She initially admits this, saying she was manipulated, then changes her story, denying the link. 

Lawyers advise the council to consider whether this undermines the White Report. 

READ MORE:

The story is part of a series by the Gazette on survivors’ stories. 

Islington finally admits that, “Children placed in our care were subjected to terrible physical and mental abuse.” 

“It is no exaggeration to say that this was the darkest chapter in the council’s history,” says leader Richard Watts.  

“We are deeply sorry for the council’s past failure to protect vulnerable children.” 

He also apologises to Dr Davies for the way her own concerns were handled and commends the Gazette’s reporting. 

2018 

An inquiry by Sarah Morgan QC finds Mrs Marks was affiliated with Fallen Angels, but there is “no evidence” it “affected [her] later role overseeing children’s services at Islington”. 

The White Report is not critically undermined, she finds. 

Islington Council leader Kaya Comer-Schwartz said the authority could not ‘make amends’, but could take responsibility (Image: Islington Council)

2021 

Islington Council announces the Support Payment Scheme, offering £10,000 payments to survivors. 

Council leader Kaya Comer-Schwartz says: “We know that nothing can make amends for the trauma caused, but it is our responsibility as a council to try to address past failings.” 

The Metropolitan Police would not comment on why it had never fully investigated the Islington scandal, but encouraged anyone wishing to report non-recent abuse to do so by dialling 101 or visiting www.met.police.uk/ro/ocr/how-to-report-a-crime/

Intelligence ‘pours in’ on Islington Council child abusers

EXCLUSIVE

HISTORICAL CHILD ABUSE

Islington Gazette: 25th February 2023

Exclusive by Charles Thomson: Investigations Reporter

Intelligence ‘pours in’ on Islington Council child abusers

Islington Council has paid out almost £1 million in the past ten months to victims of historic abuse in its children’s homes. 

More than 180 complainants have come forward since last May, yielding a wealth of new intelligence about paedophiles who infiltrated the borough’s care system.

The support scheme was launched last year, more than three decades after whistleblowers first reported that Islington’s care system had been “infiltrated by paedophiles”.

“They are pouring it out,” said Dr Liz Davies, who has worked on many of the applications. 

“They’ve been naming abusers. Serious assaults. Sexual assaults. Physical assaults. Crimes.” 

In some cases, Dr Davies said, multiple complainants have named the same alleged abusers. 

READ MORE:

“I’ve done a collation of all the children’s homes,” she explained. 

“So if the police contact me and say somebody’s come forward making allegations about Mr So-and-so, I can say, ‘Ten other people have named him’.  

“Then I can contact all those survivors and say, ‘This officer in this police station is investigating Mr So-and-so’, to see if they would like to speak to them.” 

Survivors 

Dr Davies, an emeritus professor of social work at the London Metropolitan University, first raised the alarm about widespread abuse in the homes in 1990, whilst working as a social worker. 

No large-scale police investigation has ever been mounted. 

The Met Police would not comment for this article as to why.

Dr Davies now co-ordinates the Islington Survivors Network (ISN), a non-profit launched in 2016 to help victims access support, and “collate and publish the history of the Islington child abuse scandal”. 

ISN also aims to help the authorities bring abusers to justice. 

Since launching, it has been contacted by more than 600 complainants, as well as ex-staff offering witness testimony. 

In 2017, the council finally admitted and apologised for the abuse. In 2021, it announced the Islington Support Payment Scheme. 

Support Payments 

The scheme, which opened in May 2022 and closes in May 2024, offers £10,000 payments to anyone abused in any of 42 children’s homes between 1966 and 1995. 

“Abuse may be sexual, physical, emotional or neglect,” according to the 16-page form that applicants must complete. 

The scheme covers 12 homes in Islington, plus other Islington-run homes in London, Essex and Hertfordshire.  

It has received 181 applications. To date, 95 have been approved and paid out. 

“No applications have been rejected,” the council said.  

A number of successful claims will also be taken forward as individual civil suits, said Dr Davies. 

“If they win, the £10,000 will come off the damages,” she explained. 

Excluded 

Three-quarters of all applications so far have been made through ISN, which was instrumental in getting the scheme set up. 

Dr Davies said she had lost some battles, with those abused in foster care excluded from the scheme, as well as those abused in children’s homes before Islington became a London borough in 1965. 

“So there were things that were not just,” she said. 

“But in the end, because of time, we thought, we’ve got to run with what we’ve got now, to get people getting paid – because they’re dying. We’re losing them and they’re not getting the money.” 

Dr Davies said the main issue she was experiencing now was waits of “up to six months” for claimants’ care files to be disclosed, then discovering that they are missing or incomplete. 

The Rules 

“Applicants do not need their childhood care records to apply for the scheme,” the council told the Gazette. 

But the scheme does require “credible information and/or material” supporting a claim. 

In some cases, said Dr Davies, missing files have been overcome by ex-staff providing witness statements confirming that they remember the applicants being in the homes. 

The council confirmed that those still waiting for their care records when the scheme closes will not be excluded, as long as they have already applied for the scheme. 

“All applications submitted before the scheme ends in May 2024 will be processed,” it said. 

The Department for Work and Pensions has agreed that payments under the scheme will not be considered when calculating eligibility for benefits. 

ISN can be reached at http://www.islingtonsurvivors.co.uk: Islingtonsn@gmail.com : 0300 302 0930 They will assist survivors with applying to this Scheme.

The Met Police said anyone wishing to report non-recent abuse should do so by calling 101 or visiting http://www.met.police.uk/ro/ocr/how-to-report-a-crime/

“Your information will be passed to a specialist team who will work with you and support you,” it said. 

Met Police officer on abuse at Islington children’s home

EXCLUSIVE

Islington Gazette 9th March

Met Police officer on abuse at Islington children’s home

Exclusive by Charles Thomson : Investigations Reporter

A police officer has detailed how abuse and neglect at an Islington children’s home left him at the mercy of a paedophile.

Aaron – not his real name – returned to the former Highbury Crescent home with the Islington Gazette last week, to detail his ordeal.

The man is among many to have been abused at Islington children’s homes and is now speaking out, decades after whistleblowers drew attention to the scandal.

Now in his 40s, he has applied to Islington Council’s Support Payment Scheme, which offers £10,000 payments to victims of historic abuse in its homes.

He said he was speaking out to encourage others to come forward.

“Horrific”

Aaron was placed in Highbury Crescent several times because his mother, an alcoholic, struggled to look after him and his siblings, he said.

But at the home, he claimed: “I was subject to various levels of abuse. I was physically assaulted and dragged around.

“Quite often my mum would show up, drunk, trying to get us back. We would be dragged away, struck and thrown into a closet room and locked in from the outside. There was writing all over the walls and small holes knocked through.”

In addition to this physical abuse, said Aaron, children at Highbury Crescent were “neglected” – left unsupervised most of the time and often unfed.

CATCH-UP:

“It was quite a horrific place,” he said.

“The only person that looked out for us was an Irish lady in the kitchen who used to give us a bit of cake or something.

“We would often just be left to our own devices for hours on end, to run around in the park opposite.”

That was where he and others encountered a paedophile called Roger Moody.

Aaron described the treatment of children at the Highbury Crescent home as ‘horrific’, including assaults and neglect (Image: Charles Thomson)

Groomed

“Whenever we used to play in the park opposite, he used to be there,” said Aaron.

“Perhaps he knew that was where he could find vulnerable children. He used to have a little black dog, Sadie.”

Gradually, Moody manipulated his way into Aaron’s life. At the time, Moody volunteered at an adventure playground near Pentonville Road, said Aaron, and told the kids he was a former youth worker.

He got to know Aaron’s family and began taking him on outings with other children, to parks and a swimming pool.

“He was very hands-on and playful with the children,” said Aaron. “We all got changed together and would all be thrown around the pool – hands-on, touching.”

Aaron’s mother accepted Moody’s offer to let Aaron stay at his house over weekends, to give her a break.

“My mother believed he was a trustworthy person,” said Aaron.

Aaron said it was in the park opposite the children’s home that he and other children encountered a paedophile called Roger Moody (Image: Charles Thomson)

Abuse

The house, in Liverpool Road, was filled “with lots of other local children that he knew and associated with, mainly of Asian descent.”

“The place was covered with cigar ash and dirt and dust,” Aaron recalled. “There was a piano with stuff piled on top of it. There were photocopiers in his house.”

Moody was a left-wing activist. He would take the boys to meetings and have them hand out the pamphlets he was producing at home.

Eventually, said Aaron, Moody’s true motive for befriending him became apparent.

Aaron described “unwanted sexual touching” by Moody, but did not want to go into detail.

“I won’t want to bring back the old demons,” he said. “I must have been about 11 or 12. No older than that. I was inappropriately touched on numerous occasions.”

Aaron is still plagued by “recurring nightmares”, he said, and sometimes situations he encounters during his work as a police officer trigger flashbacks.

Aaron never reported his abuse to the police, despite being an officer himself, but did report it several years ago to the Islington Survivors Network (ISN) (Image: Charles Thomson)

Speaking Out

Aaron never reported his abuse, even after joining the force.

“I know of historic cases that never go anywhere,” he said. “It was my word against his. I wasn’t willing to put myself through that.”

But in 2020, he contacted the Islington Survivors Network (ISN) and disclosed his abuse.

Two years later, Moody died.

Islington Council said: “We’re deeply sorry for the council’s past failure to protect vulnerable children in its children’s homes, which was the worst chapter in this council’s history.”

Since May 2022, the authority has paid more than £1 million in support payments to victims of abuse.

Next week: The Gazette investigates Roger Moody, the teflon paedophile who kept finding ways to work with children.

ISN can be reached on 0300 302 0930 or by emailing islingtonsn@gmail.com.

Roger Moody

North London: Youth worker Roger Moody was a proud paedophile

Islington Gazette 28th March 2023

By Charles Thomson Investigations Reporter

A proud paedophile managed to continue working with children even after authoring books, articles and pamphlets advocating sex between men and children.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, youth worker Roger Moody called for the age of consent to be abolished, even writing a book bemoaning “simplistic and bigoted” attitudes towards paedophiles.

But press cuttings from the late 1980s and early 1990s show he was still managing to get jobs working with children.  

Earlier this month, the Islington Gazette interviewed a Met Police officer who said he was abused by Moody in the 1990s and recalled him being a volunteer at an Islington adventure playground.

In 2020, that officer was one of two people to approach the Islington Survivors Network (ISN) and report historic abuse by Moody.

Others made allegations decades earlier, but Moody was acquitted at trial.

Moody died in 2022.

The Gazette interviewed a Met Police officer who said he encountered Roger Moody as a direct result of neglect at the former Highbury Crescent children’s home.

‘Boy lover’

Roger Moody was a left-wing activist, campaigning against human rights abuses in the developing world.

In 1971, he even wrote for the Islington Gazette from Bangladesh, where he was delivering aid.

He lived in Caledonian Road at the time and was a “youth worker” in the Bemerton Adventure Playground in Copenhagen Street, Barnsbury.

But in 1975, when Moody outed himself as a paedophile, that should surely have spelled the end of his work with children.

He outed himself in a letter to Peace News, later calling it “the first confessional article by a boy-lover to appear in the British radical press”.

In a follow-up, he claimed sex only occurred between children and paedophiles “because the kids really want it”.

Alarmingly, the address he gave in those letters – in Dartmouth Park Hill, Kentish Town – was also the exact address of a “children’s community centre”.

Trial

In 1978, Moody was charged with child sex offences.

He was acquitted in 1979 at the Old Bailey after the judge banned the jury from seeing his pro-paedophile articles.

In one, he had called on paedophiles to adopt “revolutionary” tactics against their “repression”.

“Specifically, this means we don’t work to lower the age of consent, but to abolish it,” it said.

Ten days after his acquittal, he was arrested again after being seen hand-in-hand with a ten-year-old boy.

No charges followed.

Roger Moody rote a book titled ‘Indecent Assault’, described on the jacket as ‘a defence of paedophilia’ (Image: Charles Thomson)

“Indecent Assault”

In 1980, Moody wrote a book called Indecent Assault, described on its jacket as “a defence of paedophilia”.

“I defend the rights of children to make mutual physical relationships with people of any age,” he wrote, describing young boys as “provocateurs”.

He even dedicated the book to “the boys”, writing: “By the time they are full grown, I trust that most of what this work describes will have become redundant ritual”.

In 1986, he wrote a chapter for another pro-paedophile book – “The Betrayal of Youth” by Warren Middleton, a former vice-chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

He called his chapter: “Ends and Means: How to Make Paedophilia Acceptable”.

“The Dodger”

Despite his pro-paedophile advocacy, Moody continued finding work with kids.

In 1989, the Chelsea News and General Advertiser reported that he had just quit his job as a “youth worker” with the North Kensington Amenity Trust.

Now known as the Westway Trust, it was set up in partnership with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

“All employment matters would have been handled by the charity, not the local authority,” said Westway.

Roger Moody wrote to the Islington Gazette in 1991, saying he had recently been working in schools (Image: Newsquest)

A 1991 letter from Moody to the Islington Gazette, bemoaning “falling standards” in schools, revealed another job with children.

“As a youth worker who until recently worked in a school-based youth project, I was very disturbed to read your report,” he wrote, giving his address as Liverpool Road.

It was at around this time that the Met Police officer interviewed by the Gazette recalled Moody also volunteering in an Islington play park.

Islington Council said it had found no records of Moody being a past employee.

Moody’s death last year provoked tributes from academics and human rights campaigners, seemingly unaware of his murky past.

Among those who wrote eulogies was Thomas O’Carroll, former chairman of Paedophile Information Exchange.

He titled his: “Rodger the Dodger, who beat the rap”.

The Islington Survivors Network can be reached on 0300 302 0930 or by emailing islingtonsn@gmail.com.

“I am trapped in a system,” he wrote. “A decrepit system, completely broke’. Justice for Yusuf Ali who is in ‘state of despair’ from years of imprisonment on an indeterminate sentence

IslingtonTribune

Plea to MPs: Don’t throw away the key

Indeterminate sentences ‘rob young boys of their lives and families’

Friday, 25th November — By Anna Lamche

Yusuf Ali recently

A recent photograph of Yusuf Ali

CAMPAIGNERS want MPs to end indeterminate prison sentences as they respond to a landmark Justice Committee report on ­Monday, warning that thousands of inmates are lost in the jail system with no idea when they will ever be released.

The practice of not ruling how long prisoners have to serve was introduced in 2005 but then abolished in 2012. Anybody sentenced during this time are stuck with IPP (Imprisonment for Public Protection) orders.

These include Yusuf Ali, who has spent most of his adult life in prison, and his mother Jacqueline, from Barnsbury, says she fears he will never live in “normal society” again.

Speaking to the Tribune this week, Ms Ali said: “They have to understand the implications of what has been done. These young boys have been robbed of their lives and their families.”

She had Yusuf when she was just 14 – the product of abuse while she was living in Islington’s care homes during what has been described as the “worst chapter” in the borough’s history.

He grew up in care until his mother could look after him independently. As a teenager Yusuf was caught up in a series of crimes including robbing a betting shop with an imitation firearm that eventually saw him put in prison, aged just 19.

Jacqueline Ali’s graduation photo in 1994 – Yusuf is beside her

Now 49, he is still there and has spent over a decade serving an indefinite sentence that sees prisoners held without a release date.

Next week MPs must respond to a report by the Justice Committee which described IPP sentences as “irredeemably flawed” and called on the government to undertake a “large-scale resentencing exercise” to give straightforward sentences to all those currently serving a term under IPP.

Speaking ahead of that debate, Ms Ali said Yusuf has “turned… into a zombie” after losing all hope that he will ever be released.

Ms Ali, who grew up in Barnsbury, said: “They’ve smashed any hope out of him of ever being released – they’ve murdered him, he’s walking dead. The shell of my boy is what’s there. It’s so painful.”

IPP sentences have become known as the “seven-year trap” – due to the window in which they were handed down – or “a life sentence through the backdoor”.

While judges no longer hand down IPP sentences, all those given the sentence before 2012 did not have their jail terms changed retrospectively when the IPP scheme was abolished.

According to the Prison Reform Trust, there are 1,661 people in prison still serving an IPP sentence who have never been released.

In the landmark report by the Justice Committee published in September, the government was urged to “address the unique injustice caused by the IPP sentence” by undertaking a “re-sentencing exercise in relation to all IPP prisoners”.

Fourteen-year-old Jacqueline with an infant Yusuf

Ms Ali said: “Re-sentencing, definitely, that would be great for anyone under IPP. Those convictions should not still be standing.

“All these cases should be looked at again, and they should be looked at independently.”

According to his mother, Yusuf now lives in a state of despair, and has developed a series of complex mental health conditions.

And her son’s sentence has impacted the rest of the family too, Ms Ali added. “It’s the complete dismantling of a family – the destruction of a family,” she said.

“He’s never going to be able to be in normal society,” Ms Ali said of her son. “[IPP prisoners] are going to need support, they’re going to need counselling, they’re going to need training and rehabilitation, and not just on a shoestring. They need to do this on a big scale.”

After being sent to prison as a teenager for the betting shop robbery, Yusuf escaped from custody during a six-year sentence and, according to his mother, “went on the run” for two years.

In the late 1990s, Yusuf handed himself in, and was given a life sentence with a minimum term of five years and seven months in 1999 for a series of crimes including robbery and driving offences.

Yusuf was still in prison in 2008 when he seriously injured another prisoner during a fight. Instead of being sentenced for grievous bodily harm, Yusuf was re-sentenced with an indefinite “Imprisonment for Public Protection” (IPP) jail term with a three-year minimum tariff. He is still in prison to this day.

In his letters to the Tribune, Yusuf described the criminal justice system as “sub­humanising”.

“I am trapped in a system,” he wrote. “A decrepit system, completely broke.

Yusuf as a teenager

“[The] system I subsist within [is] a machine of oppression, suppresses any efforts I try to make people outside aware of what is being done to human beings within the prison system.

“People really need to understand the true picture,” he wrote.

While Yusuf’s case has been considered by the Parole Board five times since 2011, he has had several hearings without any form of legal representation.

“Since the government did all the cut-backs, if you’re lucky enough to get legal aid, most solicitors don’t have the time to deep-dive into complex mental health and criminal law cases,” Ms Ali said.

“If I contact 50 solicitors, they’ll come back and say: ‘no, sorry, we can’t take your case.’ That’s happened to me. I’ve gone through the whole list.

“My barrister suggested I try to go pro bono, but nobody was touching it.”

A MoJ spokesperson said: “The number of IPP prisoners has fallen by two-thirds since 2012 and we are continuing to help those still in custody to progress towards release. These sentences were handed down by judges who decided offenders posed a significant risk to the public.

“Under the PCSC Act we have committed to automatically review IPP prisoners’ sentences 10 years after they are first released.”