PM orders sex abuse inquiry probe - BBC News

5 November 2012 Last updated at 13:43 ET

"These allegations must not be left hanging in the air"

The prime minister is appointing a "senior independent figure" to look into the way allegations of sexual abuse at north Wales children's homes in the 1970s and '80s were dealt with.

Victim Steve Messham has said that the Waterhouse inquiry of 2000 only covered a fraction of the alleged assaults.

Another of the homes' residents says it did not hear all of the abuse claims.

Earlier, Downing Street said it would investigate Mr Messham's claims of abuse by a 1980s Tory politician.

Mr Messham is to meet the Welsh secretary on Tuesday.

Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the prime minister added: "Child abuse is an absolutely hateful and abhorrent crime and these allegations are truly dreadful and they mustn't be left hanging in the air, so I'm taking action today.

"I'm going to be asking a senior independent figure to lead an urgent investigation into whether the original inquiry was properly constituted and properly did its job and to report urgently to the government."

Mr Cameron also urged anyone who knows anything about the allegations of abuse to contact police.

Abuse allegations

Allegations of abuse centred around the Bryn Estyn care home in north Wales began to emerge in the 1990s, but a report commissioned by the county council was never published.

The government then ordered an inquiry into the abuse, which heard from 650 people over three years, and was published in 2000 by Sir Ronald Waterhouse.

Carwyn Jones urged abuse victims who felt their cases were not investigated properly to contact the police

Concerns have now been raised that the remit of the inquiry had been too narrow and that it had failed to consider allegations about children being taken out of the homes to be made available to abusers.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight on Friday, Mr Messham said he believed the Waterhouse inquiry had not heard all the available evidence.

"I don't understand why on earth we had an inquiry if we had to leave out 30% of the abusers, and basically I was told to do that. I was told I couldn't go into detail about these people, I couldn't name them, and they wouldn't question me on them."

"They didn't give me a reason, they just said 'you were not allowed to do so'."

Keith Gregory, a Wrexham county borough councillor, told the BBC he was sexually, physically and mentally abused at Bryn Estyn in the 1970s, by staff and others from the local community.

He said he was "shocked and really devastated" that the Waterhouse inquiry had not looked into allegations children had been brought out of homes to be made available to abusers.

"It needs to come out, it's got to come out," he said, adding that he supported a new inquiry "to look into some of the things that were missed".

He also called for the abusers to be placed on trial, adding that names of alleged abusers which had been given to the Waterhouse inquiry had been left out of the final report "because they were only interested in care workers and the staff of Bryn Estyn".

Mr Gregory said the abusers included MPs, solicitors, judges, factory directors, shopkeepers and serving police officers.

Transparency call

Mr Cameron has ordered civil servants from a number of government departments, including the Wales Office and the Home Office, to go through the paperwork from the 1970s to see if the claims can be substantiated.

But the prime minister is also ordering officials to look at the initial investigations by the police to examine whether they responded with sufficient rigour to the initial claims, and whether Sir Ronald's inquiry got to the truth.

Mr Cameron has suggested that if flaws are found, he may order an independent review of both processes.

A spokesman said the government would now hold talks with the opposition and the Welsh assembly to establish the terms of reference before further details were announced.

In an open letter, Labour MP Tom Watson, who initially raised allegations in Parliament, has called on Mr Cameron to go further and establish a special police investigation into what happened.

Wales' Children's Commissioner Keith Towler said Mr Messham's claims had to be taken seriously and the police and other authorities should be given the opportunity to investigate.

However, Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones said there needed to be more than one complainant to merit another abuse inquiry.

Mr Towler and Mr Jones will meet on Tuesday to discuss the case.

North Wales Police said it was also seeking to establish whether there were any allegations that required new or further investigation.

In the early 1990s, allegations of the abuse in almost 40 children's homes in Wales started to surface and in March 1994 Clwyd County Council commissioned an independent inquiry into claims of widespread abuse across north Wales.

But the inquiry's report was never published, amid legal concerns.

In the wake of this, and amid growing public pressure, in 1996 the-then Secretary of State for Wales, William Hague, ordered an inquiry into allegations of hundreds of cases of child abuse in children's homes in former county council areas of Clwyd and Gwynedd between 1974 and 1990.

The tribunal, led by Sir Ronald, heard evidence from more than 650 people who had been in care from 1974 and took almost three years to publish its report. Sir Ronald died in 2011.

Counsel for the inquiry mentioned the existence of a "shadowy figure of high public standing", but said that there was no substantial evidence to support the allegations.

The Waterhouse inquiry identified 28 alleged perpetrators but they were never identified in public.

The BBC's Nick Robinson said the government would want to move quickly on the issue because the allegations concerned a once-senior Tory figure, albeit one no longer in front-line politics, and because the original inquiry had been set up under a Conservative government by the current Foreign Secretary, Mr Hague.

Anyone with information into these allegations - or who needs support on the issues raised in this article - can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 or email help@nspcc.org.uk, or call their local police station by dialling 101.