NYP Officers investigated for child abuse Pt. 4

NYP Officers investigated for child abuse Pt. 4

by TIM HICKS

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Introduction

In 2015, the NYE started investigating child abuse at Throxenby Hall, Scarborough, which was a residential school for troubled youngsters situated on Lady Edith’s Drive on the outskirts of Scarborough. It began in 1946 as a home for boys, run by the former North Riding Council and then by the North Yorkshire County Council Social Services Department. It housed up to 60 boys aged 9 and over and closed in 1991. There have been multiple allegations of sexual and physical abuse at the home by members of staff, which has resulted in an investigation by North Yorkshire Police (NYP) codenamed OPERATION MANUKA that made three arrests in 2015.

This was covered in a newspaper report at the time: “Three held over 30 years of abuse at Scarborough boys home”. However, since then there has been a wall of silence from NYP over the failure of OPERATION MANUKA. The only information I can obtain on this investigation is below and reveals that one of these men went to trial and was acquitted:

“A 67 year old man, who was a Residential Care Officer at Throxenby Hall in Scarborough, has been cleared of a historic charge of indecent assault after the Trial Judge directed the jury to acquit, following legal submissions, at the close of the prosecution case.

A police investigation into Throxenby Hall – codenamed ‘Operation Manuka’ – was launched in February 2015. Proceedings against the man – who first spoke to the police in 2015, and then again in 2016 – were initiated in 2018 about an alleged offence in the 1980’s.”

Source: Website of barrister Taryn Turner, who secured the Residential Care Officer’s acquittal.

The regime at Throxenby Hall was brutal. Some of the staff were undoubtedly sadistic. The NYE is aware of one child of about fourteen years old  – Martin Mennell – who died there.

Some of our coverage can be seen here. As our readers would expect, we have never given up on the Throxenby Hall investigation and, since 2015, we have regularly run appeals for information on Throxenby Hall and, in particular, on the death of Martin Mennell.

The wider investigation. NYP Custody Suites, Jimmy Savile, Peter Jaconelli and Kirklevington Detention Centre (KDC)

It was the NYE team that exposed the Jimmy Savile and Peter Jaconelli paedophile ring that operated openly in Scarborough and Whitby in a joint investigation with the BBC:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fHTlnogz08&t=25s

Recently, we have run a series of articles covering sexual offences committed by NYP Custody Officers against female detainees at one or more NYP Custody Suites (See article: https://nyenquirer.uk/custody-tvp-vs-nyp/) and the horrific sexual, physical and emotional abuse at Kirklevington Detention Centre (KDC) in North Yorkshire. It has emerged that Cleveland Police is running an investigation codenamed OPERATION MAGNOLIA into allegations that Officers from NYP and five other Police Forces witnessed the abuse at KDC while escorting prisoners there from court, but did nothing to intervene or prevent it.

I wrote to Cleveland Police asking for a media statement from its Corporate Communications Department on OPERATION MAGNOLIA and it declined to provide one on the basis that I do not comply with its media policy. Essentially applying the same policy of proscription to the NYE that NYP, the Police Commissioner and then the Mayor for North Yorkshire have applied for many years. Undeterred, I wrote to the elected officials charged with holding the police to account for all six Forces. The democratically elected Police and Crime Commissioner in the following terms:

Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2024 5:03 PM
To: Information NYPFCC <info@northyorkshire-pfcc.gov.uk>
Subject: FW: Operation Magnolia

Dear Mayor Skaith,

Operation Magnolia

I am an investigative journalist writing for the North Yorks Enquirer internet news magazine. I am writing in connection with Operation Magnolia, which is the investigation led by Cleveland Police into allegations that Prison Officers and staff at Kirklevington Detention Centre (KDC) in North Yorkshire sexually, physically and emotionally abused of boys aged between 12 and 17. It is also investigating allegations that officers from the North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Durham, Cleveland, Lancashire and Northumbria forces witnessed boys being openly abused at KDC, but failed to arrest the abusers or report the abuse.

As you can see from the article below, I am concerned at the conduct of Operation Magnolia, which has been ongoing since 2014.

http://nyenquirer.uk/nyp-officers-re-child-abuse-pt-3/

Following on from the convictions of PC Wayne Couzens, PC Stephen Carrick and PC Greg Mitchell, it is essential that police officers who are accused of misconduct are investigated openly, rigorously and impartially, to maintain public confidence. This does not appear to have occurred with Operation Magnolia.

I believe the investigation would benefit from a change of leadership from a force which is not investigating itself. I am therefore writing to ask you to request that you request that the investigation into your officers is removed from the control of Cleveland Police and performed by a different force. Preferably the Metropolitan Police.

I thank you in anticipation of your consideration of this request. Please can I also ask for a media statement on Operation Magnolia from you.

Yours sincerely,

Timothy Hicks

Investigative Journalist

NUJ Membership Number WO15306

The response I got from each Commissioner/Mayor/Deputy Mayor is summarised below:

Mayor David Skaith for NYP: Acknowledged my request, complained that I had not sent it to his media department, but didn’t bother responding.

• Deputy Mayor Lowe for West Yorkshire Police: Responded by asking which other Forces I had contacted. I confirmed I had contacted NYP, Lancashire, Cleveland, Northumbria and Cumbria, but did not bother to respond.
• Commissioner Grunshaw for Lancashire Police: didn’t bother responding.
• Commissioner Dungworth for Northumbria Police: didn’t bother responding.
• Commissioner Allen for Durham Police: didn’t bother responding.
• Commissioner Storey for Cleveland Police: (Commissioner for the lead force for OPERATION MAGNOLIA and responsible for investigating its own officers and the officers from the above forces accused of witnessing the abuse and failing to intervene): Responded by refusing to comment because he had received a briefing on OPERATION MAGNOLIA from the Police.

In summary, all of the NYE’s investigations have met a wall of silence and as with OPERATION MANUKA, a complete veil of secrecy has been drawn over OPERATION MAGNOLIA. This policy of proscribing the NYE to evade commenting on allegations of widespread involvement of Police Officers in child abuse may have been co-ordinated across six Police Forces.

Fresh Evidence: A victim comes forward

Then, our appeals for information over the past nine years bore fruit. The NYE was contacted by a victim who was abused at both KDC and Throxenby Hall. I interviewed him by telephone on 3rd July and was completely satisfied with the accuracy of his evidence. He agreed to be quoted in the article on the basis that would be given anonymity and I have therefore given him the pseudonym of “John”. His evidence is below and it is shocking:

John told me that:

He had a difficult family background and was expelled from a school in Scarborough, where Peter Jaconelli was a school Governor. Everyone in the school knew that Jaconelli was a paedophile, including the teachers and the governors. It was open common knowledge in Scarborough. The boys at the school called Jaconelli and any boy that worked for him (he only employed boys) “bum boy”.

When John was expelled, Jaconelli told him to come and see him at his ice cream parlour, but knowing Jaconelli’s sickening reputation, he did not go.Jaconelli’s friend Jimmy Savile and a friend of Savile’s were known to like young girls. They would ply them with alcohol and then cocaine at the friend’s flat, before raping them.

Eventually, John was made subject to a care order and was sent to Throxenby Hall in the 1980s. John was a pupil there for about two years from the ages of about thirteen to fifteen years old.

His story continues:

He described the regime at Throxenby Hall as brutal, with extreme violence being applied to the boys. One boy was beaten so badly that he was left unconscious. The staff, police and social workers knew what was going on and acquiesced to it. John made a complaint about the abuse, but it was ignored and the abusive staff were protected. John did not see Jaconelli or Jimmy Savile at Throxenby Hall.

Just before John arrived, one of the Residential Care Officers had been found to have taken some of the boys in a camping trip, plied them with alcohol and sexually abused one of them. This officer was dismissed from Throxenby Hall and then employed almost immediately at another institution where he still had access to young boys.

In short, it appears to me that North Yorkshire County Council Social Services protected the Officer and themselves by moving the officer instead of having him charged, with all the resulting publicity which would have revealed the scale of the depravity occurring at Throxenby Hall.

John was a close friend of Martin Mennell. His comments on Martin’s death are as follows:

Martin could not go home for the summer holidays, so he spent them in Throxenby Hall. John was more fortunate than Martin and was able to spend his summer holiday with his family. When John returned to Throxenby Hall after the summer holidays he was interviewed and told that Martin had died from a heart attack in the swimming pool. This was before the inquest had been held and John expressed skepticism about this explanation for Martin’s death. John confirmed that when the boys went swimming in the pool it was always unsupervised.

In 1976 I qualified as a lifeguard with the Royal Life Saving Society, which qualified me to be a lifeguard at a local authority swimming pool. I recall that it was a requirement that the local pool always had to have a lifeguard on duty. It strikes me, therefore, as completely irresponsible to let children swim in an open-air pool without a lifeguard, let alone without an adult present. If this is so, it smacks to me at best of gross negligence.

Eventually, John left Throxenby Hall, but unable to find employment he did not settle down and was convicted of shoplifting twice, once at York Magistrates Court and once at Scarborough Magistrates Court. On both occasions he was sent to KDC. He continues:

The routine on each occasion was the same. On the way to KDC the escorting Police Officers from NYP laughed and told him he would have a great time at a detention centre. On arrival, the NYP officers would have a cup of coffee while a prison officer did the initial documentation in the presence of the policemen. At this point, he would find a pretext to hit him. Usually this was for not calling the prison officer ‘Sir’.

John remembers both times he was admitted to KDC that the NYP escorting officers were drinking coffee and laughing when he was hit by the prison officer who was checking him in.

The regime at KDC was brutal. With violence being offered gratuitously without reason. Sometimes the detainee would be told to run down the corridor and give a prison officer a note. Because detainees were not allowed to run in the corridors, this would be used as a pretext to justify giving him a beating, even though they had done nothing wrong.

The most brutal prison officers were the physical training instructors, who were all ex-army and wore their army kit in the gym. Amongst other things they would pull the detainees out of the showers by grabbing their testicles.

John felt he was particularly badly treated at KDC the second time he was there. The short sharp shock treatment that KDC was supposed to inflict was intended to deter detainees from returning to crime. By appearing a second time, John was proof that KDC had not broken him the first time and had failed. This resulted in him being singled out for particularly brutal treatment. Or, to use his own words, “I had a target on my back for being a second timer”.

John felt that about 30% of the Prison Officers were decent but they turned a blind eye to the abuse. He expressed concern that the abuse was so widespread and so open, that it must have been formally sanctioned as a policy at KDC.

John still gets nightmares and flashbacks about Throxenby Hall and KDC. He can still see the faces of some of the abusive Prison Officers. He suffers from clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his time in these two institutions, which ruined his life. This illustrates how devastating child abuse can be and the enormous impact it has on victims. It makes the decision by teachers, school governors, local councillors, social workers and policemen to turn a blind eye or actively protect abusers right the way up to the present day even more sickening.

I listened to John with great sadness. I think he had a horrific ordeal and I admire him for the way he has dealt with it.

Summary

John’s evidence has brought all four NYE investigations (Throxenby Hall, KDC, the Peter Jaconelli and Jimmy Savile Scarborough paedophile ring, and NYP Custody Suites) together.

Every Police Officer in Scarborough knew about Savile and Jaconelli. The North Yorkshire County Council Social Services Department and NYP knew about the abuse at Throxenby Hall. Officers from both York and Scarborough police stations were aware of the abuse at KDC and watched while John was abused. KDC was the main detention centre for North Yorkshire and received detainees from every Court and Police Station in the county. This indicates that many police officers in NYP at the time were aware of the abuse at KDC and did not do anything.

In all four investigations, the NYE has faced a wall of silence and obstruction. The best example of this was the investigation by Deputy Chief Constable Sue Cross of NYP, who stated that here was no evidence of any offending by Savile and Jaconelli.

The perpetrators of this vile sexual, emotional and physical abuse of children have all escaped justice, as have the Police Officers, social workers, residential care officers, prison officers, and Councillors who covered it up.

Six Mayors/Deputy Mayors/Commissioners from six Police Forces across the North of England and multiple Chief Constables have all refused to comment. This is particularly concerning given that, between them, these officials are paid the best part of half a million pounds to hold the police to account. Instead of doing this, it appears that they have just taken the money and kept quiet.

Following on from the convictions of PC Wayne Couzens, PC Stephen Carrick and PC Greg Mitchell, who were protected by the police. It is essential that police officers who are accused of misconduct are investigated openly, rigorously and impartially, to maintain public confidence. This does not appear to have occurred with Throxenby Hall, KDC, the Peter Jaconelli and Jimmy Savile Scarborough paedophile ring, or the NYP Custody Suites. Nothing has changed since the 1960s.

So long as police misconduct is allowed to continue unpunished, these tragedies will continue to occur and there will be more cases like that of Sarah Everard.

The NYE will continue its crusade to expose the truth about these crimes.

NYE Appeal for Information

If you have had a bad experience in an NYP Custody Suite, at Throxenby Hall, or at Kirklevington Detention Centre, please let the NYE know in complete confidence using the letters@nyenquirer.uk email address. The NYE would particularly like to hear from anyone who knew Martin Mennell, who drowned in the Throxenby Hall swimming pool.

Right of Reply

If you are mentioned in this article and do not agree with the views expressed in it, or if you wish to correct any factual inaccuracy, please let me know using the letters@nyenquirer.uk e mail address and your views and a correction will be published if appropriate.

Note from the Editor

One simple email enquiry requesting a media statement on an investigation into allegations of police corruption has resulted in six Police Forces refusing to comment. Effectively proscribing the NYE.

The NYE exists to expose misconduct and corruption. Our readers want cutting-edge investigative journalism on difficult and controversial subjects, not Mills & Boon. I am sure that our readers will understand that if the NYE has been proscribed by six forces, it shows that we must be doing something right.