NYP Officers’ Child Abuse Investigation: Pt. 6 – NYC Responds

NYP Officers’ Child Abuse Investigation: Pt. 6 – NYC Responds

by TIM HICKS

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Introduction: The Throxenby Hall Paedophile-Ring

Throxenby Hall was a residential care home for boys. It housed about 60 boys aged 9 and over. It was not an Approved School or Borstal (Young Offenders Institution run by the Home Office) and the boys there were not convicted of anything, so it had minimal security with few restrictions on movement. It was run by the former North Riding County Council from 1946 until 1974 when responsibility for the home was transferred to the former North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) Social Services Department, until it closed in 1991. NYCC was reformed as North Yorkshire Council (NYC) in 2023, incorporating the seven form Districts/Boroughs of North Yorkshire..

A former pupil at Throxenby Hall we have called “John” has come forward to the NYE and alleged that the NYCC Social Workers protected members of its staff that were abusing the boys at Throxenby Hall. “John” was at Throxenby Hall for two years in the 1980s. His evidence can be read here.

The situation at Throxenby Hall appears to be very similar to the Sandyridge and Costa Villa Children’s Homes scandal in Kent, where two paedophiles who ran these children’s homes abused children and were protected by Kent social workers.

Other witnesses that were pupils at Throxenby Hall have confirmed that hey saw the notorious rapist and paedophile Peter Jaconelli at Throxenby Hall and that he took boys from Throxenby Hall into Scarborough with him. There can be no doubt that this was to abuse them and the conclusion is inescapable that boys were being trafficked to Jaconelli by NYCs employees there.

The role of Jimmy Savile and Scarborough and NYCC Councillor, and Mayor of Scarborough, Peter Jaconelli

Following a joint NYE investigation with the BBC and despite a cover up by North Yorkshire Police (NYP), the NYE was able to expose Scarborough and NYCC Councillor and Mayor of Scarborough Peter Jaconelli as a paedophile.

Jaconelli ran a paedophile ring in Scarborough, which included Jimmy Savile and they committed multiple rapes of children in Scarborough, including occasions when they raped boys together.

Jaconelli was a governor at a number of local schools including Raincliffe and Woodlands Schools and he used this position to procure boys from those schools. The boys at Throxenby Hall were in a much more vulnerable position because they were resident and therefore not under the protection of teachers or their parents. Pupils from outside Scarborough were even more vulnerable because their parents were more remote.

Jaconelli’s offending was well known in Scarborough and must have been known to NYP; Councillors, Social Workers and the staff at Throxenby Hall. Yet he was allowed to visit Throxenby Hall to take boys from there into Scarborough with the assistance of the staff there. Jaconelli no doubt trafficked some of them on to Savile.

So why did NYCC and NYC allow a creature like Jaconelli, who was widely-known locally to be a paedophile, unrestricted and unsupervised access to vulnerable children?

Jaconelli was the Major of Scarborough from 1971 – 1972. He was also a very senior and influential NYCC Councillor. Throxenby Hall was a convenient source of boys for him and the concern must be that he was able to use his influence to ensure that any allegations of misconduct by Council employees at Throxenby Hall were not investigated. Because of his position as a NYCC Councillor, the Police, Councillors and social workers did not act to prevent this.

The response of North Yorkshire Council to this scandal

As part of this investigation, I wrote to NYC which was responsible for Throxenby Hall and employed the Residential Care Officers that abused the children there and the Social Workers who protected them. I asked the Council’s Media Office for a media comment covering the council’s response to the allegations of abuse of children at Throxenby Hall. I asked:

“If North Yorkshire Council would wish to issue an apology and statement of regret over the way pupils were abused by its employees at Throxenby Hall and the way it was covered up by the North Yorkshire County Council Social Services Department. As North Yorkshire County Council did in response to the NYE investigation into the paedophile ring run by North Yorkshire County Councillor Peter Jaconelli and Jimmy Savile. “

 The response from North Yorkshire Council was prompt and direct. It was also illuminating:

“Hi

This matter should be addressed to the North Yorkshire Police press office.

Regards,”

(Name withheld by NYE)

The above one-liner can only be interpreted as “This is not the Council’s problem and we’re n0t interested. Now stop bothering us.”

The informal flippant style of the response is unsatisfactory. The complete lack of any concern at all for the victims of this abuse – some of whom have had their lives ruined – or of any expression of regret – is sickening.

NYP has a policy of not commenting to the North Yorks Enquirer and the Council’s Media Office must know that the Police cannot comment on a request to North Yorkshire Council to issue an apology for child abuse by the Council’s employees. So, NYCs response above is obviously a buck pass issued to evade NYC’s duty to comment openly and address past failings.

Further, the Council’s Media Office has lied in an official communication, concerning a cover up of multiple cases of child sexual abuse by its employees, to stonewall the NYE’s investigation by directing it to a blind alley.

I very much regret to say that this is exactly the same attitude NYC had in the past, which allowed Council staff, Jaconelli and Savile to abuse children who were in the Council’s care, with impunity.

So, nothing has changed since the 1970s. NYC is still covering up and protecting paedophiles.

At this point the question has to be asked, what happened to Councillor Roberta Swiers’ (pictured in lead illustration) assurances as Chair of NYC, triumphantly announced in this Gazette & Herald article that under her leadership:

North Yorkshire Council “remains open and transparent for the public’s scrutiny after being appointed to the role”.

Coming next

Operations Yewtree and Hibiscus re-assessed.

NYE Appeal for Information

If you have had a bad experience of being strip searched, or if you were badly treated in an NYP Custody Suite, at Throxenby Hall, or at Kirklevington Detention Centre, please contact the NYE 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.
• Anyone who knew Graham Atkinson, who was a pupil at Throxenby Hall, who died on the 23^rd of November 1975.

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 email address and your views and a correction will be published if appropriate.