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Lambeth council to pay tens of millions to child abuse survivors Lambeth council to pay tens of millions to child abuse survivors
(about 2 hours later)
Lambeth council will pay tens of millions of pounds to people abused in the Shirley Oaks children’s home and other centres in the borough, its leader has said. Lambeth council is to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation to children abused in its care homes, after a report by survivors of the Shirley Oaks home in the borough detailed systematic abuse by 60 paedophiles against thousands of young people.
Councillor Lib Peck said the council in south London was preparing a package of redress to the individuals who suffered abuse over many decades until Shirley Oaks closed in 1983. The leader of the council, Lib Peck, made an unreserved apology on Thursday to people who were placed by the council into what was one of the biggest children’s homes in the UK from the 1950s onwards and became victims of sexual and physical abuse. She said the council had admitted liability and accepted that every child who passed through the home had been put at risk.
The council spoke as a group of survivors released a report detailing what they said was systematic abuse at the home. Raymond Stevenson, who set up the group and spent two years gathering evidence, said their inquiries revealed the identities of more than 60 paedophiles operating at the home. The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA) published a 129-page report summarising testimony from hundreds of individuals, most of whom came forward after Raymond Stevenson, a former resident, in 2014 started investigating what had taken place at the home.
Peck said: “Lambeth is preparing a new far-reaching redress scheme for the survivors of historical abuse in the borough. The proposed scheme is expected to pay tens of millions of pounds to children in Shirley Oaks until it closed.” The report says:
The report said 48 children died in Shirley Oaks and other homes in Lambeth. • Sixty paedophiles operated at Shirley Oaks or were linked to it.
• Forty-eight children died in the care of the council between 1970 and 1989, 20 of whom were linked to Shirley Oaks.
• “Corrupt” policing in south London allowed the abusers to escape justice.
Peck said: “This is an incredibly powerful report. It is very, very distressing to hear about their suffering, which continues today. The report shines a light on a very, very dark period in Lambeth’s history which I feel ashamed to be in any way associated with. As the leader of the council it falls to me to apologise to all of you for the abuse you suffered because of the failings of the care system.”
She said the council was preparing a far-reaching redress scheme for the survivors of abuse in Shirley Oaks and other homes. “The proposed scheme is expected to pay tens of millions of pounds to children in Shirley Oaks until it closed in the 1980s.”
SOSA, set up two years ago by Stevenson and his business partner Lucia Hinton, has been in talks with Lambeth since last year. Peck revealed that as part of the compensation scheme the council had agreed that every child who attended Shirley Oaks, and relatives of children who died, should receive an ex gratia payment because they were all put at risk.
Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP for Streatham, who has worked closely with SOSA, said it should not just fall upon Lambeth to take responsibility and pay compensation because all agencies of state were responsible in some way.
He said the Home Office, which until the 1970s was responsible for appointing superintendents at homes such as Shirley Oaks, should be made to provide money towards the compensation.
“Whether it is the Home Office, the CPS, the police or other agencies, they need to take this report and act and do what they have failed to do for decade after decade,” he said.
“The Home Office, social services, the police, the judiciary are culpable. It is not just Lambeth council, it is all agencies of government and they need to step up and provide the funding necessary to properly compensate the survivors. That is my message to government: pay up.”
Six fresh police investigations into abuse at Shirley Oaks are ongoing after Stevenson and SOSA passed information to detectives about paedophiles operating there. Umunna said the survivors needed justice. Just two members of staff from Shirley Oaks have ever been convicted.
The IPCC is investigating officers who were involved in investigations into allegations over several years.
Michael Mansfield QC has agreed to represent the survivors as they continue talks with the council to finalise the compensation.
The report, which draws on official documents kept secret under the 100-year rule but which SOSA has obtained, contains accounts of abuse by individuals who were children at the home. In some cases alleged perpetrators are named, and in others they are partially identified. Some are the subject of active police investigations and in some cases SOSA is seeking more evidence before publishing the identities of those accused.
Stevenson said the victims’ accounts went through a verification process, both with records SOSA had in its possession and, since 2015, with council records after discussions first began with the local authority.
He said recording the testimonies and shedding light on the horrific abuse was a way of the survivors reclaiming their childhood because Shirley Oaks – despite the abuse that went on there – had been the only home they had known.
“The compensation was a small part of why we started this,” he said. “It is really about the legacy. It is about putting this on record, it is about shining a light on it. We hope that other survivors groups will look at this and take their destiny in their own hands like this.”
At a press conference, survivors spoke of their experiences at Shirley Oaks.
Adrian, a man in his 60s, said he had come forward after seeing a TV programme about SOSA. “It took me back 60 years to all the feelings I had repressed,” he said. “I rang the number and talked to Raymond and Lucia. The thing that has helped me was being asked to write a statement of the abuse that I had gone through. This I did. It helped me a great deal.”
Relatives of children who died at the home or in the aftermath of their care there, also spoke out. Kenneth Hewitt, who was sent to Shirley Oaks with his brother Patrick after their mother died from breast cancer, said he had witnessed Patrick being beaten by one of the staff members.
He said: “I had such a great mother, and she was taken from me by breast cancer. When I was in Shirley Oaks it was my mother who kept me strong and I took the bull by the horns and brought up what happened to my brother with the headteacher.” But he said the abuse was covered up and the teacher left without any further action.
Shirley Oaks was set in a 70-acre site in Croydon and contained 52 houses catering for children between eight and 14. It closed in 1983 having seen tens of thousands of children pass through its gates as one of the biggest children’s homes in the UK.
Beatings by bamboo, belts and fists were common, residents said, as was putting children into coal bunkers for punishment, sometimes without clothes.
Stevenson and SOSA have pulled out of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse because they say they do not have confidence in the process.
Umunna said it was nothing personal about the inquiry’s leadership but about the nature of the inquiry. “My constituents want a forensic, utterly determined investigation into what happened – they want a judicial-style, judge-led inquiry. They don’t want seminars or counselling, they want a proper investigation.”