Boys 'did not claim that politicians abused them' says head of original inquiry into North Wales care homes
- John Jillings said he had no memory of ex-resident Steve Messham making the claim of being raped by a senior Thatcher-era Tory
- But Mr Messham’s claims this week prompted David Cameron to order new inquiries into North Wales abuse
Steven Messham arrives at the Wales Office in London yesterday
The head of the original inquiry into sexual abuse of boys at children’s homes in North Wales says he does not recall any of them claiming politicians had preyed on them.
John Jillings said yesterday he had no memory of ex-resident Steve Messham making the claim, first aired on Newsnight, of being raped by a senior Thatcher-era Tory when he spoke to him in the mid-1990s.
His resulting report uncovered widespread sex abuse by staff at several homes but was controversially pulped amid allegations of a cover-up.
In 2000, a Government-commissioned public inquiry confirmed that hundreds of young boys had been systematically abused, centred on the now-notorious Bryn Estyn home.
But Mr Messham’s claims this week prompted David Cameron to order new inquiries into whether links to a wider paedophile ring potentially involving politicians were suppressed.
As Mr Jillings cast doubt on Mr Messham’s account, two brothers who were at Bryn Estyn at the same time as him told the Daily Mail that claims of boys being taken away to be abused by outsiders were untrue.
Mr Jillings, now 78 and long-retired as director of social services in Derbyshire, was commissioned by Clwyd council in 1994 to examine claims of abuse at 40 homes across North Wales.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme he did not recall Mr Messham or other ex-residents claiming politicians had taken them to a hotel in nearby Wrexham and abused them.
‘My memory may be fading but I don’t remember that was one of the issues he raised with us,’ he said.
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Asked whether he had heard claims by victims of abuse by a leading Thatcher-era Conservative politician who is still alive, Mr Jillings replied: ‘Not to the best of my knowledge.
‘I’m sure that would have lodged in my mind and we would have wanted to investigate it had we known about it.’
Alleged abusers named to him ‘didn’t include well-known people in public life’, he added.
The former Bryn Estyn boys home, Wrexham, which closed down following claims of child abuse
On Tuesday an unnamed former resident of Bryn Estyn said he saw the late Sir Peter Morrison – a former close aide to Margaret Thatcher who died in 1995 – visit the home several times in the 1980s and take boys away in his car.
But brothers Kevin and Sean Maher, who were at Bryn Estyn at the same time as Mr Messham and now live in Bolton, rejected the claims.
Sean, 45, said: ‘We were abused on a regular basis by staff, from beatings to molestation, and it was happening to many of the boys.
‘But the idea of smartly-dressed guys turning up in flash cars and picking us up is just a figment of someone’s imagination.’
Kevin, 44, added: ‘The notion that some shadowy figures would turn up at the gates in sports cars and take boys to be raped is just farcical. This simply did not happen.’
Mr Messham – who plans to make a formal complaint against the former Tory grandee to the new National Crime Agency investigation – arrived at Bryn Estyn in 1977 and is understood to have been there for three years.
Last night he refused to confirm the date he left but claimed not to have been there at the same time as the Maher brothers. ‘I don’t care what they saw,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘I wasn’t there then.’ He said critics were trying to discredit him.
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