[Journalist who helped expose the North Wales paedophile ring.]

[2012 Nov] Award-winning journalist who helped expose the North Wales child abuse scandal calls for a proper police investigation   On Friday night a victim of the North Wales children's homes abuse scandal told BBC Newsnight he was prostituted in care by a senior Tory politician. Steven Messham, now 51, had first publicly named this man 15 years ago at Sir Ronald Waterhouse's 1997 judicial inquiry into the care scandal. But the Press was barred from reporting his shocking allegation....Only seven staff were ever prosecuted and allegations against the powerful outsiders who allegedly picked up children outside the homes were never investigated by police or the inquiry, whose terms of reference were limited....At least 16 lads from these homes died in tragic or unexplained circumstances, several after revealing abuse. I vividly remember ringing the tribunal and asking if it would be investigating these deaths.  A very self-satisfied functionary told me it would not be and, when I angrily asked why not, he replied with an almost visible smirk: 'Well, if they're dead they can't give evidence, can they?'....
He claims police failed to put most of what he said about the politician and other man into his witness statement......Like other residents, Steven described being abused by a senior police officer who often visited Bryn Estyn. He sometimes gave him money afterwards...... "In the home it was the standard abuse which was violent and sexual. Outside it was like you were sold, we were taken to the Crest Hotel in Wrexham, mainly on Sunday nights, where they would rent rooms.  "One particular night I always recall is when I was basically raped, tied down, and abused by nine different men."
....Victims say that a key figure in North Wales police was an abuser too and led a cover-up, while social services ignored complaints, victimised concerned staff, and aggressively suppressed 12 increasingly critical inquiry reports.  The outstandingly brave chairman of the council's social services committee, Labour councillor Malcolm King, was threatened by police, the council and their insurers with prison, bankruptcy, libel suits and forfeiting his home if he leaked the final devastating report by John Jillings to the Press.

[2012 Oct] Jimmy Savile: 'He was the tip of the iceberg’  Lenny Harper agrees: “Savile chose his victims with great care; vulnerable and often troubled youngsters many in care homes. If they complained they were labelled troublemakers, or brutally put down. We know from court cases and statements made to my team [during the 2008 inquiry] that children in Jersey care homes were 'loaned out’ to members of the yachting fraternity and other prominent citizens on the pretence of recreational trips but during which they were savagely abused and often raped.
    “When these children complained they were beaten and locked in cellars [at Haut de la Garenne], which the Jersey authorities denied existed in 2008, but which can still be seen on YouTube footage. What chance did they have? This would have been the perfect hunting ground for Savile. The great and good of Jersey fawn over anyone with even loose connections to British royalty. Saville would have been a VIP to them and children would not have stood a dog’s chance of complaining about him. It would have been so easy for him.”