Medomsley and Neville Husband

Compiled by Dopey

Neville Husband

1967 - Whilst training with the prison service Husband was arrested at Portland borstal, Dorset, and charged with the importation of pornography from Europe. The material seized included sado-masochistic images involving teenage boys. Husband admitted showing the material to boys in his care, but the charges were dropped when he said he was conducting research into homosexuality.

A document, signed by the governor of HM Borstal Portland, reads: "The police showed me sample photographs of men in obscene and lewd postures, a signed order form and a signed cheque for 20/- which they allege was sent to an address in Sweden by Officer Husband. "The police interviewed Officer Husband at Portland police station and he admitted sending for a series of photographs, the sample of the series he ordered pictured two naked men, apparently engaged in homosexual activity. Immediately following the police interview Husband saw me privately and informed me of the statement he had made to the police. He told me - and the police - that he was considering writing a book on homosexuality and he had sent for the photos to assist to this end. Officer Husband is a good cook and baker, a married man with one child, buff, hearty and something of a comedian."
http://operationrose.blogspot.co.uk/...velations.html

1969 - Neville Husband was moved from Portland borstal, Dorset, to Medomsley detention centre where he ran the kitchen for 15 years

1977 (June) - a police officer is believed to have covered up allegations after one victim (Kevin Young) walked into Consett Police Station to make a statement about abuse. His claims were ignored and the paperwork for his statement has been destroyed. Kevin Young went to report his abuse the day he left Medomsley, but he said police told him not to pursue the complaint unless he wanted to be returned to the detention centre. Until recently, Durham police denied that he had made a statement on his release, but they now admit that a number of complaints were made by former inmates, "particularly in the 1970s and 1980s". 


Kevin Young -"I explained to the officer that I'd just been released from Medomsley, where I'd been subjected to a constant series of assaults by one of the officers and others I couldn't identify. I showed him the marks on my neck where I'd been ligatured the night before. I was told it was a criminal offence to make such allegations against a prison officer because I was on licence. They were basically threatening to take me back to Medomsley, so I scattered pretty quick."

(1980 - Jimmy Savile photographed with police officers at Consett police station (nr Medomsley) )

1985 - Police raided Medomsley and a storeman at Medomsley, Leslie Johnson, was charged with abusing an inmate (Mark Park). He told police Husband had ‘given him’ the boy. Park told police that Husband had also abused him, but they took no action. Soon after, Husband was transferred to Frankland. When staff at Medomsley searched his drawers and lockers, they found pornographic material and sex aids.

Leslie Johnson's statement when interviewed in the run-up to Husband's trial states: "After a while, Neville and I became quite good friends. We had a mutual interest in religion." He adds: "We joined the freemasons at Chopwell and got on quite well together. We sometimes went out together with our wives to social functions." Johnston's statement went on: "At one stage I think Neville suggested that he had a lad working in the kitchen who he thought would be suitable to assist me in the stores department. Whilst XXXX was working with me in the stores I developed a sexual relationship with him." He adds: "As a result of this I was convicted at court of indecent assault and subsequently left the prison service." In the same statement, Johnston tells how he knew Husband had abused the same boy and that the pair both visited the victim once he had been released from prison".
http://operationrose.blogspot.co.uk/...velations.html

1985/1986 - forced to leave Medomsley over allegations Husbnd then got a promotion to senior officer at Frankland prison in Durham.Martin Narey was Governor at both Frankland prison and Deerbolt Borstal for young offenders when Husband was employed as a senior officer at Frankland and seconded as an officer at Deerbolt.
Martin Narey went on to become Chief Executive of Dr Barnardos.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/a...n-centre-crime
Why did Narey never call for a public inquiry? "For the simple reason that, at the time, I knew nothing about it," he says

1987 (May) - After requesting the move himself, Husband was seconded as an officer at Deerbolt in Durham on May 1, 1987. He served one month there before returning to Frankland.

1988 - Medomsley Detention Centre shut down.

1990 - By then back at Frankland, Husband left the prison service. He was recommended for, and received, the Imperial Service Medal, for “serving with diligence and fidelity”.
He went on to run two churches (United Reform Church - Brighton Road Reformed Church in Bensham) in Gateshead, where children in his congregation also complained of abuse, though parents did not pursue the matter.

1999 - Husband quizzed in connection with police operations probing mail order pornography. The case was dropped. When his office was later raided, sex aids were found in his drawers and child pornography on his computer. 

2000 - James Millar Reid was governor at Medomsley from 1976 to 1978, which covers the time when Kevin Young was abused. He was also deputy governor at Portland at the time Husband was employed there. At the beginning of September 2000, he was visited by detectives from Durham, who were investigating Husband. A few days after the visit, he went missing and his body was found in a wood in Stelling Minnis, near Canterbury.

2001 (Feb) - The inquest on James Millar Reid's death was held and an open verdict was returned. The cause of death recorded was "Unascertainable" as the body was badly decomposed.

2001 (Sept) Neville Husband arrested on child abuse charges relating to Medomsley.
More than 5,000 images almost exclusively of teenage gay sex were retrieved from two computers in his church study and at his home. Explicit videos were also taken from his house. 
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Minist...CH.-a079069655


"Spokesman for the United Reformed Church David Lawrence said: "Mr Husband will remain suspended while the church's disciplinary procedures, held in abeyance until the result of the trial was known, take their course. We are deeply shocked and saddened by the events which have come to light and our sympathies and prayers go out to those who have suffered."

2003 (Feb) - Husband was finally convicted of sexually abusing five young male inmates between 1974 and 1984 (10 indecent assault charges and a further serious sex offence relating to five males), after pleading not guilty. Sentenced to eight years in prison
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2763045.stm

At the trial staff said governors forbade search teams from entering the kitchen (where later, sex aids would be found) and allowed Husband to take boys to his house, where they were blindfolded, ligatured and abused by other men.

2005 (Sept) -Husband's sentence was increased to 10 years after new victims came forward and he admitted to attacks on four more boys.
“This is the worst case of sexual and physical abuse I have had to deal with in my 17 years as a Home Office physiologist ,dealing with some of the most violent and dangerous sex offenders in our prisons “
Dr.Elie Godsi Leeds court 9th November 2005

2007 (Aug) - Crown Prosecution Service announced it would not be charging Husband over an allegation that he went on to abuse a boy in Deerbolt because it would "not be in the public interest".
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/.../c...eacher-1502684

2009 - Compensation of £512,000 paid out to 12 men, but there are still cases which are waiting to be settled. The Home Office tried to get the case thrown out, and their plea was that too much time has passed since the crimes occurred. The Judge (Judge Cockroft) at Leeds Crown Court rejected the Home Office’s plea of limitation. The Home Office appealed. Even when the law lords ruled in favour of the claimants, the Home Office refused to back down and declared its intention of fighting the claim in court.


2009 (Oct) - Husband was released from prison after serving just over half his sentence
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/.../p...nd-out-1461588

2010 (Aug) - Husband dies
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/.../p...d-dies-1419391 

2010 - Stephen Byers, then MP for some of the victims, wrote to then Justice Minister, Jack Straw. Mr Straw replied: “The terms of the agreement did not include an apology.”

2013 (Aug) - Official investigation re-launched. Det Supt Paul Goundry, head of safeguarding for Durham Constabulary has appealed to any other victims to come forward and said 'What happened at Medomsley was organised abuse on a large scale and we are committed to ensuring every victim feels they have had the opportunity to speak. Throughout our enquiries we will be in constant touch with the CPS who will ultimately advise on whether there are grounds to bring criminal charges.

St Camillus Approved School, Tadcaster

Doesn't seem to be any mention on here of this one.
Kevin Young (Medomsley victim) mentions he was abused here before moving to Medomsley.
Not a lot on the net about it either.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/1016...dren___s_home/

"A series of arrests were made in 2001 and 2002 of former staff at the St Camillus residential school in Scarthingwell, near Tadcaster. Several were later jailed for offences including cruelty, serious sexual offences, and indecent assault dating from in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Several members of staff were prosecuted but acquitted, while home manager James Bernard Littlewood was jailed for 13 years for cruelty and sex offences at the home and another in Lincolnshire.

His sentence was later cut to 11 years. The school was closed in 1983, and is now a care home. "


http://www.factuk.org/ex-staff-defend-school-record/

"The pair decided to talk to The Press after an old colleague, Anver Sheikh – who was twice convicted of historic sex abuse offences at the school – was cleared for a second time by the Court of Appeal last week, with the Crown indicating it would not be seeking another retrial.

They said they were members of the 20-strong St Camillus Support Group, which was set up in 2000 to provide mutual backing for colleagues and relatives after Operation Courier was launched by police to look into alleged abuse at the school, situated in countryside near Tadcaster, which closed down in 1983.

Over the last five years, six former members of staff have been charged with a range of sex offences dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, but four were acquitted by a jury.

After Sheikh’s successful appeal, only one staff member, James Bernard Littlewood, remains convicted of cruelty and sex offences at the Yorkshire home and at another in Lincolnshire.

One former resident of St Camillus, who was not involved in the criminal cases, claimed last year it was run like a “glorified boot camp,” with youngsters marched around in military-style in a “regime of terror”.


http://www.catholic-care.org.uk/who_we_are/history.php
1965 St. Camillus Approved School for Senior Boys opened Nr. Tadcaster.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/n...re/3004992.stm
Care home abuser wins appeal right

A former care home boss jailed for cruelty and serious sexual abuse of children has won the right to appeal against some of his convictions.
James Littlewood, 59, of Wrawby, Lincolnshire, was jailed for 13 years in May 2002 at Grimsby Crown Court.

The charges related to the time he was working at two care homes in North Yorkshire - one of which the St Camillus School, near Tadcaster, was run by the Leeds Catholic Rescue Centre.

The Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday he can challenge three of the 15 counts.

Anver (Daud) Sheikh - Court of Appeal judgement

http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&gbv=2&ct=clnk