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Alan Langshaw, care worker, (pic below) started in 1965 when 21-year-old student teacher went to work at Greystone Heath and embarked on a campaign of buggery and indecent assault. Over the ensuing four years, he raped at least 16 boys, three of whom he shared with his colleague, Brian Percival, the clerk and storeman at the home pleaded guilty at Warrington Crown Court to 30 counts of serious sexual assaults and indecent assaults against boys aged under 16 at homes in Cheshire and Liverpool. Jailed for 10 years.
In November 1994 Alan Langshaw pleaded guilty to thirty specimen charges of buggery, indecent assault and gross indecency. He confessed to abuse at Greystone Heath, St Vincents and against teenagers with learning difficulties at Halton College in Widnes. He was jailed for ten years having admitted abusing boys in his care for twenty two years.
Greystone Heath was just the beginning of Alan Langshaw’s career. While his victims stayed silent, his reputation went from strength to strength. In 1982 he left to become the senior care officer at St Vincents, the school run by the catholic social services charity near Liverpool. Within three years he was promoted to principal.
But in 1986, two boys finally spoke out and accused Alan Langshaw of sexually abusing them. This time a complaint got as far as being considered for prosecution. In the end the Director of Public Prosecutions found that the boys’ evidence was insufficient to bring criminal proceedings. The case against Langshaw was dropped. Edwina Currie, the Minister responsible for the child care system, was asked to intervene. She did not even look at the evidence properly and chose to stand by Langshaw. Langshaw went on to spend another eight years working and abusing children.
Colin Dick, care worker, (pictured below) guilty of nine counts of serious sexual offences and indecent assault against children at one home in Cheshire. Jailed for four years.
Dennis Grain, care worker, Also ran the homes scout unit. (life long scout master) (pic below) Housemaster in 1961 at Danesford, Congelton. Also at Greystone heath then in 1981 moved on again to Hesley hall group of schools in Doncaster. Also housemaster at Eton college.
pleaded guilty to 19 cases of serious sexual offences and indecent assault at homes in Cheshire and Yorkshire. Jailed for seven years. Grain had been a painter and decorator before working with youngsters in care. He was a lifelong scout master. He was forty years old and married when he took charge of his own unit at Greystone Heath.
Dennis Grain decided that he was going Head of Inquiry to assist the inquiry with offences Cheshire Police that he’d been involved in and to that end he wrote a list for officers which showed that he’d abused in four homes over twenty years.Grain listed victims at places run by Barnardos and NCH Action for Children. He admitted abuse at a boy’s hostel in Yorkshire. He named one of his victims as the boy at Greystone Heath previously branded ‘a malicious liar’.
Terrence Hoskins, Former headmaster of St Aidens in Widnes (pic below) found guilty of 22 counts of indecent assault and physical assault and serious sexual offences at home where he was the head (11 boys) . Jailed for eight years.
Hoskins pictured above in 1993
John Clarke, (pic below) convicted of indecent and physical assault at a care home in Cheshire (Danesford) . Jailed for three-and-a-half years.
Roy Shuttleworth, care worker, (pictured below) found guilty of 11 counts of serious sexual offences and indecent assaults on boys in a care home in Cheshire. Jailed for 10 years.
To take just one of those cases in more detail: Shuttleworth, who was jailed, molested boys over an 11-year period starting in 1974 when he first got a job at the home. He was a house warden in charge of a unit.
Jack Bennett – (pictured below) One of Liverpools most highly regarded social workers, who was jailed for nine months suspended for 2 years after he admitted indecently assaulting two young boys at Greystone Heath in 1984. He brought boys to the home and gave them bogus medicals.
Carolyn Bromiley – A CARE worker who seduced boys as young as 12 for sex has been told she must remain behind bars and serve her five-year prison sentence imposed for “preying” on vulnerable youngsters at a Cheshire residential school.
Children’s care home officer Bruce McLean, formerly of Knutsford, worked at Kilrie Children’s Home was jailed in 1997 for nine years after being convicted of indecently assaulting 10 children. The sexual abuse took place over an 11-year period even though the county council had warned bachelor McLean about his conduct towards the children.
Philip Savage (pictured above) was found guilty of sexual offences against nine boys. He committed most of those offences at Liverpool’s Diocesan Hall Assessment Centre where he assaulted boys detained in the cells of the secure unit. He was jailed for fifteen years. Back in 1974 at the age of twenty one, Savage had sought counselling. His medical records which were shown to the court included a letter of referral to a psychologist from the counselling service. Two years after seeking therapy for his attraction to young boys, he got a job as a residential care worker with Liverpool Social Services and sexually abused children for ten years.
Edward Stanton (St Vincents) (pictured below) Stanton was a former storeman and lab technician who in the 70’s came into child care after being a youth club volunteer. At St Vincents he soon found himself in charge of fifteen boys in one of the dormitories. If there was ever any doubt about what Edward Stanton was doing, it was dispelled in 1994. After his arrest he confessed that he was a paedophile. He was working at a children’s home in Strathclyde.Stanton pleaded guilty to specimen charges involving seven boys at St Vincents. A further eighteen boys accused him of serious sexual offences. He was jailed for thirteen years.
St Vincents pictured below
Stephen Roderick Norris: (pic below) CAREER: Joined Bryn Estyn as a houseparent with his wife Margaret in 1974. Following his national service he spent 10 years as a labourer, coach driver and insurance clerk. The father-of-two’s first job in the child care system was at a home in Greystone Heath. Became senior houseparent at Bryn Estyn in 1977 and stayed in charge until its closure when he transferred to Cartrefle Community Home in Broughton. Norris would befriend boys by offering them a sympathetic ear.
He was obsessed with sexual matters and was present in the shower block when boys washed themselves. Norris was jailed for three and a half years in 1990 for five indecent assaults involving three boys. Further jailed in 1993 for seven years for serious sex offences on boys at Bryn Estyn.
Huw Jones: CAREER: Took up his post as deputy officer in charge at Little Acton Assessment Centre, Wrexham, in 1974. He resigned two years later. He was formerly a houseparent in Liverpool and after his resignation became an unqualified social worker for Clwyd County Council. He resigned again in 1981 after successive police investigations of allegations of sexual abuse made against him. TRIBUNAL: Three witnesses made complaints against Jones. One former boy resident alleged Jones had made sexual advances to him on two occasions and claimed he used to walk around blowing kisses and nipping backsides. Jones has never been convicted of offences.
Michael John Carroll: Social worker of Oswestry, Shropshire, admitted 24 indecent assaults, five cases of attempted buggery and five of buggery, and one act of gross indecency against 12 boys, some as young as eight. The offences took place over a 20-year period between 1966 and 1986, while Carroll worked in residential care. He was originally charged with 76 offences.
In 1953 he was admitted to St Edmund’s Orphanage in Bebington, Wirral, where he later took a job in the mid-1960s. In 1966, he was convicted of indecent assault when he was 18, against a 12-year-old boy in his care at St Edmund’s.
Twelve years later he took up a post as deputy officer in charge of a children’s home in Lambeth – where he failed to disclose his conviction – before taking overall charge in 1980.
Keith Laverack: Greystone Heath & a former senior social services manager
A “career paedophile” was jailed for 18 years for a string of sexual assaults against children in care. The 52-year-old had denied 20 charges of sexually assaulting young people during a career of more than 20 years as a teacher and headmaster at children’s homes in Cheshire and Cambridgeshire.
Judge awards compensation to men who suffered childhood sexual abuse at St Aidan’s Care Home, Widnes
TWO men whose lives were blighted by childhood sexual abuse have been awarded compensation by a High Court judge.
Mr Justice Irwin ruled both men, now in their 50s, had been sexually abused by staff at St Aidan’s, a Roman Catholic care home for troubled teenagers in Widnes, during the 1960s and early 1970s.
The homes became notorious following high-profile court cases in the mid-1990s that resulted in criminal convictions for a number of paedophiles who had worked at them. One member of staff, Alan Langshaw, was jailed for 10 years while Colin Dick, a care worker, received four years.
Alan Langshaw, 42, from Moreton, Wirral, was jailed for 10 years for sexual offences against boys aged between 10 and 20, committed between 1977 and 1994.
The offences took place while he was working at Greystone Heath, and later at St Vincent’s Community Home in Formby, Merseyside, and at Halton College, Widnes.
Police confirmed that after Langshaw’s case came to light they launched an investigation last April into a number of allegations by boys at other homes in Cheshire and Merseyside.
The pair – who head a group action by more than 50 people who say they were abused at St Aidan’s, or sister institution St Vincent’s, Formby – were between them awarded £57,000 damages and interest against the Nugent Care Society, which ran the homes.
The judge said one of the men – referred to as ‘JA’ – had been left emotionally remote, angry and lacking trust in relationships.
He endured ‘three identifiable episodes of abuse’ at the hands of a now-dead teacher and the judge awarded him £10,000 damages, and £2,000 interest, against the society, formerly known as Catholic Social Services, Liverpool.
JA had a history of being bullied and taunted at school and running away from home. He was taken into care and sent to St Aidan’s aged 13 between 1969 and 1971.
The judge said the other abuse victim, referred to as JPM, had probably been abused by three members of staff at St Aidan’ s.
He was awarded £39,500 damages and £6,000 in interest.
Another case, brought by a man referred to as RM, was dismissed after the judge said ‘discrepancies and conflicts’ in his account, the absence of long-lost evidence and the death of eye-witnesses meant there would be ‘a real risk of injustice’ if his case proceeded to trial.
JPM was 14 when he was sent to St Aidan’s. He told the court he was repeatedly abused by three members of staff.
It was only in the mid-1990s, almost 30 years after he left St Aidan’s, that he was first able to talk about the sexual abuse.
In a statement to police, he said: “I wanted to tell my parents but couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“I believe St Aidan’s ruined my life. I have never been able to forget it. My life has been ruined and I want these people to be brought to justice”.
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