Update: Sentenced to nine years and ordered to register as a sex offender for life

March 2019

Ex-care home boss who played Strip Jack Naked card game with boy found guilty of historic child sex offences

A former social worker has been found guilty of 10 historic sexual assault charges.

Huw Meurig Jones, 69, of Penybryn, Old Colwyn, had denied 13 counts of sexually abusing two boys between June 1975 and October 1978.

Last week, Judge Niclas Parry gave directions to the jury that they should find him not guilty of two charges against one of the former residents of an assessment centre where he was alleged to have committed the offences.

However, a jury of six men and six women took three hours to find him guilty of 10 of the remaining 11 charges at Mold Crown Court on Monday afternoon.

He was cleared of one count of serious sexual assault against a youth in Colwyn Bay in the 1970s.

Judge Parry said: “I know that you will have been fully advised and that you know only a significant custodial sentence can follow conviction in this trial.”

Jones had pleaded not guilty to four charges of indecency with a child and four charges of indecent assault against a male person – a former resident of Little Acton Assessment Centre in Wrexham in the 1970s.

He also denied three indecent assaults on a male person and two charges of a serious sexual assault against a boy in his care in  Colwyn Bay  in the 1970s.

Jones’ work brought him into contact with vulnerable children at Little Acton, then as a social worker in Wrexham  for Clwyd County Council and later in Colwyn Bay.

The court heard that both alleged victims, who were said not to know each other, made separate complaints about Jones in 1992 during a previous police investigation.

It was only when historic sex abuse investigation Operation Pallial reopened the files and contacted complainants that allegations were looked into again by the National Crime Agency.

The first victim said he neither wanted nor consented to the activity, and the second boy said he was invited to play cards with Jones, who was then a social worker, at his flat in Colwyn Bay.

The court heard Jones gave him cigarettes and they played Gin Rummy and Strip Jack Naked – a card game which ends in the forfeit of removing clothes.

They continued playing and the defendant performed a sex act on the boy and demanded the same was done to him.

Jones told police he couldn’t think of any reason why the boy would make false allegations about him.

Judge Parry remanded Jones in custody overnight, with sentencing due to take place in Mold on Tuesday.