We
ask victims, politicians and experts whether appalling abuse at County
Durham detention centre could have been stopped, and if lessons really
have been learned for the future.
Medomsley Detention Centre, pictured in 1998 (Image: Mirrorpix)
It was dark ages style abuse that was allowed to happen in living memory.
Behind
the secure fences of a detention centre on the outskirts of a County
Durham village teenage offenders were subjected to brutal and degrading
violence on a daily basis, and yet no seemed willing or able to step in
and stop it.
And
such was the culture of fear and oppression at Medomsley Detention
Centre, when prolific sex offender Neville Husband preyed on the young
detainees there was no one they could turn to for help.
Husband,
who it is thought could have sexually assaulted more than 300 inmates,
was eventually jailed for some of his crimes in 2003 and has since died.
And this week we were finally able to reveal that five former
Medomsley officers have been convicted of subjecting inmates to horrific
violent and degrading abuse at Medomsley during the 1970s and 80s.
The scale of the widespread culture of systematic violence only came to light after
Durham Constabulary launched
a new investigation into what went on at Medomsley in 2013, called
Operation Seabrook. So far more than 1700 people have come forward to
report that they were abused at Medomsley between the 1960s and when the
centre closed in 1988.
But
now questions are being asked about how such unthinkable abuse was
allowed to continue for so long unchecked, and whether similar horrors
could be repeated in 2019.
Today we ask victims, politicians and experts who could and should have stopped the abuse.
Frances Cook:
Frances Cook (Image: handout)
Frances is the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, a charity which aims to tackle crime by reforming the prison system.
She believes everyone who was working at Medomsley when the abuse occurred has to take some responsibility for turning a blind eye, especially those in charge that seemingly lost control.
"Even if the people in charge did not support it, the fact it continued for so long suggests it was tolerated," she said. "I have seen governors hiding in their offices because they are are not coping with managing the prison. If you have got a group of staff who are running the place and bullying the young people they are also probably bullying other staff members and it becomes very difficult for staff.
"But this culture of bullying goes all the way up from the bottom to the top. Every body needs to take responsibility."
Frances believes the Medomsley horrors could have been stopped if the inmates had someone trustworthy to talk to. And she fears young people in custody are still being abused in more hidden ways.
Read More: 'He was an animal': Medomsley Detention Centre victim opens up about officer's vile abuse
She said: "Unfortunately the thing is that people don't listen to young people, particularly when they are incarcerated. It's still happening. We have still got 900 children in custody. If you don't listen to them and don't ask them you won't know.
"We have seen institutions where there were systematic beatings going on in the past, but now it's more subtle than that. You can't see the bruises because young people are locked-up in isolation and they are injured there. That is still systematic abuse. I think it is absolutely across the system. Every prison is doing it to children and young people, it's still happening.
The victims:
Bernard Gordon, now 60, was a Medomsley inmate in 1977.
He believes the staff that were not involved in the abuse themselves failed the young detainees by not speaking out.
He
said: "There was one screw who was all right with everybody, but I used
to think; 'How can you do this when you know what's going on. It's your
responsibility to tell somebody." People knew what was going on but
nobody said nothing."
Bernard, who was 19 when he was sent to
Medomsley for seven weeks, for stealing a car, remembers that as he was
released the governor asked him how his time at the detention centre
had been.
But such was the culture of fear at Medomsley, and so
determined were inmates to get out without any fuss, Bernard, from
Middlesbrough, revealed nothing.
"I was due to get released, and
before you got out you got all dressed up to go and see the governor,"
he explained. "He asked me whether I had had any problems there. But I
just thought; 'stuff it', I'm getting out of here. No one would have
dared say anything, everybody was petrified. And he just said; 'right
go.' But he must have known what was going on as much as anybody else.
All I wanted to do was get away."
And Doug Corkhill, 59, who was
sent to Medomsley in 1978 after being convicted of a number of
burglaries, said there should have been someone inmates could talk to.
He said: "There were social workers in there, but you couldn't talk
to them. The screws would sit with the social workers and you would hear
roars of laughter. They should have been on our side but they weren't.
The social workers were no different from the screws."
Professor Nick Hardwick:
Professor Nick Hardwick has led number of charities and criminal justice organisations, including Centrepoint, and the British Refugee Council.
Most recently he was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons Chair Parole Board.
Prof Hardwick, who now carries out research at Royal Holloway University's School of Law, is calling for a culture where staff are obliged to whistle blow on colleagues they suspect of wrongdoing, and a safe and supportive system in which they can do so.
"I think there's a real issue for other staff as it's really difficult to whistle blow in these closed institutions," he said. "I think there is an obligation for staff to blow the whistle. I would like to see a duty of candour where staff are required to report what they see. That makes everybody responsible."
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Prof Hardwick also believes questions need to be asked of the Prison Service and Inspectorate at the time.
He says prison inspectors in the 1980s focused on efficiency, and gave little attention to the welfare of inmates.
"It is worth noting that the policy at the time was that it was going to be a 'short, sharp, shock' , but that created a culture where what was clearly unacceptable happened," he said.
"The management of the centres and the Prison Service at the time does have some repsonsibility. It was their jobs to know what was going on. There are people who do need to look very hard at themselves and ask 'What was I aware of?' and 'Could I or should I have done more'". I think there will have been good staff at Medomsley who will be asking themselves those questions now.
"Inspectors need to talk to the people who are in there. You need to talk to them in private and in confidence. I think that is understood now, but even now there are lessons to be learned. We need to keep having all these conversations . There's a real danger that people just say 'that happened a long time ago and it couldn't happen now'.
"Wherever you have got this power imbalance between staff and young people it creates a dangerous environment."
Rachael Maskell MP:
Labour MP for York Central Maskell believes police missed
opportunities to step in at the time the abuse was happening at
Medomsley.
She has been supporting one constituent who says he
contacted Durham officers as soon as he was released from the detention
centre, but nothing was done.
"There were people that could have
intervened. there are serious questions about people that say they
didn't know when it was an open secret," she said. "Parts of the
institution were not open for inspection or to other members of staff to
visit. There needs to be a further investigation.
"I met with
the Home Secretary just the other day to have a discussion about this,
because one of my constituents, on leaving Medomsley, went straight to
the police in
Consett
and raised his concerns about the abuse he had faced. He was told if he
were to pursue this complaint he would end up back inside there."
"This
must be one of the worst cases of historic child abuse in our country.
The whole system has moved on and safeguarding is at the fore now, but
we have got to listen to victims.
"We still have cases, like in
Rotherham, where victims go to police and are not believed. We have got
to continually examine what's happened in the past.
Richard Hardy:
Richard Hardy
Richard is a partner at Ben Hoare Bell solicitors, in Sunderland, which is representing more than 300 former Medomsley inmates.
He
believes the Prison Service failed inmates, and a public inquiry is the
only way the community can be confident that all those responsible for
the abuse have answered for their actions, and similar events are not
repeated.
He said: "While recognising that five former employees
have been convicted, out clients' evidence amounts to a far more serious
indication of abuse at the prison than these convictions alone, and that there were systematic failures to respond to such abuse.
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"While we welcome the conviction of five employees, the truth is
Medomsley was an institution in which physical and sexual abuse were
commonplace. Those convicted are a tip of the iceberg of others who took
part, turned a blind eye or failed to investigate. This constitutes a
shocking failure of our prison system."
Richard says clients have told him that assaults were so regular almost all staff must have been aware of them.
And when a small number of those did report abuse police, probation officers or other authorities no action was taken.
What
happened at Medomsley is already being examined the long-running
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) however, so far the
Home Office has refused calls for a public enquiry.
But Richard believes it is essential what happened to young adults as well as children at Medomsley is fully examined.
