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Topic History of: Medomsley detention centre accuser dead
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
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hedda |
I have no doubt unaccountable institutions were a playground for abusers sexual and otherwise.
The problem is though a false allegations industry grew out of the situation.(Savile?)
Interesting about the change of time limits in laws.
NSW has introduced a time limit..think it's 20 years or none for under 21s. Sort of acknowledging there may be dodgy claims or the difficulty of decades old complaints.
Bill Maloney..another of those odd people that crop up every now and then and thrive on a bit of attention and get their 15 Minutes of "fame".
A Jon Wedger before his time. 
The internet has unexpected consequences.
Great research Jo..fascinating. |
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Jo |
It seems - and I have a recollection of this from reading about this before - that this man's case helped set a legal precedent in enabling claimants of historic abuse to obtain compensation beyond existing time limit laws. From the obituary written by his lawyer:
His civil case started the most significant fight for the rights of victims of child sex abuse Britain has seen. Time limit laws were being used to prevent compensation claims and Kevin’s pursuit of justice led to the House of Lords deciding in his favour in 2008. Their judgment made it possible for claimants to seek compensation many years after the abuse.
A related BBC article from 2008 (Lords issue landmark abuse ruling):
Victims of sexual abuse may be able to sue their attackers after many years, following a ruling by the Law Lords...Until now sexual abuse victims have been prevented from bringing a claim more than six years after an attack or, in child abuse cases, more than six years after the victim reaches 18. ...Lawyer Helen Hughes, one of the solicitors representing Kevin Young, who is another of the claimants whose cases will be heard at the High Court, told BBC Radio Five Live the ruling was "very positive for other individuals who may wish to make similar claims"....
I've since remembered one of the inconsistencies in his story that puzzled me. It was a pretty crucial one, about whether he reported the abuse to police and, if so, to which police station.
A 2006 appeal judgment in his case made no mention of him going to police. In fact, it says that on his release from the detention centre "He did not talk about it to anyone, partly out of pride." (para 8), that the police had approached him (the 2012 Guardian article indicates the same) "There came a time when the police started making enquiries into the conduct of Littlewood and Husband. It is not clear how the police became involved: it was not as a result of any approach by the claimant. Eventually, the investigations by the police led them to the claimant. They invited him to speak to them. He told the judge that he did not want to speak to them." (para 13) and "It was not until December 2000 that he was first seen by the police." (para 14).
The 2012 Guardian article says that on release from Medomsley, he went straight to Consett police station:
Kevin Young came out of Medomsley on 17 June 1977, a day before his 18th birthday, and went straight to Consett police station, the nearest to the centre. "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."
In a 2014 Radio 5 Live interview, he said that on release, he went to Durham police station:
When I got out of there, within days - I mean, it took me a few days to pull myself together and to bring up the courage - I made my way to the old Victorian police station at Durham. I went into the office there and I asked to see a police officer and I explained what had happened to me, my experiences while serving a short custodial sentence at Medomsley. I made it quite plain that both what had happened to me and what I believed - though other people hadn't actually said it to me - it was obvious from the faces of other boys what was going on. You didn't need to be a genius or a detective that that was a pretty pretty dangerous place to be. [What did they say to you? How did they react?] They didn't. They basically just looked at me... Let me just tell you something. Whilst I was being assaulted on an almost daily basis...[then he went on to say that Neville Husband had told him to tell anyone he liked, as he wouldn't be believed] But he was dead right. |
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Jo |
I'm sure there's an old thread on this forum about the Medomsley detention centre abuse allegations, but I can't find it. It seems impossible to search for old threads using the search function or Google plus site:kingofhits.co.uk for some reason.
I came across this article at the time of the Jimmy Savile furore, plus a film on YouTube called "Adam Rickwood and the Medomsley Heroes" by Bill Maloney, which was referred to in the article, with interviews with accusers, including this man, and assumed it must all be true. But I then came to have doubts after noticing inconsistencies in his story across various sources and wondered if there had been some exaggeration.
A true horror story: The abuse of teenage boys in a detention centre
His lawyer has written an obituary: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/25/kevin-young-obituary
www.switalskis.com/obituary-kevin-raymon...59-to-3rd-july-2021/
Googling the name turns up this old article. The name, age and location all fit.
Man broke puppy's ribs |
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