Wakefield council and police criticised over 'child sexual abuse video' case
Family court judge lambasts West Yorkshire police and council for ‘horrendous’ allegation that a girl and her mother appeared in abuse video
West Yorkshire police and Wakefield council acknowledged a series of failings in their handling of the case. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
Alice Ross
A family court judge has criticised “serious and systemic flaws” in how West Yorkshire police and Wakefield council handled a case in which a girl and her mother were wrongly identified as appearing in a child sexual abuse video.
The police and council have paid £20,000 in damages and Wakefield council apologised for the “horrendous” allegation, after the girl and her brother were kept in care for more than nine months.
It emerged that the police had known for months that the video did not show the girl and her mother before the children were returned.
Judgments in the family court are usually private, but Mr Justice Cobb decided to make his ruling, issued this week, public on the condition that the family involved was not identified.
The two children, a boy and a girl, were removed and placed in foster care in February 2015 after their parents were arrested in relation to an investigation into child sexual abuse content.
During the search, police found a video that they believed showed the mother engaged in a sex act with the daughter and a photograph they believed showed the daughter.
The children were kept out of any contact with their parents for several days after being taken into care, despite expressing “very considerable distress”, the judge wrote, and a lack of coordination between the police and safeguarding authority meant that the girl was medically examined twice in three days.
Forensic experts told the officer leading the investigation, DS Hudson, in late March that video analysis had “eliminated” the mother as a possible candidate for being the woman in the video. In June, evidence emerged showing the video had been shot in the US, rather than West Yorkshire and that it conclusively did not show either the woman or her daughter.
But West Yorkshire police did not share this crucial evidence with social workers or anyone else involved in the case for almost five months. Even the police lawyers were only told of the new evidence in passing in August and were only made aware of how crucial it was in November.
In the meantime, the police continued to investigate, interviewing the parents under caution and showing them the photo of the girl in the video despite knowing it was not their daughter.
DS Hudson “struggled to shake off” his conviction that the video showed the mother and daughter, the court found. At a meeting in August, the judge found, he “misled the local authority” by encouraging them to spot similarities between the woman in the video and the mother. “At that time, he knew that the mother had been definitively excluded from consideration,” Cobb wrote.
The children’s father pleaded guilty to having downloaded images of child sexual abuse in August and was later sentenced to jail. The mother did not learn that she had been cleared until November and her children remained in foster care until mid-December. The authority later accepted “without reservation” that she neither abused her daughter nor allowed her daughter to be abused by the father.
“The damage has been significant; for a period of many months, two children were separated from their mother against whom allegations of the most serious form of abuse were levelled, while all the while, evidence was available which served to exonerate her,” Cobb wrote.
Wakefield council and West Yorkshire police acknowledged a series of failings in their handling of the case. The judge found that although it had been correct to take the children into care when their parents were first arrested, the way the investigation was handled led to the authorities “profoundly and obviously” breaching the human rights of the mother and her children. Among the failings, he said, was “a casual regard, and in some respects total disregard, of ordinary principles of good professional practice”.
Wakefield man jailed for child sexual abuse
A man from South Elmsall, Wakefield, has been jailed for nine years after being convicted of child sexual abuse.
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Melvyn Wall, 66, was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court yesterday.
He was convicted of 13 offences against three juvenile victims committed between 1993 and 2014.
The offences were four offences of sexual assault, four sexual activity offences, two indecent offences and three counts of indecent assault.
"Melvyn Wall richly deserves the long sentence he is starting today for a pattern of sexual abuse against young and very vulnerable victims.
"He also put his victim's through the ordeal of a trial, forcing them to relive the harm they suffered.
"I want commend their courage for the way they conducted themselves during the trial process.
"All reports of child abuse are dealt with the utmost sensitivity and police and the CPS will do everything they can to bring those responsible to justice."
– DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR SUE JENKINSON, WAKEFIELD DISTRICT POLICE
Child sex abuse trial: Defendant: Rape claim based on “misunderstanding”
BY: DAVE DOYLE
Sheffield Crown Court.
A MAN accused alongside his two brothers of child sex offences claimed this week that the allegations were down to “a misunderstanding”.
When Tayab Dad, was asked by his defence counsel at Sheffield Crown Court, Miss Rukhshanda Hussain, about accusations of rape, he said: “I never did it — there has been some misunderstanding.”
Prosecutor Miss Sophie Drake challenged him: “What is her misunderstanding?” and he said: “She must have got the wrong person.”
Asked who she (his accuser) was “mixing you up” with, the defendant answered: “I don’t know.”
Tayab Dad is on trial alongside his brothers Basharat Dad (32) and Nasar Dad (36).
The brothers are accused of 20 offences between them, while two other men also face charges.
The Dad brothers, who all gave evidence this week, were identified to police by two women, both schoolgirls in 2001 when their offences allegedly happened, neither of whom can be named.
One told police Nasar and Basharat Dad had locked her in an Eastwood flat, giving her alcohol and drugs before raping her.
The brothers worked or socialised in a fireworks shop on Fitzwilliam Road, Eastwood, owned by their family, the court heard.
The girls told police they too would socialise in a back room at the shop, describing its layout.
They said that they were both taken to nearby flats, where one or more of the brothers allegedly had sex with them.
But the Dad brothers each insisted that they did not remember their accusers ever spending time in the back of the shop.
Basharat Dad admitted first meeting one — who told police he was “a big part” of her life — in an alleyway in town and having sex with her years later in a car after picking her up in Canklow.
But he denied having had any sexual contact when she was a child.
Asked by defence counsel Mr Michael Brady whether he knew his other accuser, Basharat Dad answered: “Yes”, but he denied having had any sexual contact with her.
Basharat Dad was arrested in 2001 after one complainant made allegations against him.
Asked by Miss Drake what he had thought of the woman then, he initially said he couldn’t remember but when the prosecutor pointed out that he had called the girl “a slag” and “dirty” when questioned by police, he admitted he had “a low opinion” of her.
He denied pressurising the girls into sex and refusing to “take no for an answer”.
Nasar Dad said he had worked in the fireworks shop in 2001 but had never seen his accuser in the shop nor had any sexual contact with her.
Asked about a false imprisonment claim, he said: “No, I’ve never locked anyone in any room or flat.”
Nasar Dad said he had given a “no comment” police interview as his solicitor had not been present and he had wanted legal advice before co-operating.
Tayab Dad said he had a girlfriend in 2001, with whom he would have sex in a basement below a neighbouring takeaway, but insisted other girls had not been taken into the back room or nearby flats.
The defendants were asked how their accusers described the back of the fireworks shop if they had never been in there and each described a glass door in the front room of the shop which people could see into the back room through.
Basharat Dad (32), of Eldon Road, Eastwood faces six counts of rape, two of sexual intercourse with a girl aged under 13, five of indecent assault.
Nasar Dad (36), of Cranworth Road, Eastwood is charged with two counts of rape, two of sexual intercourse with a girl aged under 13, two of inciting indecency with a child.
Both are also accused jointly of false imprisonment.
Tayab Dad (34), of St Lawrence Road, Tinsley is accused of rape.
Matloob Hussain (41), of Doncaster Road, Thrybergh is charged with sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13.
Mohammed Sadiq (40), of Oxley Grove, Broom is accused of sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13.
All men deny all of the charges against them.
The trial continues.
Scottish pensioner (74) guilty of historic
child sex abuse
OAP who preyed on a girl and a boy will be sentenced
following preparation of reports.
BY HAMILTON ADVERTISER
The High Court in Glasgow. (Photo: Tony Nicoletti/Daily Record)
A Hamilton pensioner who sexually abused two children almost 60 years’ ago has been brought to justice.
John Malone preyed on the youngsters, a girl and a boy, in the town around 1958 when he was a teenager himself.
But it was not until 2015, when one of the victims went to police, that Malone was finally snared.
Seventy-four-year-old Malone now faces jail after he pled guilty at the High Court in Glasgow to two charges of using lewd and libidinous conduct.
The OAP – who had his bail continued – will learn his fate next month.
The girl was aged around eight when she was attacked.
Prosecutor Gillian Ross told the court that the girl tried to tell her mum what had happened at the time but was told to “be quiet”.
The boy was around the same age when he was abused. He also tried unsuccessfully to reveal to a relative how he had suffered.
Two years’ ago the victim – now in his 60s – reported his ordeal to the police. It led to first offender Malone, of Fairhill, being arrested.
Judge Tom Hughes adjourned sentencing on Malone for reports.
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