'Few books have managed to get to the heart of a story of abuse as thoroughly and accurately as Abuse of Trust.' — CHRISTIAN WOLMAR, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR

'An important and in-depth analysis' — DR LIZ DAVIES, LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, UK

Frank Beck ran a series of children's homes in Leicestershire. He told social services managers he was calming difficult children through the use of a novel regression therapy.

In reality he was heading a brutal regime of terror and sexual abuse, which lasted for 13 years.

In this classic book, first published in 1998, journalists Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling investigate the delays in stopping Beck — and highlight the lessons for safeguarding vulnerable children.

This new edition looks at the role of Greville Janner MP, a lawyer, backbencher and influential figure in the Labour Party. Janner repeatedly avoided prosecution over the Leicestershire care scandal, despite being named as an abuser during the criminal case against Beck. A new chapter deals with Janner's dominance of the local Labour Party, his influence within the wider parliamentary party, and the failed police investigations into him.

Abuse of Trust, first published in 1998, has long been viewed by social work professionals as an important audit of this case. Gosling and the BBC journalist Mark D'Arcy, his co-author, investigate how Beck and his cronies came to rampage through children's homes in Leicestershire for more than a decade.

While he was in charge of care homes owned by Leicestershire County Council, Frank Beck sexually and physically abused more than 200 looked after children. He managed to shrug off complaints and investigations into his conduct.

EXTRACT

Beck was a remarkable man. For 13 years he committed acts of rape, violence and emotional abuse against vulnerable boys and girls who were sent by Leicestershire County Council to the children’s homes where he was in charge. There is strong evidence to suggest that he killed one of them. That wasn’t known – although it was suspected by a few – at the time of his trial. But the five life sentences, plus 24 years, he received for his crimes in 1991 were among the harshest punishments ordered by a British judge since the abolition of the death penalty.

The abuse was brutal, even bestial. The consequences for the victims were in many cases devastating. To this day, they live with a legacy ofemotional problems and physical scars. Yet this was a man who enjoyed a high professional reputation as a committed, caring social worker. A man whose novel approach to therapy for troubled children was featured in articles in professional journals and on a TV documentary. A man whose abilities with children had come to be seen as indispensable to the child care system in Leicestershire.

What came to be called the Beck case combined all the elements seen separately in other cases. At the centre there was a charismatic abuser who had drawn lesser acolytes into his orbit. They practised a dangerous and damaging quack therapy on vulnerable children. There was systematic sexual abuse and terrifying violence – all accompanied by an almost unbelievable catalogue of negligence and failure by some managers and politicians. Even Beck’s trial and conviction were not the end. They merely marked the start of a new phase ofofficial investigations, press recrimination, and a long drawn out legal battle for compensation for the victims.

There are lessons to he drawn from every aspect of Frank Beck’s career: about the survival of such a man in a position of trust for more than a decade; about attitudes toward delinquent, disturbed or simply unwanted children; and about the interplay between the council, the courts and the media as the full extent of the scandal emerged.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Characters

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Beck the man and his career Page 19

The Poplars, Market Harborough 30

The Ratcliffe Road Adolescent Unit 37

The Beeches 55

Confusion at County Hall 72

The child care strategy 83

Regression therapy 95

A charmed life? 113

Living to fight another day... 138

Investigation and arrest 153

The trial 167

Official inquiry 183

The case for the defence 191

Scant compensation 201

Beck’s network of abusers 217

Those who did not survive 236

A better future? 251

Greville Janner 277

Bibliography

Index