Detention centre guard a 'prolific sex offender'
An officer at a notorious detention center for young offenders was
an inquiry has concluded. In 2003, Neville Husband was sentenced to five teenagers at Medomsley, County Durham, where hundreds of young men were exposed to physical and sexual assault by prison staff from 1961 to 1987. He died in 2010. Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Adrian Usher's study highlights a string of missed opportunities to prevent abuse and failures by the Home Office, police forces, and prison administrators. Durham Police has apologised. The Ministry of Justice has been asked for comment.possibly the most prolific sex offenders in British history,
According to the study, prisoners who had protested were not aware and were therefore unable to disclose abuse to the people who had assaulted them. It warned that what had happened was a cautionary tale
and that mistreatment of the elderly was still a problem
throughout the youth custody system.
Young men aged 17-21 in Medomsley were held for three or six months for a variety of low-level criminal convictions. It was designed to shock prisoners with a short, sharp shock,
but the inquiry revealed physical abuse and summary punishments were endemic. Sexual assaults were often concentrated in the institution's kitchen, where guard Husband is accused of assaulting young prisoners. He was later found guilty of sex offenses and died in 2010.
Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said the study was geared to extremely difficult reading
and exposed shameful police at the time.
I want to express sincere regret to those individuals and their families for those tragedies. "Thousands of young men were let down by the system and are now living with the scars left by the violence. Those victims were, and still are, our greatest worry.
'Extent of the horrors'
Mr Usher wrote in the ,
For the worst excesses of sexual assault to persist for so long without detection,I have chosen to omit several of the most important information about. Abuse, but I think it is necessary to make it clear that the horrors that some young men suffered were real.
You weren't even in for a minute and the assault began,he said. According to the study, Some of those who served time at Medomsley said the experience haunted them to this day. In 1985, Peter Toole, a Newcastle man, was sent there.
he said.I just thought, 'This is it, this is Medomsley, get on with it and take it on the chin. Jimmy Coffey left Medomsley when he was 18 in 1979.
he said.I was just seeing violence, cruelty, and mistrust throughout the first week,
I still have problems now with flashbacks.Medomsley had existed for 26 years
effectively outside the law's reach,the Ministry of Justice ordered, according to "the inquiry. Leslie Johnson, a retailer, was jailed in 2005 for sex attacks on prisoners, as well as Husband's later convictions, while other guards were banned for physical assaults and misconduct in a public office. Follow BBC North East onX,Facebook,NextdoorandInstagram.
