Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Shamed cop and Scout leader GUILTY of 40 child sex offences
hardly the first and he won't be the last
scout leader and former cop convicted after 38 year career of paedophilia
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Shamed cop and Scout leader GUILTY of 40 child sex offences
hardly the first and he won't be the last
Lurdan
old wave
Long account in today's Times
Paedophile officer who was just ‘one of the lads’ abused boys for decades (paywalled - see below)
According to the Express and Star
Paedophile officer who was just ‘one of the lads’ abused boys for decades (paywalled - see below)
Sean O’Neill
October 22 2016, 12:01am
A police force harboured a prolific paedophile within its ranks for years despite serious concerns about his conduct which led to two criminal investigations.
Allan Richards was a West Midlands police officer for three decades and was kept on in the force for seven years after being kicked out of the Scout movement in 2004 because of suspicions he was sexually abusing young boys.
At the end of a second trial at Birmingham crown court yesterday, it can be reported that Richards, 54, was convicted of 40 offences — including rape and gross indecency — against 17 male victims who were all aged under 16. The offences spanned 37 years between 1976 and 2013 and detectives believe there are more victims who are yet to come forward.
The case has been referred to Operation Hydrant, the national police unit which liaises with Professor Alexis Jay’s public inquiry into institutional failures to prevent and detect child abuse. The police complaints watchdog is also investigating why the West Midlands force missed chances to stop Richards.
He preyed on boys who went to the police to report sexual assaults and carried out some attacks inside Birmingham Central police station. Five of his convictions were for misconduct in public office, directly related to his abuse of power as a police officer.
Richards created “bogus investigations” so that he could conduct physical searches and examinations on teenage boys and accessed police intelligence databases to check up on his victims.
Alex Murray, assistant chief constable of West Midlands police, apologised to Richards’ victims last night, saying: “It sickens me that at the time he carried out these crimes he was representing my organisation.”
Mr Murray said records showed there had been “complaints and concerns” about Richards but the force had failed to uncover the truth.
A former policeman who worked with Richards in the early 2000s told The Times: “He always seemed ready to take on sexual abuse cases involving boys. There were several concerns raised about him by colleagues, but he always seemed to be protected. It was as if someone was looking after him.”
Another source said: “If anything protected him it was the police culture of the time. Richards was a football fan, he was ‘one of the lads’ and his colleagues found the claims hard to believe.”
Richards, from Tile Cross, Birmingham, had been investigated twice on suspicion of child sex offences during his police career but his house was not searched until 2015 when a specialist team from the public protection unit took over the case and uncovered the extent of his offending.
In 2000, he had been interviewed under caution, but the case was dropped. He was arrested in 2004 but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press charges.
The 2004 investigation followed a complaint of sexual assault from a scout which led to Richards being thrown out of the movement. Yet he was able to remain a warranted police officer until his retirement on a full pension in 2011.
Jurors heard that Richards’s offending began when he was 15. For decades, he abused his authority as a policeman and Scout leader to groom, assault and intimidate his victims.
He targeted those he thought were vulnerable, including runaways from children’s homes, boys from broken families and teenage male prostitutes. One of his victims was the child of a single mother with whom Richards began a relationship; many others were cubs and scouts.
In his defence, Richards argued that they were “bad boys” who had made up stories about him.
One victim, now in his 30s, who was attacked when being walked home to his house, told the trial: “I trusted him, I didn’t understand what was happening. I never told anybody about it other than my wife until the police contacted me. But I can vividly remember it. I could take you to the lamp post on the street where it happened.”
A former teenage male prostitute said that Richards had been the investigating officer when he reported being sexually assaulted. The policeman exploited his vulnerability to draw him into an abusive relationship.
Miranda Moore, QC, for the prosecution, said: “Allan Richards told this man that if he ever told anyone what happened he would make him disappear and no one would find his body. He said, ‘Nobody will believe the word of a rent boy and a junkie over that of a police officer.’ ”
At his first trial, which ended in June, Richards was convicted of 30 sex offences against 11 victims and a further charge of voyeurism at a local swimming pool. The second trial resulted in his conviction for nine indecent assaults against six former scouts.
David Jamieson, police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, said: “It is extremely worrying that Richards was able to remain an officer until as recently as 2011.”
A spokesman for the Scout Association said that it had co-operated fully with the police investigation, adding: “There is no place in the movement for anyone who abuses the trust placed in them by parents and volunteers.”
Richards will be sentenced on November 4.
October 22 2016, 12:01am
A police force harboured a prolific paedophile within its ranks for years despite serious concerns about his conduct which led to two criminal investigations.
Allan Richards was a West Midlands police officer for three decades and was kept on in the force for seven years after being kicked out of the Scout movement in 2004 because of suspicions he was sexually abusing young boys.
At the end of a second trial at Birmingham crown court yesterday, it can be reported that Richards, 54, was convicted of 40 offences — including rape and gross indecency — against 17 male victims who were all aged under 16. The offences spanned 37 years between 1976 and 2013 and detectives believe there are more victims who are yet to come forward.
The case has been referred to Operation Hydrant, the national police unit which liaises with Professor Alexis Jay’s public inquiry into institutional failures to prevent and detect child abuse. The police complaints watchdog is also investigating why the West Midlands force missed chances to stop Richards.
He preyed on boys who went to the police to report sexual assaults and carried out some attacks inside Birmingham Central police station. Five of his convictions were for misconduct in public office, directly related to his abuse of power as a police officer.
Richards created “bogus investigations” so that he could conduct physical searches and examinations on teenage boys and accessed police intelligence databases to check up on his victims.
Alex Murray, assistant chief constable of West Midlands police, apologised to Richards’ victims last night, saying: “It sickens me that at the time he carried out these crimes he was representing my organisation.”
Mr Murray said records showed there had been “complaints and concerns” about Richards but the force had failed to uncover the truth.
A former policeman who worked with Richards in the early 2000s told The Times: “He always seemed ready to take on sexual abuse cases involving boys. There were several concerns raised about him by colleagues, but he always seemed to be protected. It was as if someone was looking after him.”
Another source said: “If anything protected him it was the police culture of the time. Richards was a football fan, he was ‘one of the lads’ and his colleagues found the claims hard to believe.”
Richards, from Tile Cross, Birmingham, had been investigated twice on suspicion of child sex offences during his police career but his house was not searched until 2015 when a specialist team from the public protection unit took over the case and uncovered the extent of his offending.
In 2000, he had been interviewed under caution, but the case was dropped. He was arrested in 2004 but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to press charges.
The 2004 investigation followed a complaint of sexual assault from a scout which led to Richards being thrown out of the movement. Yet he was able to remain a warranted police officer until his retirement on a full pension in 2011.
Jurors heard that Richards’s offending began when he was 15. For decades, he abused his authority as a policeman and Scout leader to groom, assault and intimidate his victims.
He targeted those he thought were vulnerable, including runaways from children’s homes, boys from broken families and teenage male prostitutes. One of his victims was the child of a single mother with whom Richards began a relationship; many others were cubs and scouts.
In his defence, Richards argued that they were “bad boys” who had made up stories about him.
One victim, now in his 30s, who was attacked when being walked home to his house, told the trial: “I trusted him, I didn’t understand what was happening. I never told anybody about it other than my wife until the police contacted me. But I can vividly remember it. I could take you to the lamp post on the street where it happened.”
A former teenage male prostitute said that Richards had been the investigating officer when he reported being sexually assaulted. The policeman exploited his vulnerability to draw him into an abusive relationship.
Miranda Moore, QC, for the prosecution, said: “Allan Richards told this man that if he ever told anyone what happened he would make him disappear and no one would find his body. He said, ‘Nobody will believe the word of a rent boy and a junkie over that of a police officer.’ ”
At his first trial, which ended in June, Richards was convicted of 30 sex offences against 11 victims and a further charge of voyeurism at a local swimming pool. The second trial resulted in his conviction for nine indecent assaults against six former scouts.
David Jamieson, police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, said: “It is extremely worrying that Richards was able to remain an officer until as recently as 2011.”
A spokesman for the Scout Association said that it had co-operated fully with the police investigation, adding: “There is no place in the movement for anyone who abuses the trust placed in them by parents and volunteers.”
Richards will be sentenced on November 4.
(...)
According to the Express and Star
not-bono-ever
meh
needs a generic bad apple coppers thread to collate and record these extremely rare incidents
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
The people who allowed this to happen need to be identified and thrown out of the police, if not thrown in jail. Sounds like it was a classic case of transferring a known wrong 'un out of harm's way instead of investigating him properly and making the force look bad. If you're copying your strategy for dealing with child abusers from the catholic church, then something has gone very wrong.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
not-bono-ever
meh
Gordon Anglesea: Paedophile ex-police boss gets 12 years - BBC News
another copper nonce, 12 years this time
"Jailing him at Mold Crown Court on Friday, Judge Geraint Walters said Anglesea was "beyond reproach".
He added: "Your conduct was at the heart of a miserable existence which created these two men."
Anglesea's defence said custody would be "extremely difficult" for him."
I think difficult is an understatement from his brief.
"In 1994, Anglesea was awarded £375,000 in libel damages after media organisations ran stories about his links to abuse at children's homes in north Wales."
um. what with his backhanders. sexual needs being fulfilled and copper pension, this vile fucker has had a pretty good life so far
another copper nonce, 12 years this time
"Jailing him at Mold Crown Court on Friday, Judge Geraint Walters said Anglesea was "beyond reproach".
He added: "Your conduct was at the heart of a miserable existence which created these two men."
Anglesea's defence said custody would be "extremely difficult" for him."
I think difficult is an understatement from his brief.
"In 1994, Anglesea was awarded £375,000 in libel damages after media organisations ran stories about his links to abuse at children's homes in north Wales."
um. what with his backhanders. sexual needs being fulfilled and copper pension, this vile fucker has had a pretty good life so far
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
An ex-copper, and a nonce. That'll be fun for him inside. :thumbs :
not-bono-ever
meh
I think we need a supermax purely for ex copper nonces at this rate.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
nasty brutish and short
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
It would.
This raises a question though. Do such people deserve special treatment in prison, to protect them from the consequences of their vile behaviour?
If such people knew that they would be in the general prison population if caught, do you think that that may make them think twice about their actions in the first place?
High Voltage
In the top 97% of Urban's most interesting posters
The trouble is Sas, they never think they'd be caught, and probably at the time, even if they did get caught, thought that the chances of anything happening were vanishingly slim - times are changing though - they're should be a lot of "people" sleeping less well at night
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Of course they deserve special treatment, people are sent to prison to be punished by having their liberty removed, not to be beaten up. We've moved on from the days of the stocks.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
Indeed. That said...
They wouldn't just be beaten up though. So, they must be protected.
Have you a view re 'mad or bad' on this? I do find it difficult to understand, how a mind in good order can do this. Protection of one's children is a primal trait, followed by the protection of all children.
I suppose it doesn't really matter, whether 'mad or bad', as long as they are locked up. The problem is, if it is a disorder of the mind, without treatment (does effective treatment even exist?), the person is likely to re-offend on release.
There do seem to be an increasing number of convictions, primarily historic, followed by the ongoing prosecutions in Bradford. I'm sure that there must be statistics, detailing convictions per n of the population. How much is happening now, to be prosecuted in twenty years time?
A dark business really.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
No. And no.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Do they have to be either mad or bad? Surely they are both?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Although I am not an advocate of prison justice, I don't see why they should be sequestered off into what would inevitably become a rather cosy setup. No, they may have got special treatment to avoid conviction for so long, but they should serve their time just like anyone else. Continue to treat these people as special cases, as they have been all their lives, and they'll take full advantage.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Yes. It should be possible for even a child sex abuser to complete their sentence without having to be in fear of their life, something which will very much get in the way of their using the time to reflect on the reason they are there. The answer is to make sure, via proper administration and running of prisons, that no sex offender (or other class of prisoner) should be at any greater risk than any other prisoner.
For someone like Anglesea, who has probably led a very comfortable life even by comparison with most of us, prison life is going to be pretty fucking horrible anyway. I imagine he'll go onto a sex offender programme, which won't be a particularly cushy experience, and he's going to find himself - an old and not particularly well-looking man - in a scary and hostile environment, in the knowledge that he's going to be there for at least six years. That should be enough.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
The "mad vs bad" thing.Indeed. That said...
They wouldn't just be beaten up though. So, they must be protected.
Have you a view re 'mad or bad' on this? I do find it difficult to understand, how a mind in good order can do this. Protection of one's children is a primal trait, followed by the protection of all children.
I suppose it doesn't really matter, whether 'mad or bad', as long as they are locked up. The problem is, if it is a disorder of the mind, without treatment (does effective treatment even exist?), the person is likely to re-offend on release.
There do seem to be an increasing number of convictions, primarily historic, followed by the ongoing prosecutions in Bradford. I'm sure that there must be statistics, detailing convictions per n of the population. How much is happening now, to be prosecuted in twenty years time?
A dark business really.
Anecdotally (I don't know if a proper study has been done), most child sex abusers were (or claim to have been) abused themselves in the past, and it may well be that it is some aspect of that experience which leads them to become abusers themselves. We see this cycle of abuse in all sorts of areas - domestic violence, emotional abuse within the family, neglect, excessively punitive parenting - so it's not unique to sexual abusers. And, like all those other categories, most of those who are abused, and may well be quite seriously affected by it, do not go on to perpetuate the cycle - it's only a small proportion.
But that proportion will be a group of people with quite specific psychological problems; but they may also have developed coping skills that serve them well as abusers, too. A lot of the high-profile abusers we've seen have been charismatic individuals, with very good people(-grooming) skills, able to deflect suspicion, and lie extremely effectively. Against that, sex abusers will often have a mentality comprising of, for example, difficulties with authority figures, problems around power (often feeling powerless and devoting great effort to gaining power), problems forming intimate relationships, poor emotional boundaries, a tendency to blame things on everyone but themselves, poor impulse control, poor self-esteem, and sexual risk-taking behaviours.
Stick that lot together, and let the person gain status, power, access to children (the more vulnerable the better), and there are going to be problems.
The "bad" bit is twofold: there are people who admit to having sexual urges towards children, but who have been able to manage those impulses and not act on them. They may seek help (which is notoriously hard to get), or sublimate their desires into other channels: I do wonder about whether viewing child pornography becomes a safer route for such people. Making up the other half of the "bad" are the enablers: the partners, colleagues, managers, and so on who turn a blind eye, often because they have been successfully "groomed" by the abuser, too - who will be irreplaceable in his role, or represent high status to the organisation, etc - to the point that they will find it difficult to believe he/she has done such things, and/or will feel guilty or disloyal by reporting them.
Especially since, until really quite recently, the general perception was quite accurately that someone reporting their suspicions to the police was not likely to result in any positive action being taken - and looking at Anglesea's career, there's a catalogue of examples right there. And that was the allegations that were even followed up.
We (that's society, not Urban) have to do things at all these levels if we are going to make any meaningful impact on this problem. We've started, but it would be easy to get a few more big convictions and declare the job done. It's not. There are children being sexually abused today, and we need to be able to ensure that disclosures of abuse are dealt with appropriately. But we should also be proactively trying to encourage people who are aware of their tendencies to seek help, ideally before they have committed any harm. The Canadian "Circles of Trust" project has done some quite good work in this area. And yes, we need to make sure that, when people are caught, they are investigated, tried, and punished fairly and in accordance with the law. The last thing we need is to offer such people any reason to support the idea that they have somehow been the victims of injustice.
I don't think being housed with all the other 'vulnerable' prisoners really qualifies as a 'cosy' set up.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
You'd have a large group of manipulative, probably above-average intelligence, people who've learned a trick or two along the way. I think the risk of them suborning the system to their own ends would be quite high: a lot of them will be sharper than the people guarding them. From that point of view alone, they're better diluted among the general prison population, I think. Unless we want to recruit and train a cadre of particularly psychologically clued in prison officers, and all the support/supervision arrangements that would entail, and I can't see the MoJ going for that any time soon.
zippyRN
Orange, Fuzzy, and allowed to possess Cat As
and you don;t think the parts ofthe estate that deal with Sex Offenders aren't staff with that regard plus of course the psychiatry and psychological services and the specific 'education' programmes e.g. the various SOTPs and 'new me' stuff ...
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
It is hard to manipulate someone when they shank you. As much as the idea of them being killed by prisoners appeals. I understand it is a terrible idea for society and prison as well. Prison should rehabilitate those it can and securely house those it can't.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I know there are specialists. I also know they're very thin on the ground, and that SOTPs are often interrupted by prisoner moves and other operational stuff. I just can't see the merits of concentrating a whole group of prisoners in a special prison.
Not that I feel so strongly about it that I want to get into a punchup, though.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Yeah, but I'd prefer that they use the resources to securely house all prisoners in a way that keeps them safe. It's not just nonces who get done over.
dylanredefined
Not a house elf a tiger
I agree it should be safe for all.
I'm not sure that paedophiles and rapists are necessarily of 'above-average' intelligence. There are quite a few 'clever' people in there, setting up cross channel smuggling operations (for example) requires a certain amount of organisational nouse. However what do you mean by 'suborning the system' - getting a bit more toothpaste? An extra blanket?
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hipipol
Peckham Wry
Considering the current level of violence in prison it would seem perverse that those convicted of child sex offenses end up being the safest people in the nick with "special measures" ensuring their safety while all the rest must "take their chances"
not-bono-ever
meh
Police officer was found hanged just hours after he was arrested over indecent images | Daily Mail Online
"A police officer was found hanged just hours after being arrested for allegedly possessing indecent images, an inquest heard.
Pc Kevin Ellis' body was found in the grounds of a secondary school in Wakefield after he was taken into custody and then bailed by officers over the alleged offence.
A coroner was told that 33-year-old was arrested in April 2013 after images were found on a computer.
Police had moved in to arrest him after an online conversation had been flagged up in which an indecent video was shared - one of the addresses was traced to Pc Ellis' home.
Other images 'of concern' had also been found on electronic equipment seized.
Pc Kevin Ellis had gone to a shop after being released from custody to buy two bottles of Lambrini and a notebook, the inquest heard.
In the notebook he wrote that he 'could not live with it' and did not want his arrest to 'affect his children's lives.'"
fucking hell. very dark one this
"A police officer was found hanged just hours after being arrested for allegedly possessing indecent images, an inquest heard.
Pc Kevin Ellis' body was found in the grounds of a secondary school in Wakefield after he was taken into custody and then bailed by officers over the alleged offence.
A coroner was told that 33-year-old was arrested in April 2013 after images were found on a computer.
Police had moved in to arrest him after an online conversation had been flagged up in which an indecent video was shared - one of the addresses was traced to Pc Ellis' home.
Other images 'of concern' had also been found on electronic equipment seized.
Pc Kevin Ellis had gone to a shop after being released from custody to buy two bottles of Lambrini and a notebook, the inquest heard.
In the notebook he wrote that he 'could not live with it' and did not want his arrest to 'affect his children's lives.'"
fucking hell. very dark one this
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