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14 Oct 24
North Wales Paedophile Head Teacher – The Need for a Public Inquiry

A high profile former Head Teacher from North Wales was jailed in July 2024 for sexually abusing 4 children between the years 2019 and 2023.  However, the BBC Wales Investigation has heard allegations going back to 1979, and from two women who say the police told them there were up to 20 other potential victims.  If indeed, he had been active for over 40 years, the number of years might be significantly higher still.  The Local Authority, Cyngor Gwynedd has referred all questions to the child practice review that is underway.  However, victims have quite understandably raised the question as to, would any such review go far enough?  Would it have the resources to look thoroughly at allegations going back many decades?  Would it have the power and authority to make wide ranging recommendations?  Victims quite obviously feel that there are important lessons to be learned arising from a paedophile head teacher abusing many victims, apparently, “in plain sight”.

There have been calls for a Public Inquiry. Such an inquiry would have powers to compel witnesses to give evidence.  It would have the resources to investigate, even the most historic of allegations, thoroughly.  It would have the power and prestige to hold to account and to make recommendations.  At Watkins & Gunn we helped victims fight for the Infected Blood Inquiry – an inquiry which was, for many years, refused by successive governments.  Now, nobody really doubts the relevance and importance of the Infected Blood Inquiry and how it proved a vindication for many victims.  The same may also be true of the Post Office Inquiry, which has had the highest of profiles since the seminal TV series, “Mr. Jones vs The Post Office”.

What, on the face of it, appears odd, is how Wales has been something of a public inquiry desert.  The other devolved nations (Scotland and Northern Ireland) have had many inquiries and indeed have a number ongoing at this time.  Scotland of course is having its own Covid inquiry.  In Wales there was the Clywch Inquiry, also in respect of sexual abuse by a senior teacher, funded and run by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales.  This reported in 2004.  The only other inquiry, and the only one to be sponsored by the Welsh Government, was the 2009 E-Coli Outbreak Inquiry. The Welsh Government have the power to hold an inquiry if it involves devolved matters, such as – in Foden’s case – education It’s odd that Wales appears to be such an outlier, particularly when one of the first ever large scale public inquiries was the “Inquiry into the state of education in Wales” of 1847.  Wales appears to have had very little in the way of public inquiries since then.

At Watkins & Gunn, we have also been acting for victims of alleged sexual abuse on Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire.  They have been calling for a public inquiry in respect of that for a number of years, only to have been rebuffed by Welsh Government.

Public inquiries are of course expensive, time consuming and can be upsetting and challenging for participants.  Governments are understandably, wary of committing to the demands of numerous campaigners.  However, there must be occasions when governments accept the importance of the role of the public inquiry in respect of matters of great public concern.

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