Charles Thomson - Freelance Writer/Reporter

SECRET FILES REVEALED: Children Abused By Southend Paedophile Ring Were Transported to Basildon, Havering and Tower Hamlets - and Claimed Abusers Included Police Officers
Thur 3rd May 2018, Yellow Advertiser

CHILDREN abused by a Southend paedophile ring in the 1980s were also transported to addresses in Basildon, Havering and Tower Hamlets, according to documents seen by the Yellow Advertiser.

The papers detail evidence given to an investigator by a whistleblowing ex-social worker in 2000.

The whistleblower claimed children’s services in Southend had been ’in chaos’ when the ring was investigated and professionals struggled to get authorities to take the allegations seriously.

Several local charities tasked with providing therapy to the boys abused by the ring started receiving disclosures about men who had abused them, the documents said.

The charities pooled resources to ’collate information on paedophiles, given by the children to those working directly with them’.

Soon, the files said, ’information was coming out about people working in the statutory agencies’ – including social workers and police officers.

But the authorities did not support the charities and failed to follow up on their information, the source claimed.

The whistleblower told the investigator they then received ’threats’ – although they did not say where from – ’that if [their charity] did not shut up about child sex abuse, its grant would be removed’.

The claims are contained in correspondence and minutes documenting the whistleblower’s evidence to Helen Kenward, a child protection specialist hired by Essex Council in the late 1990s to investigate historic abuse allegations linked to County Hall.

The claims are corroborated by contemporaneous documents, written by representatives of the charities involved and seen by the YA.

In March, Essex Council confirmed the existence of the ’Kenward Report’ after the YA learned it had been shared with police investigating the 1980s ’Shoebury Sex Ring’.

Two men were prosecuted and described in court as the ’leaders’ of the Shoebury ring in 1990, but in recent years a YA campaign has forced police to reopen the case, after whistleblowers questioned why none of the other alleged abusers identified by the victims were brought to justice.

Documents reveal the Shoebury whistleblower told Kenward they had formed the opinion that children’s services in Southend were ’in chaos’.

The informant was a former Essex Council social worker but at the time of the Shoebury investigation, in 1989, worked for a charity commissioned by the council to counsel child victims.

A record of their evidence to Kenward stated: “The social workers were demoralised and there were staff employed in Southend who otherwise would probably not have got a job in other areas, due to the difficulty in recruiting staff. There was a high level of anxiety about child sex abuse not being investigated.”

The source told Kenward that during the investigation, their charity received ’lots of’ phone calls with tip-offs about alleged abuse, some connected to the ring and others not.

Many of the calls came from schools and one came from a magistrate, who “alleged that her daughter had been sexually assaulted in the park by a police officer and other police officers had not investigated.”

Kenward’s source is amongst numerous former child protection workers who have spoken to Essex Police as part of its reinvestigation of the Shoebury ring.

Essex Council has refused to release the Kenward Report, claiming there is ’no public interest’ in doing so, and has also refused to answer basic questions about its contents.