Ex-special constable jailed for sexually abusing boy at children’s home

A former police special constable has been jailed for sexually abusing a boy in a children’s home he managed.

Bernard Philip Collins, 73, indecently assaulted his victim, who was 11 when the attacks started, more than a dozen times at Fircroft children’s home in Kingston before 1978.

He was working as a special constable in Surrey at the time.

Jailing Collins for four years yesterday for five counts of indecent assault, Judge Usha Karu told him he had a “close relationship with the local police” and the victim felt he had no one to complain to. She added: “He said he was aware you were a special police constable and any time there was any trouble with the police it was dealt with [by you]. He was too scared to come forward. This was a gross abuse of trust.”

Collins, of Sutton, has previous convictions for abusing children throughout the Seventies, Inner London crown court was told. In 1980 he admitted abusing three different boys at two care homes in Kingston and was fined £450. This conviction prevented him from working in care homes and he got a job as a recycling officer. He has now retired. In 2015 he was jailed for four years for spanking and sexually touching a different child at a Croydon home.

The victim at Fircroft, who is now 54, remembered his abuser’s hand was covered in gold rings. Police uncovered home videos that showed his extravagant jewellery, despite Collins saying he only ever wore a gold wedding band.

He was charged with the attacks after an investigation into the Shirley Oaks care home scandal in Lambeth was widened to include other areas and care homes.

Collins stood trial alongside Patrick Grant, 69, a former care home manager who was found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault on three victims at Fircroft, Rowan House — a Shirley Oaks home in South Norwood — and Walker House in Cardiff. Grant was sentenced to eight years in jail on April 11.