Yahoo News Labour suspends former Rochdale council leader for ‘lying during child sex abuse inquiry’
Labour has suspended a serving councillor after an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in Rochdale concluded he lied during his evidence.
Richard Farnell told a panel last year he was unaware of issues of abuse involving a residential school in the town while he was leader of Rochdale Council between 1986 and 1992.
However, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded authorities showed a ‘total lack of urgency’ to address the sexual exploitation of boys at council-run Knowl View School with victims regarded as ‘authors of their own abuse’.
Addressing Mr Farnell’s evidence last October, the panel said: ‘We concluded that Richard Farnell lied to the inquiry in the course of his evidence.
‘It defies belief that Mr Farnell was unaware of the events involving Knowl View School.’
The inquiry heard a paedophile had been admitted to Knowl View in September 1990, where he had sexually abused at least one boy, but Mr Farnell insisted the information was not passed on to him.
Mr Farnell said he was also unaware of a 1991 report submitted by a health authority worker which detailed claims that boys at Knowl View as young as eight were being sexually targeted by men from as far afield as Sheffield.
He told Brian Altman QC, lead counsel to the inquiry: ‘The council should accept responsibility for failings that happened in Knowl View, and individuals must take responsibilities for their own actions.
‘I bitterly regret that the senior officers of the council never once approached me to brief me about these matters.’
However, IICSA rejected his account and concluded: ‘Regarding Mr Farnell’s final statements at the hearing, it was shameful that he refused to accept any personal responsibility for the young lives blighted by what happened at Knowl View while he was leader.
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‘Instead, he laid all blame for what occurred at the door of the senior officials in education and in social services.’
Mr Farnell regained the position of Labour council leader in 2004 but quit the position weeks after giving evidence to the panel.
Mr Farnell was suspended immediately after Labour received the investigation’s findings.
A spokesman said: ‘The Labour Party condemns the abuse of children and any attempts to cover up these heinous acts.
‘Any allegations and information the party received in relation to what the council may have known were passed straight to the police to be fully investigated.
‘We have fully cooperated with the police and the Inquiry to support their work in investigating historic sexual abuse.’
The panel found that child sexual abuse involving pupils at Knowl View happened from its early years onwards and continued for 20 years.
The council-run residential school in Rochdale was set up in 1969 to house boys aged from seven to 16 with a ‘wide range of needs and adverse experiences’ but inquiry concluded there was little evidence of a homely environment.
IICSA said the institution, where late Liberal MP Cyril Smith was a governor, failed in its basic function to keep its children safe from harm and, in particular, safe from sexual harm both within and out the school.
Smith, a prominent councillor before he represented the town in Parliament from 1972 to 1992, acted as a governor for several Rochdale schools, including Knowl View.
Before he died aged 82 in 2010 he was the subject of sex abuse accusations and investigations, but never faced trial and received a knighthood in 1988.
The panel said: ‘Child sexual abuse involving children from the school occurred from its early years onwards.
‘Within the school there was sexual abuse of boys by members of staff, and of younger boys by older ones.
‘Sexual exploitation of some boys was also taking place in Rochdale town centre by men paying for sex.
‘Some boys were also trafficked to other towns for that purpose.’
IICSA also criticised former Lib Dem MP for Rochdale, Paul Rowen, who was council leader from 1992 to 1996.
The panel said: ‘As with Richard Farnell, he was prepared to blame others without acknowledging his own failures of leadership.
‘At best he was insufficiently inquisitive about Knowl View School despite having knowledge of the serious problems that persisted at the school.
‘At worst, as council leader he turned a blind eye to these problems and chose to give them low priority.’
IICSA concluded that from 1989 onwards the police, Rochdale Council’s social services and education departments, as well as staff at Knowl View, knew youngsters were being subjected to sexual exploitation.
It ruled there was no ‘deliberate cover-up’ by the authorities involved but instead a ‘careless and wholly inadequate response’.
